Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-) read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review/memory/whatever. Earlier installments live here.

(Box08): For all of my consternation about the New 52, there were some solid exceptions, the Bat-family being among them – probably because, other than everyone being de-aged and Gordon's hair being red again, not much changed; this selective rebooting, while beneficial (bone=thrown?) in many ways was also a large part of the problem: if you're going to go for it, go for it all and don't waste time with half-measures. By the time the sun set on the New 52, we were left with little more than the sweat of an exercise in editoral bloodsucking, missed opportunities, and tarnished faith; IIRC, I checked out of comics for the second (or maybe third) time around here (though that had as much to do with relocation (read: lost first house) and burnout from writing ComicStoryworld - 300 pages in five months as anything), not to return in earnest until earlier this year.

But, the comic itself: Daniel is nothing if not a gifted visual storyteller and one of the rare artists (these days) to make the leap to writer-artist feeling as though they've always been writing. Doll-Maker is a fascinating villain and I dig the pulpier urban James Bond (New52 Bats got laid a lot, it seems) feel that Daniel brings to Bats – a far different vibe from Snyder's "grand stakes" storyweaving of The Court of Owls (excellent, too – though "Black Mirror" remains my favorite Snyder Bat-tale); not better, but different – complimentary in the best way possible.

One thing I want to add here about Daniel's art: I love how he constantly is evolving his style and changing it up: at some points, it's difficult to see that this was the same artist of Morrison's RIP storyline, just a couple of years earlier. Dark, kinetic movement on glorious display; might have to pick up all 12 issues of his run at some point.