A Walk in the Valley of Death
This issue has an excellent cover. It truly embraces the stage of grief this issue is on, and the way it blurs together the two titular characters is brialliant. It's a simple concept, but the execution is stunning. The interior art is excellent as well, there's a truly perfect panel right after Carrie gives some advice on taking care of Titus, where Bruce is taking all his effort on keeping from showing his rage. You can feel just how much he's holding back with the subtleties in his face. I still hate the way Gleason draws Red Hood's mask though, and Cliff Richards takes notes from that and makes it even worse. But I have to say, I barely noticed where Richards took over for Gleason, he did an outstanding job at imitating the style and keeping the flow just right.
This arc is suffering from some of the same problems as the Terminus arc. Tomasi is very clearly trying to do two arcs simultaneously, and they don't exactly flow with each other well. Although at least this time the two stories have a common driving force, and I can see how they're probably leading towards a fairly connected conclusion, but for now the flow is still off when it feels like this is two half-issues rather than one full issue.
I'm in support of the use of Carrie Kelly because they're making her an interesting character. It doesn't invalidate TDKR because that was established to be an alternate Earth. This is the Carrie Kelly of Earth Zero. But if this is leading to her being Robin over Stephanie Brown imma be PISSED. But for now her story is interesting, she challenges Bruce in a way that really stabs right at his heart, not that she knows how much her words sting. But Alfred can see how important she is, and offers her a new job behind Bruce's back. I'm actually interested to see how this plays out, as long as she doesn't become Robin any time soon.
The actual "and Red Hood" half of this issue is pretty good, but very unfortunate. While Death of the Family pushed the close members of the family away from Bruce, it actually ended up bringing the black sheep closer. But Bruce burns that bridge as well with his selfish manipulations. Granted, Jason probably should help Bruce, and I have no doubt that he WOULD have had Bruce not lied and manipulated him. Jason felt like this was truly a representation of his redemption, yet he was only dragged along because of his resurrection. It had to hurt, and I can now see why he made the choice he did in last month's Red Hood and the Outlaws.
I'm kind of bothered by the issue title, Rage. I felt like, if the idea is to explore the five stages of grief, you should stick to their wording and make this issue anger. Rage is simpler and a bit overplayed, especially in DC lately due to the Red Lanterns. But beyond that, Bruce didn't have any more rage than he did the past two issues, and he's still in denial. These first two issues of the arc have him in the same place each time. Honestly, Bruce had FAR more rage and anger in the Requiem issue of Batman, and that issue also fully explored the effects of that.
In Conclusion: 3/5
Once again, there was actually a lot to love about this issue when you break down the elements and examine them individually, but as a whole there's just a little bit of disjointed flow. And the final page is a scene of Two-Face by himself? Yeah, I get that it's setting up next issue, but in the context here it comes completely out of nowhere and just feels a bit awkward. The story itself was intense in both halves, but I felt like the Red Hood/Anger portion could've used more 'oomph.' It just didn't feel like it was any more angry than the rest of the issues focusing on Damian's death, and I feel like the fight between Bruce and Jason could've been better.
