For some reason this story was eating at my brain. When it was originally coming out in issues my mind just wanted me to pick it up. I just can’t explain why but I was really looking forward to reading this. First good thing to come to mind is that Kelley Jones is doing the artwork. Big plus for me, when I think of Batman that name is always close to mind. Mainly because I love his work on the Elseworlds tale with Batman as a vampire. So when I open up the first page I thought this was going to be a fun time.

Oh boy how wrong I was.

Where to start? Well I guess I should wave my finger to Steve Niles for providing such a long and drawn out comic. Seriously the story in this seems to drag on it’s fingernails to get to the end. By the time I got to the end I was like: ‘Why didn’t this just be a six issue mini other then twelve?’ You could totally sell this for half the issues and it bugged the shit out of me that it was so long. The story itself was confusing to read and I don’t like this Batman Niles writes. Plus the villain doesn’t make much sense either and nor do I care would the real culprit was.

Then we get to the art by Jones, and I cried a bit inside. This was not the Kelley Jones I signed up for. Oy how bad did this look from a pencil and color standpoint. Jones isn’t known to be the cleanest guy around with his work; but the off model characters got old fast. Batman changes shape every single panel and it bugged me to no end. Again I know this is his style but for some reason it just doesn’t work for me here. With the coloring I’m wondering if there was a printing problem. Or did someone drop a vat of inks onto the color and swirl it on the page. There is a series of multi-colored panels like a rainbow and it makes no sense what so ever. Panels themselves are colored oddly but that circle of rainbows I saw every other page annoyed the hell out of me.

Bad story and disappointing art makes me upset. I’m gald I didn’t listen to my brain this one time. If I did, I would’ve hit myself with a frying pan to shut the thing up. Anyways, just avoid this thing at all costs. Waste of time and money.