Tony Daniel gave it the college try.

It wasn't too bad.  Issues 1 and 2 were really solid efforts from someone I had no faith in.  When you ask for filet mignon and get salisbury steak, sure, you might get full on it, but that doesn't make it dinner.  When I heard Daniel was writing and drawing the book, I wasn't too sure.  But I was...I wouldn't say silenced.  The first two issues didn't make a "believer" out of me, but they were, again, solid efforts.  Issue 3, while not terrible, was a bit of a car wreck.

It has little to do with Tony's effort.  It's a simple case of 8 pounds of feathers in a one pound pillowcase.  The Two-Face/Penguin war was glossed over; so were the escaped inmates.  Black Mask, the new big bad, was relegated to two pages, and a few passing comments.  The issue was all about the final confrontation between Dick (Grayson, aka Nightwing) and Jason (Todd, aka Red Hood) and who finally gets to wear Batman's cowl.  The issue DOES do that...we have a definitive winner in the end, for sure.  But the dialogue (internal and external) was too choppy...it read too fast and was really confusing.  The simple solution?  Give Tony an extra issue.  A four issue mini is industry standard, right?  I'm convinced (by what I read in #1 and #2) that had DC made this a 4 issue mini, this might have been a better mini.  There was too much going on and a lot of balls in the air and, believe it or not, a lot of promise here.  The mini fell just short. 

The art in this issue also looked rushed.  I'm not usually a Daniel fan, but his art didn't bother me in the issues prior to this week.  It seemed to lack oomph.  And is it me, or does every woman in the Batman family stand with her ass to the camera, looking over her shoulder?  I mean, that's borderline ridiculous!  You mean to tell me that no heroine can stand full on, straight ahead, and look at the camera?  Poppycock!  I'm surprised Barbara wasn't looking over her shoulder with her back to us...in her wheelchair.

Again, they did what they set out to do: They crowned a new Batman.  But getting there should have been more fun.