Detective Comics #2

Admittedly, I was very hard on Tony Daniel after reading Detective Comics #1. Though in my defense, there was a lot to be harsh about in this issue, both artistically and on the writing side. It was definitely a different book than I expected, but I wasn't too impressed.

Issue #2 is more dialed back from the debut issue's exaggerated behaviors and images, but it suffers from the same faults. It's a classic Tony Daniel written issue. Cool plot, bad dialogue and average at best storytelling. While his ideas aren't bad, his execution of them is weak.

The issue spends the beginning in his Bruce Wayne guise, wheeling and dealing with a mysterious (and mysteriously athletic) businessman named Hugh Marder, and then having an "affair" with journalist Wendy Rivers (wait, I thought he was dating Catwoman?).

This section isn't terrible. It's fun to see what I call the Michael Keaton-Bruce Wayne, one whose charming, loves to wine and dine and be the billionaire playboy in his spare time. Does it get a little cheesy when Bruce and Hugh are going mono-e-mono in some sort of pissing contest? Sure, but Bruce is great at those, showing what an alpha-male he is.

But then after it just goes downhill. A bunch of boring, long-winded dialogue between Batman and Jim Gordan, that gets tedious to read through. Lots of words to tell the reader very little. The issue ends with a great fight scene between Batman and Dollmaker's henchmen, with Daniel displaying some of his best pencil work in more than a few issues. These last pages redeem the lackluster middle of the issue, until the last page.

Nothing snarky to say, I just liked this illustration

And that last page is terrible. Last month's cliffhanger was great (although not resolved quite yet, which is kind of annoying, you should resolve your last cliffhanger before you do another) but this one left me figuratively in tears....from laughing. And trust me, it's not funny in a good way. The art is bad, the words are bad. It's just bad. He has a good idea, but the execution is terrible.

What I enjoyed: Great fight scene to end the story, really excited with thrilling action. The art is much better this time around, except this time Batman's face looks a little blocky. Tony Daniel is a better penciller than that. But really fine work otherwise.  Also, the cover is badass, but he doesn't use the Bat-plane in this issue. Which is odd, but the cover still looks cool.

What I didn't: Last page really ruined an otherwise decent comic. Luckily for him because so many really liked the first issue, he's going to sell well for awhile and his job is safe. Unless this gets real bad real fast, which isn't out of the question considering how this issue ended. Also, while the one-liners weren't as bad this time around, the line "that smell, all too familiar. Death." made me laugh out loud. A distant runner-up" "I hear flies. Lots of them." again, in this comic, I hear Linkara's "Crazy Steve" voice.

Conclusion: I like to finish out story arcs, and I love Batman, so I'm going to continue to read this book at least until this story ends. But highly-likely I'm dropping this book after. Tony Daniel is simply not good enough of a writer to be on this important of a title for DC. It gets a 7.3/10 (C-).