Just finished this up, in the nick of time!
Which story was your favorite in each issue, and which had your favorite art? Were they the same?
Issue one, I would say my favorite story was probably “Head Games,” a solid mystery story, and Chris Samnee’s art in that story would have been the winner, were it not for the book also having Sean Murphy’s art. The story around Murphy’s art was okay, but Murphy’s was just great.
Issue two, I would go with “A Place In Between” for both writing and art. Like I said in an earlier post, part of me was a little bummed we didn’t get a full on “Batman in Hell” sort of story, which I can imagine being sort of like Doom but with batarangs instead of super shotguns, but the story we got was pretty cool.
Issue three I would definitely go with “Rule Number One” by Lee Bermejo. Great writing, and just God-tier art.
(And as an aside, “Role Models” is a close second, and to @JeepersItsTheJamags, considering that the stories where Harley and Ivy commit mass murder are all plum freakin’ awful, yes, I am perfectly willing to forget about them and pretend they never existed.)
For #4, I’ll go with Dustin Nguyen with “Long Night.” Nguyen is a great artist, but he surprised me with how solid his story was for someone who, from what I understand, has mostly only co-written the Lil’ Gotham series. As a close second in the art department, it was really interesting to see Kenneth Rocafort, who I normally associate with bright and colorful works of art, doing his thing in black and white. I don’t think it was his best work, but still really good.
#5, I think best overall was “Cat & Mouse.” It was a solid story about the kind of dumb mooks that try to take advantage of people in Gotham, and was really solid as a one and done. Art-wise, I think I liked Paulo Rivera’s work most, but the story to his art was…weird.
Finally, #6. I think I’ll say my favorite was “Bruce” by Olly Moss and Becky Cloonan. I thought it was a pretty interesting, unexplored part of the Batman mythos. We always see this from Bruce’s perspective, his using society girls as cover for his playboy persona, but it was really interesting to see it from their point of view, and how it’s really messed up when you think about it. From Bruce’s end, we always see these girls as a means to an end, but from their perspective, he really comes off as a serial ghoster and a grade-A creep. Really solid story, with Cloonan as usually delivering some excellent storytelling.
It’s funny, when I first opened up #6 and saw that Adam Hughes was writing and drawing a story, I immediately figured that would be my favorite story. But, while the art of it was, of course, impeccable, I’m not yet sure how I feel about how Hughes writes Catwoman in this story. I could get Selina manipulating things to get Bruce to bust some gangster heads while she steals all their stuff, but pretending to have been crippled, especially knowing Bruce’s history, knowing what happened to Barbara, and exploiting that? That’s horrifically out of character and needlessly cruel of Selina, I feel.
Which story was your overall favorite?
I think I’ll say overall “Rule Number One” by Lee Bermejo.
Which story had your least favorite art? If this story had been told with your favorite art style, do you think it could have changed your choice?
Well, first I’d say that I don’t think any of the art in this issue is inherently BAD, but some don’t appeal to me as much as the others, and the one that comes to mind is Sean “Cheeks” Galloway. As to whether changing the style would have made me like that story…I read this earlier today and I don’t remember what happened in his story, so…I’m probably going to go with “No.”
Given the short number of pages for each story, which writer delivered the most complete story?
I hope I’m not being too preferencial to it, but again, Lee Bermejo’s story felt rather complete and solid. Overall, I feel like most of the stories here felt pretty complete, didn’t really have any problems on that front with any of them on that front.