Why Couldn't Streets of Gotham Have Been Relaunched?
The Good: Finch's artwork is still pretty awesome.
Ok, admittedly it does fix up my complaint about Two-Face from the last issue.
I LOVED the scene where we see crime fighters from around Gotham dealing with this same mess.
Overall, aside from Batman, the characters are all quite well written. Maybe Jenkins would be better suited to writing a Streets of Gotham or Gotham Central style book. Though its his characterization of Alfred that shone the brightest.
The Bad: The cover starts out pretty 'so-so' overall, but the ground is super-detailed, then fades away? It just doesn't work, it makes things look really odd when you really look at it. And why is 2-Face so prominently featured, he barely does shit this issue?
Batman's afraid of living?
Gordon's on the ropes because of ONE Arkham Break-in?
Batman has no reaction to a henchman's violent death?
Batman thinks Joker killing his own henchman makes no sense and is out of character for him?
Wow, 2 issues in a row end basically the exact same way with a different villain. Whoo. So exciting.
But not just that, this series still does very little to stand out. Unlike the original TDK series, this one doesn't seem to have a niche other than "Batman Series #3." We get a lot of continuation of the stale stuff from last issue, plus a little more in the form of 'dangerous toxin making criminals stronger and more insane.' Admittedly the insanity is more interesting than most, but not by a lot.
In Conclusion: 2.5/5
Again, it's not exactly 'bad' (though this issue has more flaws than the last) it just isn't very 'good.' There's so little here to really appreciate, and no real reason for this series to exist. And it makes me sadder because I realize THIS was picked over Streets of Gotham for a 4th Batman series. Just... so much 'ugh.' Again, any new fan of Batman would be completely satisfied by this title, but I need more 'meat' in my Batman. This just doesn't cut it, and there's much better Batman currently running. Even Detective Comics is better than this atm.
