All-Star Batman #1

All-Star Batman #1Scott Snyder is certainly a glass half-empty kind of guy. All-Star Batman #1 puts Batman and Two-Face on the road. Desperate for a chance to cure Harvey Dent, Batman races to an undisclosed location while the criminal kingpin has put an offer out to everyone. If Two-Face isn’t rescued every piece of dirty and blackmail available to him will be released to the public. However, if someone should find and release Two-Face untold riches will be theirs.

All-Star Batman #1 offers a pretty bleak view of humanity where everyone from a cop to a waitress is willing to kill for the prize. Batman also has to deal with super-villains like Killer Moth, Firefly, and Black Spider. Snyder’s choice to make even Alfred culpable in such scheming leaves a pretty awful taste in my mouth.

One issue in it’s unclear whether, like Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman volume, the series is supposed to exist in its own continuity or not. One thing is clear, seams are the new pouches in terms of overused comic cliches. Seriously DC, I don’t need to see every damn seam highlighted in every super-hero’s costume. Pass.

[DC, $4.99]