Batman: Battle for the Cowl

Picked up a bunch of books this week, but I think I'll split the ones I want to talk about into a few posts. Anyhoo, up first is Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1:

So Batman's dead, or stuck int he past, or trapped on an alternate Earth....whatever, dude's not around so the shit is hitting the fan in Gotham City. The criminal element has felt the absence of Batman and is taking full advantage. Nightwing has pulled in all of the reserves to cover the crisis and they're holding, barely. But a new Batman is appearing on the scene, brutally bringing down criminals, leading Robin to believe that someone from the inner circle has to take up the mantle.

I've gotta say, Tony Daniel really does a good job with this book. After reading his workman-like art during Grant Morrison's run on Batman, I was doubtful that his writing would be much batter, but he has seemed to really nail the characters (with one reservation). Robin narrates the whole story, and his voice is very well done. The art is serviceable, not bad, but still a little sketchy in places.

The only real issue I had was Damien's characterization. While Daniel gets the spoiled rich kid thing with him, I always saw him as being much more unflappable. The kids too much of a dick to let his opponents see fear on him, plus the little fucker's lethal. It just seems like the plot required him to behave that way, and thus, he did.

Anyway, it was pretty darn good, and after all of the Final Crisis stuff, astonishingly straight-forward. I'm looking forward to the next two issues, hopefully they'll come out at a reasonable clip.