Indie Game: The Movie

Indie Game: The Movie is about journeys.  More specifically, the journeys of four creators and their struggle to connect with players through their artistic medium, the video game.  The film follows designers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes leading up to and including their release of Super Meat Boy, Phil Fish and the turbulent struggle to maintain awareness at PAX on his game Fez, and the emotional aftermath for Jonathan Blow following his successful release of Braid.  Each creator struggles with his unique problems, but ultimately all of them give us a glimpse inside the creation of an independent game and the emotional dynamics of their creators.  Indie film makers Lisanne Pajo and James Swirsky edited over 80 hours of footage to make a movie that not only shows us why these creators made games, but why people create in the first place.

Edmund McMillen

For me, the following of Phil Fish's legal entanglements and obsession over perfecting Fez, or the misunderstood Jonathan Blow as he argues with favorable reviewers over the intent and message of his best selling game Braid, take a back seat to designer Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes in their development and release of Super Meat Boy.  With Edmund and Tommy we get a look at their lives,  the influences that shaped them, and the loved ones who are both affected by, and supportive of, their dedication.  In exploring these two, the film shows us both the ups and downs as they experience them giving audiences an emotional ride they can connect with.

Tommy Refenes

All of the creators experience the painful results of their dedication with the sacrifice of social lives and the constant seclusion to finish their work.  Although not a pleasant thought, it was inspiring to me at least, in so far as seeing others slave away at all hours to perfect their craft and attempt to accomplish something that lies off the beaten path.  Not only did this film educate me on the game development process (McMillen's idea behind level progression and game mechanics was something I only knew subconsciously through playing games), but it left me with the overwhelming desire to create, despite the perilous journey that may lay ahead in doing so. Indie Game: The Movie manages to show how an individual (or a set of partners) can reach out through an artistic medium and connect with people.

Fez

Super Meat Boy

Braid

Gates of Gotham Reviewed

Gates of Gotham #1
- John J

Scott Snyder has been on a hot streak lately. Detective Comics is arguably back to prestige form after the lull David Hine's run created, and American Vampire has been Vertigo's marquis book on a consistent basis. It seems the man can really do no wrong in the darker corners of the DCU Universe. So I'll admit, when I saw the initial preview for "Gates of Gotham" and read the premise, I was ten types of worried.

The premise isn't anything really new. After a 3 page set-up of Gotham before it became an industrial powerhouse, we see the three figureheads of the city meeting to discuss the architecture that would put Gotham on the map. Only one of the three men is specifically stated; Alan Wayne. From there, we're back to modern day Gotham where Grayson Batman, Red Robin, and the rest of the cast and crew (Cassandra Cain EEEEEEE) are dealing with the fallout of said bridges being blown to bits.

I've kind of had my fill of "The House of Wayne" and the development of Gotham in recent books. After Grant Morrison's take during Batman & Robin that now probably sits as canon for the Batman mythos, it's difficult to swallow more of the same. Luckily "Gates of Gotham" isn't heavy on back story, although it isn't short on set-up. After the incredibly well-plotted bridge destruction sequences there's a lot of talking heads, which if it wasn't for the expert plotting of Scott Snyder and affectionate scripting by newcomer Kyle Higgins, could easily turn into a "skim read". A sequence in which Batman interrogates Penguin could have been removed entirely, and I somewhat believe was put in there just so that Higgins could play in the sandbox a bit.

Trevor McCarthy supplies the art, and I'm mixed. McCarthy's line work is jagged and overly-stylized, but purposefully so. He's a good balance of early Scott McDaniel work and a more abstract expressionistic style. This works brilliantly for action sequences, such as Batman removing the doors from all the cars on the bridge in one felt swoop. Again, the less vibrant sequences, not so much.

While the ending brings back a character that most fans will grumble at, it also introduces a new villain (who McCarthy styles towards a steampunk theme) that's yet to be listed. With "Gates of Gotham" running the same length as Flashpoint (5 issues), there's the possibility that this story has long-lasting effects in the Batverse. Until that happens, however, it's a serviceable story with yet to be determined motives.

And it's got Cassandra Cain (EEEEEEEEEEEEE)!

Thor the Movie VS Thor the Product

A Bashful Thor....
GET IT?!?!

by John J

The Marvel Universe is shaping up the team for The Avengers film coming out in 2012, and the successes of the Hulk and Iron Man has created an enormous buzz for every following film. But Thor suffers from the same problem that Iron Man 2 suffers from. It fails the experiment of trying to balance a stand-alone film with a "serialized" set up for a larger project.

This is a spoiler-free review, but I am going to touch on the overall plot of the film, so if you're completely absent from the plot outline good for you (but stop reading). The basic premise of the movie is that Thor, a young roustabout who likes getting into trouble and breaking the rules of his father Odin (a very grizzled Anthony Hopkins, who looks like he's waiting for a glass of warm milk that'll never come the entire film). After going into a headstrong battle with the Frost Giants, who closely resemble "Snowmeiser" but taller, Thor is banished from Asgard to Earth... which apparently is a bit shitbox to the Asgardians.

Cut to standard movie fare, Thor acts brazen, Thor falls for Natalie Portman, Thor saves Earth, Thor fights Loki back on Asgard. I appreciated the Shakespearean tones of the movie, but I'm not necessarily writing this to discuss the overall merit of the film. The movie could've been anything and the droves of comic fans would've made it the #1 box office hit for the weekend no matter what. Why?

The Avengers.

Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, now Thor, and soon to be Captain America. The movies don't necessarily matter, because they're all simply building blocks for the bigger movie that'll be coming out in 2012, The Avengers. While I liked how Iron Man snuck in its Avengers bits slyly, the sequel was too jam-packed with it. The entire 2nd act was Nick Fury and Black Widow sitting around and just being. The incentive for fans to watch these scenes were simply that the characters existed, which is/was cool in and of its own right.



Thou believst thou dost protest too mucheth,
for in thine warmest of mothers' milks...

 Thor was fine. It wasn't a bad movie by any means. It wasn't great either. It was formulaic. It was safe. It was written and directed to be a decent popcorn movie that made fans say "Man, I can't wait to see what Thor does in the Avengers movie!" without actually analyzing what worked and didn't for the movie itself (although I gotta say, the Hawkeye sequence was pretty sweet).

The idea of "serialized" movies is kind of a scary one. Is one movie not enough to get a point across anymore? The trilogy idea now giving way to the method of films being interlocking pieces of a large narrative is an exhausting, and frankly lazy way to do a story. Are they difficult editorially? Probably? Is it a pain in the ass making sure that each part of the overall story has it's own position and release in sequential order? Yup.

But timeshares are a pain in the ass too, and those fuckers get set up all the time. How about a well-crafted narrative with 3 solid acts packed into 2 hours where each character is given something to do other than say "I'm Maria Hill. I'm from the comics."

That's not a film. That's "Transformers". That's a big advert for something other than what I paid for, and it makes me unhappy than I'm not dumb enough to enjoy the trickery of it.

But Thor was okay.

Review Shots For 3.30.11

This is the official warning to any and all who read these reviews. Progressively Aggressive holds a severe DC bias. I don't DISlike Marvel by any means... but I don't read the books, and I'm not a fan of the overall Universe. Plus, let's be honest, I've spent thousands of dollars over a number of years on DC books. I'm not made of money... come on, there's a recession going on, for God's sakes.

Detective Comics #875
Scott Snyder & Fracesco Francavilla

It's always refreshing to tell when a new writer coming into a long-standing book has been a long-time reader. That is most definitely the case with Scott Snyder and Detective Comics. In this issue, we see the longer version of the Jim Gordon / James Gordon Jr. confrontation that Snyder teased us with in his debut issue. Snyder understands the "mystery" genre, and the opening monologue from Bullock at GCPD reads like pitch-perfect old-school noir. Snyder writes Gordon like the old, weathered cop that he is. In the latest issue we find Gordon tailing a case from decades ago, and into intercuts a flashback when his "damaged" son James was just a child. The creepy factor is dialed up to 10, and we never really get any clear answer as to whether or not James is a psychotic killer or just... damaged.

Francavilla literally draws and colors everything in this issue, and it looks amazing. His color selection is either blacks and blues or firey auburns and oranges, both used to amp up the tension of the scenes. It's going to be a shame to see him go to Marvel for American Panther, because his Tim Sale style is matches up insanely well to this type of story.


Action Comics #899
Paul Cornell & Jesus Merino

I think Paul Cornell gets the DC Universe. The general rule of thumb for these characters, which writers like Grant Morrison, Joe Casey and Mark Waid stapled down in the nineties, is that you write the most off-the wall, unexplainable, and unintelligible material you possibly can for these characters to face, but you treat it with such nod/wink cool and confidence that people eat it up.

In the penultimate issue to Cornell's Lex Luthor epic, Luthor faces off against Braniac for control of the black spheres and becomes... well, something different. It's unclear as to what exactly has happened to Luthor, and I don't want to spoil anything, but we finally get to see what was on the other side of the "door" the rings created. The face-off between Luthor and Braniac is both hilarious and dead-on, as two super-geniuses shout out the fantastically over-the-top maneuvers and equipment that could never exist in real life - which is kind of the point.

The issue sees fill-in artist Jesus Merino, most likely because Pete Woods will be doing 50 pages of interior work in the 900's issue next month, and he fills in nicely. Merino's style is very old school, with precision lines that don't overuse cross hatching and lighting effects like Woods' work does. With that, merino works better on books like JSA or Superman, where the style matches the subtext. Here, Woods' overly computer-enhanced work fits the space age material Cornell is writing, and I would've loved to see what he did with Luthor on the final page.


Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #8
Peter J. Tomasi & Fernando Pasarin

We get to see the third side of the initial conflict this week, with Guy Gardner facing off with Hal Jordan in "War of the Green Lanterns". The issue serves as set-up, which is a bit concerning since the last "Green Lantern" and "Green Lantern Corps" issues served the same function. But I assume not all readers are following all 3 books, so a set-up was needed in each.

We're starting to get a full picture with this issue. The 4 earth-bound Lanterns, as well as Kilowog and Ganthet, have been affected by Parralax way back in "Rebirth", so they're less influenced by its control. The issue itself is one big fight between Hal and Guy, before they reach the same conclusion that Jon and Kyle did in GL Corps. It's not an uninteresting issue, but it's certainly retreading on familiar ground. We get a verbal argument followed by a construct-based brawl, and while the fight itself is fairly cool (takes place across an entire planet) some of it is admittedly hokey... Guy shoots construct hockey pucks at Hal while wearing a construct hockey-jersey. Why not just shoot him with the thing?

My major complaint with Pasarin's work is that it's too clean. There's no scratches, the line work is too pristine. I love Pasarin's work in this issue, but I still recognize his faults. The fight takes place on a snowy planet, so clean pencils would work exceptionally well there. But Pasarin can pack a lot into a page; a splash containing an entire fleet of the Corps bearing down on Guy, Kilowog and Arisia is amazing. A reviewer at Comic Book Resources compared it to George Perez, and I'd be hard pressed to disagree.


That's it for this week! If you have thoughts, comments, hate-filled bullshit that essentially just disgagrees with me (but in an overly-rude, completely unnecessary fashion), leave a comment or email us at progressivelyaggressive@live.com

Panel Review - Breaking Into Comics: The Marvel Way

Breaking into Comics: The Marvel Way
Panel: C.B. Cebulski, Matt Fraction, Skottie Young, Fred Van Lente, Mike Norton, Tim Seely, Jeph Loeb, Mike Pascuillo


C.B. Cebulski introduced the panel to discuss the methods they each used in order to break into their current respective careers;

Matt Fraction (Fear Itself, Invincible Iron Man) Fraction had been doing short films and animated pieces during relative obscurity, and would give the completed DVD's to executives at different publishers during exhibitions. Fraction stressed that it took a good number of years of creating and publishing short films that he had written before he was noticed and picked up by Marvel. "In short, submit it to those who can hire you."

"Send everything you can to Steve Wacker (Marvel Editor)", replied Jeph Loeb to laughter and applause.

Skottie Young (Wizard of Oz) moved to Chicago to go to Art School, and was swayed to attend Wizard World with his portfolio. He literally had no comic experience or artwork to show, mostly skateboard art and graphic design work. A representative from Image comics left his card for Young, and after a brief stint doing artwork for their company Marvel offered him a fill-in spot for an X-Men comic. "I had 10 pages of comic experience, but I said 'Of course I can draw the X-Men!'"

The panel discussed briefly how it's not difficult to "break" into comics, but it's difficult to stay in. "With most comics now ending at 4 to 6 issue arcs, you're constantly having to prove yourself and keep breaking into comics," said Young.

Mike Norton (Gravity, Youth in Revolt) targeted books that he enjoyed reading, briefed himself on the continuity, created samples and submitted those to editors. "I was rejected over and over and over." His method of breaking into one of the largest companies in comics was simple; he kept submitting to smaller independent companies until he was noticed.

Jeph Loeb (Batman: Hush, Hulk) had one of the more interesting routes into Marvel. He started as a Hollywood writer, working on such movies as Teen Wolf and Commando (essentially the same movie). He always wanted to write comics, and was picked up by DC. Hollywood writers, normally seen as the "enemy" in comics, weren't given the big books, and Loeb was denied both Batman and Superman. He picked up an obscure team called "Challengers of the Unknown" and impressed the editors at DC enough to give him bigger projects.

Loeb discussed his meeting up with Tim Sale, and how their partnership led to The Long Halloween and Dark Victory (two of the more influential Batman books, Dark Victory being the main inspiration for 'Batman Begins'). A Marvel executive called him and offered him a role on the X-Men title.

"Do you read the X-Men? Yes. Do you want to work on the X-Men? Yes. Are you available? Yes. Do you know what happens in the X-Men office? No. Perfect."

 Q&A

• Do you have artists who work at home? There’s only one Marvel staff artist, all free-lancers are employed on work for hire, they work from home and email/scan their work.
• Do you use prima colors or use Photoshop? Photoshop.
• Trenchcoat weirdo: Does Marvel accept written submissions outside of comics or does it have to be published? We’ll accept webcomics, published comics, blogs, anything not in script format.
• Can I submit my graphic design portfolio? Cebulski: Drop it off at our booth.
• Thanks to Cebulski, for your twitter feed, a lot of good advice (applause). What common things are put into their pitches? Fraction: Spiderman/Nick Fury in the comic, hellicarrier crashes. Cebulski: Think small (8-10 pagers), nothing too grand with main characters that already have writers. Biggest mistake is huge ideas.Loeb: Find characters that fit into the niches of other books that are still cool stories. Find obscure characters and give them a voice. Fraction: “I learned very early that I would only write for characters that I feel for, which has served me very well.” Seeley - Conversely, I was offered characters that I wouldn’t normally write for but are big, popular characters, was all in for that.
• Cebulski: Brush up on continuity, he gets submissions that have already been told. “I had this story in my head that I’ve had since I was 8. And it reads like an 8 yr old.” Fraction: “It’s about a robot that runs on poop and boogers.” Norton: “I’d read the hell out of that story.”
• Nerdy attendee: I’ve had a superhero team in my head since I was 10. How would I submit my team to be looked at, how can I condense this story? Panelists didn’t understand question, Loeb finally saves the day; Take a comic book, write down what happens on each of the pages, explain it like you’re talking to a child or a blind person. “in a balloon, try not to have more than 16 words in each panel.” Van Lente - “There are lots of different designs of script format, no one uses the same thing”. Fraction: “I need to find how I write to my artist, every artist is different.”
• What recommendations on college education to help write comics? Most participants mentioned dropping out of Grad School (Van Lente). Seeley: “I have a comic book writing degree!” (laughter) Norton: I went to the one thing that was closest enough, got a degree in graphic design, learned about conceptualizing ideas, finding shortest way to solve a visual problem, translates well to illustration.”
• If you have 2 of 3 (writer, penciller, inker), what advice for putting together a portfolio with only 2 of 3 or all 3? Cebulski: Put what you can on the page, but do the other stages (if you ink, do pencils and then ink) Quesada: If you show it in stages, then do that, but focus on one discipline and do it well.
• Is there ever too much persistence? Cebulski: Oh yeah (laughter) Young: If you can be honest with yourself, you can take your favorite comic and say “I’m in this same area” or “I’m not even close to this”, be honest.
• Any suggestions for sending in finalized portfolios or submissions? Cebulski: Show original pages, bring notebook to take notes on changes that an editor gives you and apply that. Be professional.”

Batgirl #17 Reviewed!

Batgirl #17 - Review

- John

Yep, I love me some Batgirl.

Bryan Q. Miller has been able to do what few can in the long laundry list of Bat-titles, and that's write a book that's not only consistently top notch but also delivers on humor and heart. Too often the Bat-books (or the ancillary character books that depend on Batman being the reason for their existence) are dark and gritty and angry, which is perfectly fine for a character like Batman. But Stephanie Brown's Batgirl is a lighthearted character, and the book definitely plays off of her bubbly, borderline cartoonish thought process.

The latest issue is a one-and-done story that sees Batgirl and Damian's Robin team-up to stop a child kidnapping at a Gotham museum. It's a simple premise, and there's not a single batman rogue to be found, so the book's main theme is the characters of batgirl and Robin. Not only are the two a perfect match (the Devil's grandson mixed with the ditsy blonde), but Miller finds a nice part of Damian's character that hasn't been explored by any writer yet. This is a 10 year old kid raised and trained by assassins; he's never had fun in his life, and the idea of "having a good time" is just completely lost on him. Miller manages to capture the humor in it, as well as a couple really great moments of heartbreak for the poor kid.


Pere Perez steps in for Dustin Nguyen, and his pencils are as sharp as ever. Perez has the uncanny ability to not only mirror other artists' styles (we've seen him do it already for Lee Garbett and Ryan Sook), but he's got an exceptionally clean, vividly detailed style to him that I really appreciate. I'm still waiting for DC to give Perez his own book to pencil (preferably a fun, lighthearted one), because this guy is a breakout waiting to happen. Until then, I'm going to appreciate every fill-in spot this guy does.


While next month will bring us back into the fold of Batgirl's current story arc, this issue makes me anxious for two things; 1) More team-ups between Batgirl and Robin, and 2) a Robin solo book written by Bryan Q. Miller.


Who says comics can't just be fun?

The Cape Reviewed!

The Cape Review

- John

So.... The Cape. The show I've been waiting for after seeing the initial previews, what, a month ago? The show I've heard faux news reports about on the radio while I'm driving to work. The show I've been completely amped up to see ever since the first inkling of its existence was made known to me.

And it's fucking dreck.

I thought Heroes was an awful attempt to bring the idea of the 'superhero' to a mainstream, mass-consuming audience. And it was, honestly. But The Cape... The Cape reminds me of the guy you knew back in school who really liked technical guitar players. He bought music magazines, went to all his favorite guitarists' shows, and knew all the hammer-on, pull-offs, double stops and finger picking. Then he finally got the courage to buy a guitar and learn it himself to show his friends what he was talking about.

And he was fucking dreck.

The Cape suffers not only from a poor budget (which I can't fault NBC for, you really need money to pull of a believable superhero concept), but the writing and acting is just so stagnant and by-the-numbers, it really is impossible to immerse yourself in the story. And on paper, it really is a sad story. Guy's a cop, gets framed for murder, has to stay "dead" to protect his family, and through his new-found association with some less than sordid characters, he becomes a superhero. Sound familiar? Hey "Darkman", how's it going?

The show has its strength's. Summer Glau as "Orwell", the show's Oracle-type character who feeds the Cape intel and stays behind the curtain. Keith David plays every Keith David character he's ever played (which is totally not a bad thing) wrapped up as Max, a circus ringleader who teaches The Cape the ways of... er, the cape.

David Lyons plays Vince Faraday, the framed cop who now dons THE CAPE to become THE CAPE, and he's really not very good. He's your typical everyman, who makes mistakes all too often, but it's okay because he's noble and righteous and pious and will kiss a baby on the cheek if asked. Too cookie cutter, too rigid.

The villain of the show is James Frain, who plays Peter Fleming, the business mogul who controls a privatized police force that's going to control the city. Hi "Kingpin", how are you? The funny thing about Fleming is that his villanous alter-ego is "Chess", who's meant to be a criminal mastermind. But too often "Chess" resorts to his one move of threatening the families of his underlings in order to get his way. In one scene, he's angered by a subordinate, and in order to put him back in line.... wait for it....

Pulls out a framed photo of the man's family.

A framed picture?!? You had to frame it? Is that your "checkmate" move? Did you just "castle"?

The CGI isn't overly used and is sparse enough to look cool when it's used, but there's nothing redeemable about the show. I feel bad, because this could've been something more than just "Hey, he fights crime! Here's his weapon, here's his team, here's his lair! Now.... story!" And it really does make the general audience who doesn't regularly read comics think that this is what we read. This is more the framwork of a potentially good comic, decompressed and ruined by hackneyed writing and poor TV talent.

The Cape makes me yearn for the days of The Tick... that there's some real writing.

JOHN REVIEWS DETECTIVE COMICS #872

Detective Comics #872 REVIEW

There's something to be said for writers new to a comic who play a slow hand. Too often we see new writers who get into "the sandbox", so to speak, and get an itchy trigger finger, piling on characters unnecessarily. I saw a little bit of that in David Finch's Batman: The Dark Knight, but even that wasn't too overplayed. Scott Snyder is delivering a 3-issue arc that not only slow plays the drama, but manages to put together a number of "sandbox" moments in a natural, unforced way. Sufficed to say, it's a pretty brilliant book.

In part 2 of the 3 issue "Black Mirror" arc, Grayson-Batman is digging deeper into the mysterious "Mirror House", an underground auction house of criminal and superhero items. As you can guess, it's put together by a cast of less than honest characters, but it does appear that they are new characters (always a tough feat in the packed ensemble of Gotham characters existing in the DCU). Along the way we get some answers to the unanswered deaths in the first issue, as well as meet up with Barbara Gordon/Oracle and Tim Drake. Snyder hits the nail on the head with his characters' voices, and the back-and-forth between Dick and Barbara is a perfect mix of natural humor and just-under-the-skin sexual tension. The Dick/Tim conversation, although only delegated to one page, succinctly captures the brotherly feel of these two. Hell, we even get a Batman/Bullock conversation (can you remember the last time??).

The second-feature of Gordon and his son wraps up the book, and it may be too slow for what it wants to acheive. We essentailly get a dineer conversation between Barbara and Jim, and although the dialogue is fresh and gives a better impression on the mystery behind Gordon's son, it's much too confined to be as mesmerizing as the first chapter.

I'd be kicking myself if I didn't mention that Jock's pencils have never looked better. Ever. There are Jock detractors who say that his angular look is too "stylish" and not consistent enough, and they're right to a certain extent. Jock sacrifices facial consistency to deliver mood and tone to the story. His Grayson face on page 4 doesn't really look like the face on page 5. But that's alright, when he keeps putting splash pages together like Batman nose-diving out of Oracle's spire. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone will say anything about Francesco Francavilla's art in the Gordon back-up except that this guy is going to be huge in the coming year. Since Francavillaa does his own pencils and coloring, you can't really tell where the pencils end and where the paint-like tones begin. It envokes a lot of Tim Sale memories, and that isn't a bad thing by any stretch.

All in all, we all know that part 2 of a 3-issue arc is usually story set-up for the big bang in the conclusion, but this issue is still successful in that respect. With Synder stating in interviews that he's been putting all of his focus into Detective Comics, you would think he would want to mash everything he could into the story. Synder's use of story over flash pays off in spades, and I for one am more than willing to wait for the conclusion to this debut story.

OVERALL: 9/10

John Reviews The Dark Knight #1

Batman: The Dark Knight #1 REVIEW
Review by John

Before picking up the debut issue of David Finch's Batman: The Dark Knight, I had been weighing my overall feelings on artists who write their own books. I've seen enough positives in the past year to not have as high of reservations as I initially imagined. J.H. Williams' Batwoman #0 showed a lot of promise and love for the character, and I personally have loved Tony Daniel's Batman run (with the obvious exception of the abysmal Battle for the Cowl). With Finch staying in the bat Universe, this book had all the makings of a success.

And y'know what? It's not half bad.

The story revolves around a childhood romance (at briefly insinuated one, at least) between Bruce Wayne and a new character, Dawn Golden. I'm not spoiling anything by saying that we've flash forwarded to the present and Dawn has gone missing, with Batman hot on the case. Finch delivers chance encounters with some lesser known characters in Gotham (one of which is delivered in a fantastic closing scene), and includes all the basic Batman checklist items required in a book such as this. Ornery Commissioner Gordon scene? Check. Batman beating on a random threat before getting into the real story? Check. Veiled threat lurking behind the scenes? You betcha.

With Finch's comments before the book's debut, stating he planned on keeping Batman's characterization "grim", he certainly delivers. Finch's take on the character seems to ignore the Zen-Master Batman that Grant Morrison has spent the better part of 6 years sculpting, so it is a bit of a shame to see our gruff, grumbling Batman again. But I'll admit it's still a guilty pleasure seeing Batman call a criminal "scum" as he grabs him by the shirt and pulls him eye-to-eye. Finch nails Commissioner Gordon's voice and has a solid read on the overall tone of Gotham, but the story itself is rather base. The beginning reminds me a lot of "Hush", with Batman's overactive deduction of a situation through internal monologue sparking memories of Jeph Loeb. The story itself, however, is a bit vanilla, and I really hope we see things amp up in the next issue.

Finch's pencils, combined with the always impressive Scott Williams on inks, is absoluely eye-popping. Finch packs a lot onto the page, and is refreshingly restrained with his splash pages. His hyper-realistic style would look very Ultimatum in the hands of a lesser inker, so the difference between Finch's early Marvel work and today is night and day.

Overall, another solid example of DC's artist/writer hybrids and a good start to one of two Bruce Wayne Batman books. But, with the impressive state of the current Bat Books, Finch is really going to have to turn up the volume on this series to stay in step with the competition.

OVERALL: 7/10