I Never Left It, Batman
I am a bad person. Batman Incorporated was in my file so I have every single one of the issue... and I still bought the hardcover. The reason I did this is I started off reading it the week it came out and then I got further and further behind until I was still picking up the issues but not reading the comic. This is becoming more and more of an occurance for me but that might be beside the point. The point I am trying to make is even though I own every one of the issues this hardcover is still worth it.
The additional material is nice but sparse. You get a few rough sketches and uncoloured pages along with a brief run down of the the characters in the series. These things are not worth buying the hardcover. What did make it worthwhile to me is that Batman Incorporated is amazingly progressive and this book contains the entire first arch. I could lend this to a friend and they would have all they need.
What makes this arch so progressive is it takes a lot of it's beats from things other than comics. Before putting this out Grant Morrison was talking about how influenced by Call of Duty it was and I can see what he means. It's a high attack story about terrorists trying to take over the world with a rotating cast of characters. It's pretty spot on. What's even more is that I think the accomplishes it well. Every place the story goes is interesting, the pace the story is told might be different but whether it's a insane death maze or a reserve there are interesting characters with a plot that drives the story home. What is Leviathan? Who is behind it? These questions are always present from the begin panels to the last page. The fact that the story goes out on a satisfying close is also great especially because although questions are answered Leviathan is still a threat. This book will have a sequel arch as well.
Morrison makes great villains. He always has and this run might contain some of his best. Most of them have appeared in Batman comics before, usually as two dimensional characters, and from that Morrison creates some real monsters. The way he takes from the Batman fiction and gives back ten fold is impressive.
The art ranges from great to passable to out of place but a number of artists worked on the arch and for the most part the art is great. I need to stress again the creativity of some of the character reinventions and that's in part thanks to the artists. That computer issue looks straight out of 2001.
I'm glad I stopped reading when I did and bought this book instead. It allowed my to enjoy the full potential of the story in one cohesive read through and waiting for delayed issues and feeling ripped off before the special issue that wrapped up the arch would not have make me look back at these issues as favorably. The fact that I own it in a single volume is icing on the cake.