I came to understand Bruce Wayne a bit better from this comic.  Because of his traumatic childhood, he wants to stop crime.  But only violent crime, he has no interest in white collar crime. Have we ever seen Batman tackle insider trading? No. Or embezzlement? No. He goes after thug criminals like the ones who attacked his parents.  And it not all violent crimes, he chases.  He goes after murders and thieves.  If you are burglar or a mugger, Batman will get you.  But assault or vandalism, you are Batman free.

In this issue Bruce Wayne is willing to take a financial risk in order to put people to work in Gotham.  At first I thought this was brilliant.  The only proven tactic to fight violent crime is job creation.  When unemployment goes down so usually does crime.  White collar crime goes up with a good economy, but people are too tired working, to do violent crimes.  So Bruce Wayne could do more to crime (the kind he hates) but cutting unemployment than he ever could by being a vigilante.

There was some cool dialogue in this issue.  The flustered Bruce calling the reporter different names. The ‘eyes up here’ line. The ‘nazi’ conversation between Gordon and Arkham.

There were some story elements that bugged me a bit, and maybe I’m being picky.  How did the tricksters get a direct line to Gordon?  Why would they hide in the trunk to get the surprise on Gordon?  What if he went rushing in and didn’t stop?  What if background noise drown out the trunk noise?  I know Bruce is buff, but he is rock climbing while he has stab wound stitches in his back?  And while I like the twisted villains, one of them is named Orifice?!  How many dictionary names do you have to go through before you settle on that?  I hope that name was given to him as a punishment, because if he chose that himself he has more problems than wearing other peoples skin.

A-    Mostly because it has demented monkey that clangs symbols together.