Surprisingly sedate. In a story with no super-powered foes, Batman is slowly worn down in a series of brutal Jason Bourne-type hand-to-hand combat fights as he tries to solve the latest vast conspiracy threatening to destroy Gotham City. The gimmick du jour is that he solves the individual crimes in the spree by putting himself into the mind of the victim instead of the usual mind-of-the-killer trope, but it really doesn't add much.

It was refreshing to have a Batman story set for a large chunk in Arkham that did not involve a mass break-out of his entire rogues gallery -- though there is still a giant fight scene in there. The banter between Batman and Alfred was given lots of time too, which was nice, even if sort of lukewarm. Most Commissioner Gordon scenes were good too, though one decision seemed very out of character.

But the climactic battle and the big "Huh?" induced by the final pages were so disappointing I just can't give this a thumb's up. ( )