Batman #2

In yet another Batman book, Bruce Wayne does things. In fact, his life is in mortal danger, because the Court of Owls is after him. Said Court is a group of black-clad, cape-wearing, masked people who kill people. This does not please The Batman.

The Good

• The Court of Owls: They're a really intriguing group. Or maybe just one guy. Either way, I'm interested to see where this story is going... after finishing it.
• Gadgetry: Batman is using high tech gadgets. Him being the tech-hero of the DCU, he should do that more often. Because more often than not, we see him punching people in the face.
• "I'm Batman": Batman has two tropes. One is going completely apeshit insane whenever someone goes "But he's just a man" and bringing down Gods and all that. The other is ending a debate not by proper reasoning but by going "I'm Batman" or a variant thereof. Whoever hears this argument is immediately defeated. And while the first trope has become very boring due to having been done too often, this one still remains fresh and rather funny.
• The Ending: Yes, this issue ended up being decent. Despite it's awful beginning.

The Bad:

• The Beginning: For the first couple pages, everything is wrong with this book. And it almost made me stop reading - something I'd have regretted in hindsight. But the beginning is bland. It's quite a lot of text describing essentially nothing and giving us "valuable information" that will never come up again. Besides, it's Bruce Wayne aka. Batman, he's not going to die. I don't think anyone - even all the mythological new readers - believes that. It's only about six or seven pages in when the book finally picks up.
• The Interlude: There's a pointless interlude with this guy running for mayor. We know he'll turn out to be the villain, especially after the slightly homoerotic part where the guy shares his backstory with Bruce. So why do we get so much space wasted on him, espeically since the guy's henchmen - the dudes in the owl-suits - are much more interesting? If I wasn't convinced that I was going to write a scathing review when I got to the interlude, I would have stopped reading.
• Text: There was just so much text in the early parts of this issue. Blahblahblah... Blah!
• On a related note, there are just so many Batman books. At the beginning of the book, I didn't even know what this one is about, espeically since Detective Comics #2 didn't really follow up where its #1 left off. So this might be about all sorts of things. So on the first pages, I felt really lost.

The Verdict: Please sit through the awful beginning, it's worth it. It's a good and interesting book... even though you probably won't remember what you've read by the time #3 is in your hands.