KnightFall Into Failure
The Good: One thing this series does do better than the rest of the Batman series' is acknowledge the wider continuity of the DCU, what with the various Bat-Family members fighting in the last issue, and the mentioning of Batman Incorporated in the first issue, and the absence of Poison Ivy in this issue due to her presence on the Birds of Prey.
Davind FInch's art. It's pretty damn cool.
The surprise villain from the second half of the issue is quite unexpected, so I won't spoil it, but the fight was pretty interesting, and it does feel like White Rabbit is leading Batman around by the nose.
The Bad: This cover is a terrible one for the issue. The image itself is just kind of stupid, Batman just crowds the entire page, with some vines also there. Not to mention Batman only tangles with vines for about one page in the beginning of the issue. The bulk of this issue is investigation and a longer fight with a surprise character.
The action at the beginning is extremely pointless. He's investigating in Ivy's hideout, then some vines that act as a security system attack him for about 2 pages, one of which is a full page panel. All it does is barely try to justify the cover, and stretch out the issue by two pages. Ivy wasn't there, they didn't pose any real threat, and they contributed nothing to the story other than adding some pointless action for people who can't handle a bit of dialogue.
I finally realized that this arc is doing. It's taking Knightfall, and using it to wipe it's ass. The framing is exactly the same, a breakout at Arkham where Batman encounters the big bad only barely, then he chases down the escapees one by one while trying to investigate the main threat. The solicit for the sixth issue even has Bane breaking Batman's back the same way. The problem is this arc misses the entire point of Knightfall. The Justice League justifies their lack of presence because they're dealing with something else. Except, Batman shouldn't NEED to call the Justice League, he NEVER calls the Justice League. I couldn't stand that he called in The Flash last issue to serve no purpose, now he has to call the League? The reason the League wasn't in Knightfall was because BATMAN HAS TO DO THINGS HIS WAY. The story never needed a reason to not have the Justice League, we KNEW Batman wouldn't call them. But now he DID call them, so every arc in this series with this creative team will have me wondering why Batman doesn't call them, since we've established that he's willing to do so way before his breaking point.
So.... if White Rabbit's not the mastermind, what the hell is the point of her character? Or maybe she is the mastermind. I can't figure out why she's there, but Batman has apparently deduced that there's no way she could be the mastermind, which seems like really weak logic, but if Batman's right, then White Rabbit is even more useless than I thought. Because she's still, as I complained last issue, terrible terrible exploitation incarnate masquerading as a character.
Ugh, Alfred making a joke about wanting to be seduced by White Rabbit? It seems so awkwardly out of character for the sophisticaed Brit.
Why does Bruce suddenly think he might be over stressing Alfred to the point of a heart attack? We haven't seen any particularly taxing demands made of him in these four issues, in fact things seem relatively calm for the Wayne butler.
Batman's big deep internal monologue about him possibly leading someone to their death is interesting and deep, but it doesn't mesh very well with the rest of the issue. It works with the story, but it's told at a really awkward time, the transition from main story to monologue and back is really badly handled.
So Batman has spent a decent portion of this story wondering who the mastermind is who created a chemical similar to Scarecrow's, it's a huge part of the overarching plot, not just one step along the way. And the culprit turns out to be..... Scarecrow....
In Conclusion: 2/5
Again, someone new to Batman will probably get a lot more out of this story than a long time fan. Even though I'm liking some stuff, this issue really infuriated me the way its trying to rehash a classic Batman story with absolutely terrible execution.
