Welcome To Arkham Asylum
The Good: For the first time the action doesn't completely suck balls. There's actually a lot of scenes that look dynamic instead of completely static and boring.
Speaking of the art, there's this one panel as they get ready to enter the asylum where Roy's face is seriously haunting. Plus the little art clues we get that lets us know he's high are really neat.
The scene between Amanda and The Atom is made all the more emotional by the fact that we the readers know Ryan Choi is already dead. And in a matchbox.
Backstabbing backstabers backstab backstabbing backstabbers. It's pretty great.
As soon as we think we're starting to get a grasp of Deathstroke's crazy long plan, he throws a few more curveballs our way. There's an incredible amount of setup that's been done to prepare for the final payoff, which we still have no idea when to expect.
For the first time there's actually a balance of the character motivation explorations. We get deeper looks into the minds of Deathstroke, Tattooed Man, CInder, Roy, and Osiris. Cheshire's the only one exempt but she basically dominated the last 2 issues so it's understandable.
OSIRIS DOESN'T WHINE LIKE A LITTLE BRAT FOR ONCE.
Speaking of, when Osiris mistook Killer Croc for Sobek, it was an epic crowning moment of hilarity.
The Bad: I didn't notice this at first but someone else brought it to my attention. How DID Mr. Freeze get his freeze gun? All of the other Arkham inmates have constructed makeshift versions of their greatest weapons, but Mr. Freeze clearly has his fancy high-tech freeze gun. What's up with that?
It's always fun to throw some obscure characters into the background or make them plot points, but Titans either goes way too far, or tries to do it and fails because they're just making things up. And this happens twice. Once I was done this aggravated me immensely. Even more when I tried to do the research and found nothing. At the beginning we get a look at some monitors that show Jervis Tetch, Basil Karlo, Dr. Jonathan Crane, Victor Fries, Waylon Jones, and Brendt Sorenson. Who on god's green smurf is Brendt Sorenson. Seriously, can someone answer that? Of course that could be forgiven if it weren't for the end, where Deathstroke's intended target to free is none other than............ Allegra Garcia.........wait.... Who? What? No really. Who is that?
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
I always want so badly to be able to love this series, and yes, it did break the annoying formula the first 4 issues had, and yes, Osiris stopped whining, and yes, finally all these various characters with al their emotional baggare are actually becoming interesting instead of annoying, but the action still needs a lot of work, and the big climax of the issue was just too much of a....'WHAT.' to be anything other than something of a let down. Overall, it's a great issue like 27 was, and so I can safely say this series is headed in a good direction. Just, I hope they fix the weirdness of the intended rescuee.
And also GET ANOTHER ARTIST. One who is GOOD at action. This is Deathstroke we're talking about.
