Gotham never sleeps and Batman is back on the patrol in Batman – Detective Comics Vol. 2: Scare Tactics. Last time out, I generally enjoyed the book, but felt it was a bit too straightforward and one note. Also, I had concerns with the revolving door of super villains that made it difficult for a story to develop into anything meaningful. Well, this time, Batman squares off against The Mad Hatter, Black Mask, Scarecrow and the Court of Owls. Also, Two-Face is heavily featured towards the end of this book. Uh…lesson learned?
To its credit, the book is great to look at from beginning to end. Tony Daniel does a tremendous job of bringing every panel to life in great detail. In particular, he does a great job of designing action scenes. However, there isn’t enough substance in the story to provide depth to the art. It feels like Batman is simply moving from point A to point B, taking out whoever happens to be in his way as he goes.
The one bright spot in this outing is the inclusion of issue #0. Taking place while Bruce Wayne was training in the Himalayas, he learns a valuable lesson about being close to people. However, this isn’t enough to save Batman – Detective Comics Vol. 2: Scare Tactics from meandering forward with no real focus. I’ve still got volume 3 sitting on my bookshelf, so I’ll at least give that one a go. Maybe the series will have finally found its way by then.
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In Third Person 