Straying From the Safe Path
The Good: Tony Daniel has definitely started doing more interesting things with this issue, an improvement over the 'safe' nature of the first issue.
Tony Daniel's artwork is still dark and awesome, perfect for Batman, and he still does a GREAT job at creating a tense sense of mystery with his panel layouts.
Daniel does a god job capturing the sense of how Bruce interacts with those dangerously close to him. The scene with Charlotte Rivers was horrendously awkward, in a good way.
I am simply stunned by how awesome Dollmaker is. He looks so damn awesome, and I love the entire family. They all look so cool, interact so interestingly, and have impressively complex plans for being as oddly short term as they are.
The Bad: While the first issue cover was downright awe-inspiring, this one is decidedly boring.
There's some dialogue in the beginning of the issue that has me baffled no matter how many times I reread it. Hugh Marder is telling Bruce he was outbid for his company by Q-Core, but then talks about the ridiculously impressive reasons as to why Wayne-Tech is a better choice in every way. I keep feeling like I missed something, but no matter how many times I read it, it makes no goddamn sense.
Tony Daniel's trying a bit too hard here. The shocking reveal at the end is yet another one that seems cool for a few seconds, but when the potential of the long term ramifications hit you, it's worrisome. Not to mention the big twist from the end of the last issue is barely touched upon AT ALL.
In Conclusion: 4/5
While Tony Daniel DOES manage to make things more interesting while staying true to his great sense of tension, he overcompensates a bit and is starting to run wild with his potentially massive shake-ups on the Batman status quo. After not trying hard enough, he's trying too hard. The alternating attempts kind of balance each other out, causing me to give both issues the same score. Long story short, this issue is more interesting and compelling than the last issue, but still missing something. But not altogether bad.
