Consider me surprised! While I did enjoy the first issue of “Batman: Arkham City”, the prequel series to the upcoming video game, I fully expected this story to have a serious drop off. It was great to see that while not perfect, this is still an interesting look at Gotham.

The story starts off slow but Paul Dini picks up the pace as Batman seeks to find out who is orchestrating this drastic plan to turn a portion of Gotham into one big prison. While the story is completely preposterous, it’s entertainment value makes up for the pure silliness of the concept.

It’s hard to say what I think about Carlos D’Anda’s art. At times it’s spot on and perfect for the book while at other times it looks too “cartoony” and the characters look a tad distorted. But as a whole it’s pretty solid work and it certainly doesn’t distract.

Many people will pass on this title under the assumption that it will naturally suck since it’s placed within a video game world. That’s a shame. So far the creative team has put together a fun little book that is nicely filling in the gap between the two Arkham games while giving Batman fans a nice fill.