I've said it before: as a fan of Winnick's previous work, I suppose I just expect a lot more from his writing. This issue finds Batman bumbling around during a battle with Clayface and a throw-away b-list villain, Blanco. Winnick makes turning Grayson into an inept, untrained idiot look easy. What the heck? Don't worry, Judd. It's not like Dick's been kicking crime's butt almost as long as Bruce.
 
Something else that really got under my skin: "Boorah." As an active duty Marine, the constant use of the term "soldier" to describe the Marine Blanco and the obviously incorrect exclamation "boorah" really got under my skin. Am I missing a clever pun somewhere? Is it "boo-rah" because they were supposed to be scary? Well, they weren't. So if it was supposed to be funny, it was completely lost on me.
 
And whose idea was it to run the last Streets of Gotham, where the Penguin is already Black Mask's sniveling servant, before this issue of Batman when the Penguin actually BECOMES Black Mask's sniveling servant?
 
Even the intriguing Two-Face plot cuts corners in the issue, obviously feeling a time crunch. Teleporters? A completely ridiculous split personality bat-costume? Give me a break. Seriously.

 Even being a fan of Rucka's work, I was still a bit wary of a Detective Comics arc starring Batwoman. But from the get-go the progressive artwork and paneling and the solid story featuring a trippy new villain Alice dismissed any apprehension I felt when I picked up this issue. J. H. Williams III is one the greatest breakout artists in recent memory. His psychedelic panels propel the story fluidly and with a rejuvenating respite from the normal comic panels. He literally thinks outside the box. I can't gush enough about how fantastic Batwoman is! This is a must read.

I have to admit to not being Geoff Johns' biggest fan. He likes to delve very deeply into the DC universe mythos to the point of tedium and droll fanboy nostalgia. If that's your cup of tea, Johns doesn't disappoint with Blackest Night #1. The first few pages are 100% unadulterated Geoff Johns' uninteresting dialogue and campy, flag-waving, fist-pumping heroics. He also, during his stint with the GL series, seems to have sucked any humanity out of Hal Jordan and turned him into Clark Kent with a power ring.
 
Just as I start to yawn and immediately regret my purchase of this book, the story does a complete 180. Beautiful artwork, a fantastically emersive plot, and some of the most visceral and heart-breaking comic book moments this year are the highlights of the second half of Blackest Night #1. Just survive Geoff's obligatory boring introductions, and you'll be well on your way to enjoying one of the summer's greatest blockbuster events.

Hearkening back to Batman's lavish technicolor yesteryear, the creative dynamic duo of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely serve fans a new ongoing series full of quirky camp, retro psychedelia, and some very creepy and very edgy new villains. And no one can write Damian Wayne's caustic, know-it-all dialogue like Morrison. 
 
Though, a short read, you'll find yourself paging back through this issue many times over just to absorb all of Quitely's fantastic nuanced pop art. It's a must have for any comic fan.

Wolfman who? Starlin what? With well over a decade of penning some of the Dark Knight's greatest yarns, including everything from the animated series to the printed page, Paul Dini has become the Batman scribe of our generation and his talent in storytelling, and the artistic chemistry he shared with Dustin Nguyen during their Detective run, carries over to the new ongoing Streets of Gotham. Readers will hit the ground running with this first issue that attacks the new Batman from a completely different angle than what Bat-fans will be accustomed to from the other "Reborn" books. A mysterious new foe (or ally?), and some fantastic face-time for some of Batman's nearly-forgotten rogues, like Fire Fly, Dini takes his readers on yet another high-octane, yet mindfully intellectual romp through... the Streets of Gotham.

"Long Shadows" is shaping up to be another fantastic thrill ride like Judd Winnick's past endeavors in Bat-lore. The Arkham loonies are rampaging through Gotham, a reluctant new Batman gets some face-time with the media, and one of Batman's oldest foes is catching on to the secret that everyone in the Bat-family has been guarding so closely. It's an engrossing read much like Judd's "All They Do Is Watch Us Kill," and promises to showcase just as many twists and turns and copious amounts of fisticuffs. Can't wait to see where this story takes the Caped Crusader!

I was terribly disappointed with the first issue of Judd Winnick's return to Batman. Maybe my hopes were just a bit too high, but another sentiment saturated story about Dick coming to terms with Bruce's death was not what I was expecting. He's gone; Dick is reluctant; we got that already. We've practically been bludgeoned over the heads with this for the past few months. We've all said our goodbyes and made our peace and look forward to Bruce coming back in the future. If you need to see a more tactful and well-written approach to Dick's reluctance, read Grant Morrison's Batman & Robin #2. 
 
I'll just get to the meat of it by saying, Batman fans could very well have done without an issue of nothing but filler which had already been addressed in other issues and other series. I wish Winnick had just started his new run with "Long Shadows Pt. 1."

This first chapter of Grendel: Behold the Devil reintroduces us to Hunter Rose for the Grendel's 25th anniversary. And what an anniversary it is! This gritty and graphic book opens not with an action sequence but its bloody aftermath, Wagner's beautiful black, white, and red artwork in great form. With excerpts from the Devil from the Deed story arc, Behold the Devil is so well-written and interwoven with mystery and intrigue that you won't be able to stop reading. Can even the methodically elusive and obstinate criminal mastermind Grendel have been followed and surveyed? The paranoia gnawing at the back of his mind unfolds like a brilliant puzzle in this modern classic. Whether you're new to Grendel or a stalwart fan, this title is a wonderfully accessible story.

I've been a fan of Mike Carey's work on Lucifer for some time now, and, everytime I go back to reread any of his series, it never ceases to re-amaze me. This book is disturbing, and not just disturbing in all the grotesque and/or spooky ways that might come to mind, but rather it's disturbing how fond of Satan Carey makes you through this medium. The way Carey writes the Morningstar, you might think that Mike Carey was possessed and is writing all of this from a first-hand account! The eloquence and sheer literary substance in this book is obscene, and with his changing cast of artists and creators from issue to issue, you really feel like you're sampling the best work from every facet of the Vertigo universe. I can't say enough about this title. If there is a real devil, then he would be hard-pressed to be any more cunning, any more ruthless, or any more brilliant than Mike Carey's fictional rendition. Lucifer is one of the greatest literary works of all time.

Neil Gaiman's "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader" Part 1 is another step for the Batman series toward the edge of insanity. With the disembodied voice of Bruce Wayne conversing with another mysterious disembodied voice and questioning the proceedings of his own wake, Selina Kyle and Alfred Pennyworth "say a few words" on behalf of the departed, giving different and ridiculous renditions of how they were responsible for killing Batman in what seem like alternate realities.

In this first chapter of Azrael: Death's Dark Knight, "Simple Sacrifices," the reader is introduced to a renegade Azrael who is murdering Gotham PD undercover officers, to the cabal known as the Order of Purity, to an enigmatic group of villains pursuing the Order's Suit of Sorrows, and to a former police officer, Michael Lane, steeped in the mysteries of Batman's death. With great cover art by Guillem March and even more impressive interior artwork by Frazer Irving, Fabian Nicieza's first issue of his new mini-series is the perfectly cryptic thriller to accompany the Battle for the Cowl crossover. 

Unfortunately, Claudio Sanchez's Image debut pales in comparison to his unfinished Evil Ink saga. Amory Wars Second Stage Turbine Blade, Part 1 is the watered- and dumbed-down skeletal remains of its former glory, gutted of all the original's substance and singularity. I suppose Sanchez assumed all of his readers were already caught up on the hard to find Evil Ink version of the story and felt it wouldn't be necessary to do anymore than briefly cover the story's background and characters. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get interested in these characters or the story at this first issue's pace, and it feels like so much of the book's nuts and bolts were, in favor of a more action oriented comic, thrown to the wayside like literary flotsam and jetsam. Gus Vasquez's art is exceptionally detailed, but a bit cartoony. It seems it's a poor replacement for Wes Abbott's brilliant work on Evil Ink's series.

Jonathan Hickman, with the superb visuals of Ryan Bodenheim, brings us a richly textured and wonderfully detailed story of a planet that has survived through some of the most modernly relevant threats imaginable. As we follow the narrative of Red Mass' precognitive main character, Marcus, Hickman and Bodenheim lead the reader to the greatly imagined and rendered environments of medieval Britain and a future Britain, which are as of yet indiscernibly linked. With a threat from outerspace becoming imminent, Marcus tasks the smartest man on Earth with assembling the world's remaining super-humans as a resistance force. This leads to one of the most hilarious and brilliantly contemporary scenes (the Lightbender's address to Britain) in recent history.

While not really serving to substantially propel Tony Daniel's BFTC series in any direction, this stand alone one-shot revolving around Commissioner Gordon expounds upon the hopeless situation of Gotham's police department. McGraw does a great job of telling this story in the aftermath of Arkham's destruction, considering the constraining number of pages he's forced to pack it into, and the key element that shines through in this issue is the coming to terms with Batman's fate. And, though Mandrake's artwork may seem elementary in some frames, his Mr. Freeze is fantastic. 

I have to admit being skeptical going into Battle for the Cowl. Its striking parallels to the aftermath of Superman's death in the 90's made me a bit reluctant to give it a chance, but I'm very pleasantly surprised with this first of three issues that anchor the BFTC crossover story.