There have been lots of reviews of this issue dealing mostly with the outcome of the story. I would like to review it for what it is, and not cast judgement on consequences (or lack thereof). I was not thrilled with this issue, or this arc in general, and just finished reading through all 5 issues in a row after being disappointed in them on an individual basis. I feel I can now give an accurate review of this issue. My first problem with this issue is the scene. Maybe I am the only one, but it wasn't until page 21 that I had any idea where this issue was happening. I honestly thought they were still somewhere in Arkham. That is a major problem for me. To exacerbate this problem, most of the issue transpires in said place, where we listen to the Joker ramble for pages on end with nothing but a drab background to keep our attention. That leads me to the second problem. The writing is VERY dense and dialogue heavy. There are literally pages with nothing but the Joker talking, sandwiched between pages where the Joker does almost all of the talking. Throughout this arc Joker talks A LOT, so by the time this issue came around I was so tired of his voice that I was forced to take a break. He talks in length of his relationship to Batman, tells Batman things about himself that are not true, and are basically meaningless to the story, and then reiterates the main point of the arc that has been hammered over and over again, and that has brought him to the point of "killing the family" (a phrase used a few times in this issue, but that I had never heard before in any of the bat books). This arc hinged on the idea that the secret from issue#15 (that Joker has been in the Bat Cave and knows all of their identities), coupled with whatever the Joker told the Bat Family while they were captured, is going to break them apart. It ends with that being the case, but given its execution within the story, I'm left very confused. Maybe it was left extarordinarily vague on purpose, but either way it did not work for me. Snyder plays both sides of the secret too heavily, and to the detriment of the story. The issue starts with the Joker replaying the bat in the window scene that helped form Bruce into the Batman. Later he brings out the card from the cave to show the Family that Batman has been lying. These actions seem to imply that he knows who Batman is, but even if Joker did know Bruce was Batman, how would he ever know about the night with the bat through the window? It was one of many gimmicks that were brought into this story (like how all of a sudden Alfred can overcome the "unusually potent" strain of Joker toxin, but he couldn't earlier- what was the point of that entire scene, really?) that was meant for shock value instead of story substance. Later Bruce tells us for certain (and with all physical probabilty) that Joker does not know he is Bruce Wayne and that he never made it into the cave, basically that the Joker is lying. The fight scene seems to reiterate this idea, and then we see the empty book and are given a flashback at the end, and we are supposed to believe Bruce. The idea that this charade by the Joker would somehow break the "Family" apart after all that they've been through was very hard for me to swallow. It goes without saying that the art saves the day. Capullo and Glapion always do an excellent job setting the tone of this book. The camera angles were excellent. The Joker looked grotesque, and the panels flowed smoothly. FCO did a beautiful job bringing us back into the light after the storm with his beautiful coloring during the bedrrom scene. There is no question the art in this issue is top notch. This issue, and especially its lack of closure, drove home to me that this arc was really nothing more than an excuse to do a bunch of "cool" stuff with the Joker. Was it entertaining? Yes, especially the first and third issues. The problem came with the last two issues when Batman stopped acting like Batman, and we soon found out there was no payout for all of the Joker monologues and "symbolism." This arc was better read as a whole (in two sittings because the Joker speech got old) than the first go around, individually. It was entertaining for its shock value, but at the end of the day there was too much frosting and not enough cake. This issue in particular was somewhat dense and unbelievable (I know its a comic book) in both story and result.