David Hine is Officially Beyond Awesome
The Good: The Art. Oh the art. It's extremely reminiscent of the 90's. When comic books didn't need to look dark to be dark. When everything could still be fun when it was tragic. Emperor Joker, Joker's Last Laugh, a bunch of other stuff I haven't read. This art is so much fun to read.
The atmosphere of the story is fantastic. It fuses elements of Batman Beyond and The Dark Knight Returns, and it's just fantastic.
The cover is REALLY dark and pretty awesome.
Batman trying out Joker Juice in the beginning was such an entertaining scene but hid some vaguely morbid implications well.
It feels so much like B:TAS in some ways. It's fun and dark at the same time without being glossed over by grit. It's just a superbly written Batman story with some excellent nostalgic art to boot.
There was even a little mention of Professor Pyg.
The Bad: While the cover and interior art are both spectacular in their own ways, I feel they clash a bit with each other.
In Conclusion: 5/5
Look, there's nothing wrong at all with this comic. It's just such a great story with great art, everything fits together so well. Faux-Joker's dialogue is always fantastic, his history is excellent, there's just so many good things about it I don't know where to begin or end. It's such a treat that 2 of DC's oldest and biggest titles are currently 2 of the best. Action and Detective Comics are both at high high points right now, keep on rocking it hard all the way to 900!
Also, on the subject of David Hine. I was first introduced to him in Battle For the Cowl: Arkham Asylum, which straightlined right into Arkham Reborn, and then right into issues 864 and 865 on Detective Comics, all essentially 1 running story. And it was a dark dark excellent ride. Especially the whole thing with Raggedy Man cutting open his own stomach with the very can opener that was a source of childhood trauma. Simply poetically dark. He has the ability to work well with any artist he's given so far, because if you follow my reviews, you'll know Azrale #11 was my comic of the month this month, and I rarely even choose a comic of the week. This only solidifies my belief that David Hine is a genius. A masterful weaver of the darker Batman tales. I only hope he'll have a slot whenever we get a 3rd round of Joker's Asylum, because he would be great at that.
