red_jack's Batman: No Man's Land #3 - No Man's Land Book Three review

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    Chuck Dixon saves a disorganized mess of volume 3

    I enjoyed volume 1. Volume 2 was alright even though continuity was already ruined.

    Volume 3 just ripped apart the continuity altogether. All I'm going to say is, by this point I wouldn't even recommend anybody to ever buy the no mans land arc, because it starts to become poorly written in places.

    Sure, some of the goofs and errors can be explained by a long shot but I'm not holding faith by this point.

    We're treated to a story involving a couple breaking into Joker's lair: someone who has been (or should've been, no thanks to Lisa Klink) a mystery since the beginning of the story. Then there is an interesting new twist revealed where Two Face shows his schemings. He holds an area of Gotham on the south east side, fittingly where the courst of justice are held. Two Face is holding his own side of justice (we're even shown a pre-story involving Renee Montoya and Two Face before no mans land and after cataclysm, where he was showing a good side to him again) and makes a bargain with Penguin. Things unfold that Two Face has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.

    One scheme immediately broke continuity again in that of him going to BlackGate prison to meet KGBeast, who is holding captive, some random russian woman called Echo. Now I'm just going through the motions with this poor story arc. Batman was supposed to have an uneasy alliance at a nearby prison with both Lockup and KGBeast.

    Now I'm just flicking through the other stories. Superman shows up and buggers off. It at least explains why Mad Hatter's name was crossed off the list of territories being led. Superman beat Mad Hatter all too easily.

    We get another lame story of some woman who can't speak and some dude called Cain. Utter tosh. At least we get a reveal that The Tally Man is working for Two Face. That's a very nice touch. I like that a lot!

    Finally, all the crapness goes away when one of the best writers of DC, Chuck Dixon shows up and sets us onto a great story of Robin and Nightwing returning underneath the Gotham River, away from the mine filled areas to reach Batman, who needs their help.

    Up to this point there is still no explanation as to whom or who was Penguin's outside contact sending him supplies "through the pipeline". Is this at least one continuity they'll stick to?

    You know that once Chuck Dixon is onboard the story arc, it will always get better. He introduces the entertaining Rat Catcher who must've been surviving down in the sewers all this time. Also, Tommy Mangles is fused with Gearhead, which is beyond me how they got that way, but I'll soon be reading volume 4. Seriously, the whole arc should've been written by just Bob Gale, Chuck Dixon and maybe Greg Rucka.

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