Why is Jim Gordon on the cover of this issue? I know I didn’t see him appear in the pages of this issue and am struggling to think when he last popped up in the series, I think it was issue 2. The reason behind it is that if you piece the 9 issue series covers together you get a great picture of the world of Gotham and the characters that inhabit it.

This image of Gotham and its inhabitants are what you will also find inside the pages of this series. This isn’t just another batman book, this is a gotham book, this is a batman family book and impressively a batman villain book (even with Joker etc off planet). To list but a few, Nightwing, Robin, Wildcat, Huntress, The Riddler and Batman himself pop up in the pages of issue 7 and that’s just a few.

The brilliant thing is that they are actually written well. Someone hasn’t come along and gutted any of the characters; this is what you expect them to be. In this issue we see Dick Grayson in a new non superhero disguise a la Bruce’s Matches Malone and Dicks interaction with the Riddler is brilliant. And the interaction between the Riddler and Penguin is great. The art has remained consistent throughout the book and is still great in issue 7 making it even more of a joy to read.

Some people are saying that this would be better in trade because you always want more. In my opinion that is what makes a good comic book, you always want that next bit and I think this book does it without huge gimmick cliff hangers like bringing characters back from the dead, it does it with a good story and great characterisation.

If you haven’t read this book I would say you really need to pick it up either in trade or issue format. I joined the bat family with batman and detective. I have now dropped these but still pick up nightwing and robin. This book gives you little bite size chunks of everything and does so wonderfully.

What a delight.