Still trying to clear out two weeks’ worth of comics as fast as I can. Today, let’s take on the Bat books.

Batwoman #5

Kate has a final tense confrontation with the Drowned Woman, the ghost who let her children drown and has been abducting children in Gotham. Though the Drowned Woman assaults her with memories of her lost twin sister, Kate is eventually able to trap the ghost in fire and dispell her. But before she disappears, she tells Batwoman that the lost children can be found in “Medusa’s coils.” But her investigation gets pulled up short when she gets a visit from Agent Cameron Chase and Director Bones of the Department of Extranormal Operations, and they want to offer Kate a deal…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Still the absolute most beautiful comic book on the stands. If I’ve got anything I’m disappointed in, it’s that Bette Kane’s story gets so completely shortchanged — she’s reduced to a nonspeaking cameo in a hospital bed, and I was hoping to see more from her.

Batgirl #5

Batgirl runs into a family of mobsters who are behaving very strangely, holding up cars and demanding exactly $3.88. Once Barbara intervenes, the dad of the family cold-heartedly kills his sons and tries to jump off a bridge. Babs manages to snag him with a rope, but she’s interrupted by a woman named Gretel who beats the stuffing out of her and then just strolls off like she’s got a drug buzz. Next time Batgirl catches up to Gretel, she’s got her sights set on Bruce Wayne — and she’s got an unexpected accomplice.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Gretel makes an interesting villain, the “338″ motif makes for an interesting mystery, and the whole story is good fun. Not a big fan of the subplot with Barbara’s mother, but maybe it’ll be interesting later.

Batman #5

The Dark Knight is in a heap o’ trouble. He’s lost somewhere underground, affected by mind-warping drugs and not enough food or water, and going through day after day after day of bizarre hallucination as he’s stalked by the Court of Owls. Can he survive with his mind intact? Can he survive at all?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A totally weird, wild comic. Just reading it makes you feel off-balance — probably because the comic flips on its side after a few pages, then turns completely upside-down. Great art from Greg Capullo and fun writing from Scott Snyder.

Today’s Cool Links:

• John Rozum has a long, depressing post about the experience of writing comics for DC. At this point, I think I’m rooting for DC to cease publication of everything…
• This short movie about a warbot with human memories makes me wish it was a heck of a lot longer than just five minutes.
• A TV station barred from filming in court turns to puppetry instead.

Well, everyone else is doing end-of-year best-of lists, so I reckon I will, too. What’s Newsweek magazine got that I ain’t got, right? I mean, the way magazine readership has been falling, there’s a decent chance that I’ve got more readers now. ZING! Oh, Newsweek, you know I kid ’cause I love.

Anyway, this is not a list of the very best of all comics. I haven’t read all comics. I haven’t even gotten close. This is my list of the comics I read that I enjoyed the most.

Also, I don’t think I could manage to say which of these is the best — so I’d rather just arrange them in alphabetical order.

So here we go: The 16 comics I enjoyed reading the most in 2011.

American Vampire

This series by Scott Snyder is still carrying the torch for serious vampiric horror with great characterization, boundless imagination, and really awesome bloodsuckers.

Atomic Robo

One of the best comics out there — this one packs in action, humor, and mindblowing science into something that is always fun. Fun cameos by the famous and infamous, and an incredibly cool lead character.

Avengers Academy

Thank goodness someone still remembers how to do a good teen comic. You can do teen angst without it turning into a bloodbath. This series combines a great concept with outstanding characterization.

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth

The most audaciously imaginative comic of the year, thanks to its seven-year-old writer. Loved the drama, loved the action, and laughed out loud at the humor.

Batgirl (pre-Reboot)

Stephanie Brown’s tenure as Batgirl was marked by great writing, excellent action, and a very strong sense of humor. Stephanie is still MIA in the new DC, unfortunately.

Batman comics by Scott Snyder

Whether it was on Detective Comics prior to the Reboot or on Batman afterwards, Snyder wrote some of the most engrossing tales of the Dark Knight.

Batman Inc.

Reading Grant Morrison’s Batman has been a treat for years, and it was fun to watch him create the new Batman megacorp.

Batwoman

J.H. Williams III’s writing has been fine, but his art is simply breathtaking. This was absolutely the most beautiful comic book on the stands in 2011.

Daredevil

Daredevil? I’ve never cared for Daredevil in my life. But this one is a blast. Writing and art are incredible. Humor, action, characterization — and again, fun. You can make a pretty good comic if you make it fun, ya know?

Dungeons & Dragons

Did anyone ever expect a D&D comic to be this good? Excellent dialogue, humor, action, drama, suspense — all while doing a pretty good job spotlighting the RPG it’s based on. Best fantasy comic of the year, right here.

Hellboy: The Fury

Mike Mignola has enjoyed another excellent year of comics, and I could’ve put almost any of his B.P.R.D. comics in here, but this one — Hellboy’s last hurrah — was really something special.

Knight and Squire

Paul Cornell’s miniseries focusing on London’s version of Batman and Robin was fun storytelling, along with a quick course in British pop culture. Excellent characters and adventures, and a wonderfully created setting.

Secret Six

Gail Simone’s awesomely epic series of supervillains occasionally doing the right thing had some of the funniest, saddest, most dramatic, most astounding moments in the comics world. Absolutely grand characters, too. Losing this series was one of DC’s biggest mistakes of the Reboot.

Supergirl (pre-Reboot)

After years of being the DC Universe’s version of the useless mallrat in a belly shirt, several creators finally realized they could make the character awesome by treating her more like a real person instead of an MTV stereotype. Yes, DC, character is everything!

Tiny Titans

The best all-ages comic on the market. Still can’t believe they’re going to let something this awesome go.

Xombi

One of the weirdest comics to come out this year. There was usually at least one really mind-blowingly weird thing in every single issue. Beautiful art, too, along with great writing and dialogue. It was a joy to read.

And one more little category? How ’bout Publisher of the Year? DC and Marvel are out — they’ve spent the past 12 months pandering to the worst in comics, cancelling great series, and randomly insulting their readers. IDW, Dark Horse, Red 5, Image, all the other independents came close, because they’re doing more of what good comics publishers should be doing — gunning for new readers, pushing the artistic and storytelling envelopes, making excellent comics.

But I think the Publisher of the Year is Archie Comics. What? But I don’t read any Archies! But Archie is doing even more than the other independents to push the creative and social envelope. They’ve gotten lots of publicity with their Archie marries Betty/Veronica comics, but they also had a great crossover with the Tiny Titans. And who would have ever imagined that staid, conservative Archie Comics would end up being the most progressive comics publisher — whitebread Archie Andrews has recently dated Valerie Brown, the African-American bass player from Josie and the Pussycats, and Kevin Keller, Archie’s first openly gay character, has become more popular and more prominent in the comics. Archie Comics is outpacing all the other independent publishers and rocketing past the Big Two in terms of how much they’re moving the comics industry forward.

So there we go — 16 grand, fun comics series. And I think I’d still have to declare 2011 one of the worst years for comics we’ve seen in a long time. Almost half my list is made up of comics that were cancelled, will be cancelled in the next few months, or are in continual danger of being cancelled. DC enjoyed a nice sales surge in the first few months of the Reboot, but the numbers on many of their series are already dropping back to more normal levels. And they spent months alienating and angering long-time fans in one public relations disaster after another. Not that Marvel has fared much better — they’ve been cancelling comics hand over fist. The independents have a better track record for producing good comics — but of course, they’ve also had more trouble getting those comics sold.

2011 has been an awful, terrifying, depressing year for comics fans. I’d like to tell you that I think 2012 is going to be better. But I don’t think I’d get my hopes up very high. No one’s learned any lessons from this year’s catastrophes, and I’m not even sure the Big Two are even capable of doing anything other than shooting themselves in the foot.

Let’s just hope the non-comics portions of 2012 will be better for all of us. Y’all stay safe, buckle up, call a cab if you need to.

Batman #4

I liked it. The Court of Owls is nice and creepy. The background on young Bruce Wayne’s first detective case is maybe a bit odd, but still enjoyable.

Dark Horse Presents #7

I liked it. Lots of good stories in this one, including a new Hellboy story with art by Mike Mignola, Howard Chaykin’s always enjoyable “Marked Man,” a tale of Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai, and the amusing and unexpected story of the barbarian hero Skulltar by M.J. Butler and Mark Wheatley.

The Amazing Spider-Man #676

I didn’t like it. Spidey never appears. It’s all the Sinister Six vs. the Intelligencia. And Doctor Octopus’ new costume is just awful.

Blue Beetle #4

I didn’t like it. I really kinda hated it. Remember what made the old Blue Beetle so much fun? Namely, you know, the fun? All that fun, the light touch, the great interplay with the supporting cast? None of it’s there. It’s just another bombastic, stupid DC comic book now.

Batman Inc.: Leviathan Strikes! #1

There is so much stuff going on in this comic, people. SO MUCH STUFF!

First things first: This is set before Flashpoint and before the DC Reboot! HUZZAH! It’s a Christmas miracle!

We get Stephanie Brown as Batgirl one more time, infiltrating a sinister finishing school where the students are trained to be assassins. We get Barbara Gordon as Oracle one more time, organizing all the Batmen all over the planet. We get Batman stuck in some kind of bizarre drug/time-travel hallucination as he tries to battle Otto Netz. We get betrayals and double-agents and sacrifices and mind-control and old friends and old enemies. And we find out who’s really running Leviathan. Is it Jezebel Jet? It’s Jezebel Jet, isn’t it?

Verdict: Thumbs up, people. Oh, mercy, just to see another glimpse of the pre-Reboot continuity. That alone is worth a thumbs up. Plus Stephanie Brown, Oracle, Dick Grayson as Batman, and a chance for even more next year? That’s solid gold, baby.

Daredevil #7

After the office Christmas party, Matt Murdock volunteers to escort some blind kids from a local school on a field trip. Unfortunately, there’s a crash in the middle of a blizzard, and Daredevil has to lead the kids to safety. Easy-peasy, right? Nope, all the snow messes with DD’s radar senses, and his injuries from the crash have got him in danger of bleeding out. Can a blind, injured superhero save a bunch of kids in a raging snowstorm when he has no idea where he is or where to find safe shelter?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely tense storytelling, beautiful art, fun dialogue, and an unexpected challenge for the Man without Fear. If nothing else, this comic is worth getting for Matt Murdock at a Christmas party wearing an “I’m Not Daredevil” sweater.

Wonder Woman #4

While Wonder Woman soothes herself from abandoning Themyscira by taking in a London rock show, the gods plot against her, and Hera herself prepares to revenge herself upon the Amazons.

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs up. Not a lot happening here, really. But I enjoyed the idea of Ares as an old man hanging out in war zones. And Diana hanging out in a headbangers club was pretty cool, too. If I’ve got a serious disappointment, it’s that Hippolyta may now be written out of the series, and that’s just way too early for that to happen.

Tiny Titans #47

Bumblebee attends a meeting of the Team Nucleus club and is looking forward to getting her Babysitting Patch. Mrs. Atom offers to help out, so they volunteer to take Damien, Jason Toddler, Kid Devil, Arthur Jr., and Miss Martian on a trip to Metropolis. Too bad that they lose all the kids in the city almost immediately! Can Bumblebee and Miss Martian round up the rest of the kids? Or will Bee have to do without her new patch?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Much humor and lunacy and cuteness all over the place here. Y’all know why I love this series already, okay?!

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s an Ogden Nash Christmas poem you can read to your kids, or to anyone else who likes silly poetry.
• And for you grownups, here’s a darker but still humorous Christmas story by Charles Stross.
• Kalinara ponders the lack of passion in the Rebooted DCU.

Avengers Academy #22

Someone has tried to kill Jocasta — and maybe succeeded — it’s hard to tell with a robot. Hank Pym isn’t making any headway in his investigation, beyond discovering traces of unidentifiable electromagnetic energy, but he realizes he needs to call in an expert. And that means Magneto and the rest of the X-Men are coming for a visit. Wait, Magneto is in the X-Men now? Yes, at least for now. Pietro definitely isn’t happy about Magneto paying them a visit — he and his father don’t get along anymore.

While Magneto and Quicksilver argue about all their many, many issues, Finesse gets uncharacteristically emotional and attacks the Master of Magnetism, soon involving Avengers Academy, the X-Men, and the rest of the Avengers in a big bench-clearing brawl. Emma Frost eventually calms everyone down telepathically, but the relationship between Magneto and his son is still strained, the mutants leave feeling not very trusted, and all Magneto is able to discover from Jocasta’s body is a large buildup of tachyon particles around her body, suggesting that her attacker was a time traveler…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another good issue — the mystery deepens almost without anyone noticing, thanks to the worlds of action, angst, intrigue, and chaos going on in the story. Great characterization of everyone — which is quite a feat, considering how many people there are in the cast of this issue…

Batman #3

The Dark Knight has figured out that the man in the owl costume who attacked him got into Wayne Tower through the underground rail lines that converge underneath the tower. He lays some smackdown on the gangs that control the traffic in the subways, but can’t find anyone who knows of the assassin. He doesn’t believe that the Court of Owls exists, other than as part of an old folk song, but everyone else seems to think they’re real, including Alfred and Lincoln March, the politician who was injured in the assassin’s attack. Lincoln tells Bruce Wayne that someone is watching him, someone who leaves owls in his home. Batman’s investigation soon leads to — of all things — the empty 13th floors of high-rise office buildings — and what he begins to find there is bizarre and more than a little scary.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very creepy story. I mean, there’s excellent action and detective stuff and everything you want from a good Batman story. But then there’s the creepy stuff — politicians muttering away in hospitals about all-powerful conspiracies, shadowy hidden headquarters filled with weapons and old photos of rich people wearing bizarre owl masks, secret societies that stretch back hundreds of years, all unsuspected by anyone — and what really gets left behind is how eerie and creepy and frightening this all is.

Batman #2

After nabbing some art thieves in a tense game of chicken between the Batmobile and a helicopter, Batman assists with the autopsy of the John Doe who’d been found tortured to death last issue. He seems to have some sort of connection to an organization called the Court of Owls, which Batman insists is just a legend. Nightwing reveals how his skin got under the dead man’s fingernails — the man had accosted Dick Grayson a week before with some sort of garbled warning, and the man had scratched him before security guards pulled him away. Later, Bruce meets with Lincoln March, a wealthy politician, and they’re both attacked by a man in an owl suit who stabs both men and kicks Bruce out of Wayne Tower? What chance does Bruce have to survive?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Crazy good writing, crazy good art, and a really fun, complex story. This might not be the best of the new rebooted comics, but it’s definitely in the top three.

Dungeons & Dragons #12

Adric Fell and his band of adventurers help fight off an attack of insect-like kruthiks on a wagon convoy, and dwarven paladin Khal discovers a letter from his girlfriend Danni. But Khal suspects that the letters have been forged, and he leads the group to his old dwarven home in the mountains. Turns out the stead is also under attack from kruthiks — in fact, they’ve got a infestation of the monsters. And most interestingly, Khal’s love poetry has made him a rock star among the dwarves. Unfortunately, Danni’s mother rules the place, and she hates Khal’s guts — the only thing that keeps her from having Khal killed is another attack from the kruthiks. Can everyone avoid getting killed somehow?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good grief, this series is fun. Great writing, dialogue, and plotting. Extremely fun art. Great characters, great action — this comic is just awesome.

Daredevil #4

Everyone at least suspects that Matt Murdock is Daredevil, so every time he steps into a courtroom, his case gets derailed and thrown out because people won’t stop talking about Daredevil. So Matt and Foggy Nelson are now working to coach people who have good cases but can’t afford a lawyer on how to represent themselves successfully in court. Of course, there’s still plenty for Daredevil to do, including fighting lions at the Bronx Zoo, beating up muggers in a diner, and rescuing kids from a tenement fire. But Matt’s new case is a wrongful-termination suit with a blind man, a translator who knows over two dozen languages who was fired numerous commendations after somehow running afoul of a couple of Latverian investors. Uh-oh, Latverians, huh?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Okay, the story is just great, but holy baloney, the artwork by Marcos Martin is just absolutely amazing. That’s all I can say about it — just amazing, beautiful artwork. The fight with the lions alone should be put up in a museum somewhere. That cover definitely deserves to be framed and admired.

Batman #1

Well, I loved Scott Snyder’s work when he was writing “Detective Comics,” so I figured I should follow him to see how he does in DC’s new Rebooted “Batman” series. So we get Batman facing off against nearly his entire rogues gallery — and getting helped out of the jam by the Joker?! We get Bruce Wayne and all his most trusted sidekicks visiting a big social event to sell the city’s movers and shakers on a rebuilt, improved Gotham City. And we get Batman visiting a gruesome crime scene to discover that the killer may be someone who’s very, very unexpected.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This might be the best of DC’s Rebooted comics so far, mostly because it doesn’t read like a series that’s been rebooted. Our cast of characters doesn’t change significantly (the Riddler gets a mohawk, and that’s about it), and Snyder gets to focus on writing a good Batman story. Greg Capullo’s art is fun — Gotham and Arkham’s villains are appropriately grungy, the details of the Batcave are grandly realized, and the action sequences are fantastic. Put this one on your pull list, gang.

Dark Horse Presents #4

This anthology series seems to be getting better and better. Besides a new episode of Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s enlessly awesome “Beasts of Burden,” we’re treated to new chapters of Howard Chaykin’s “Marked Man” series, Richard Delgado’s “Age of Reptiles,” Carla Speed McNeil’s “Finder: Third World,” Steve Niles and Christopher Mitten’s “Criminal Macabre,” Robert Love and David Walker’s “Number 13,” the wonderfully funny “Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy” by Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia, and much more.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Favorite stories? “Beasts of Burden,” of course. Loved the Dog Mendonca story. Chaykin’s “Marked Man” series is getting better by the second. And “Finder” is amazingly fun and entertaining. But I don’t believe there was a single bad story in this issue. That’s pretty good for an anthology comic.

Batman, Inc. #8

Bruce Wayne is hosting a bunch of business execs inside his newest creation: Internet 3.0, a virtual reality Internet that is super-duper awesome. But they all get attacked by cyber-robot-zombies. Luckily, Oracle, in her digital Batgirl avatar, along with a digital Batman avatar who Bruce Wayne is secretly controlling, show up to save the day. Can the heroes stop the bad guys, unmask the mastermind, and keep Internet 3.0 running properly?

Verdict: Thumbs down. This is really not a very good comic. The computer art by Scott Clark and Dave Beatty is astonishingly bad, and Grant Morrison’s story is about as random and half-assed as I’ve ever seen him do. People get randomly changed into dogs and babies, the backgrounds change constantly and distract terribly from any other characters, and a major story beat involves two of the execs falling in love with each other. I mean, hey, that’s nice, but why should anyone else care? This was lousy work, and it’s too bad that Oracle’s final appearance in the DCU is in this shoulda-been-aborted story.

Dungeons & Dragons #10

Adric Fell’s band of heroes are still trapped in the Feywild, and their only way home is to sneak into a forbidden city teeming with monsters and enemies to steal a book called the Guide of Gates. And their strategy is… to march up to the front gate and have Tisha the tiefling warlock announce that they’re here to steal the book? And lo and behold, it works, or at least it works better than anyone actually expected.

Meanwhile, Bree, the seriously ethics-free halfling rogue, is sneaking around the city causing worlds of havoc and making everyone think they’re being invaded by super-efficient assassins. But will her attempts to keep everyone distracted be enough to save the rest of her friends?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Art, dialogue, plot, and action are all plenty of fun. It’s nice to see Tisha and Bree get a good dose of spotlight time, too.

Detective Comics #881

The hunt is on for James Gordon, Jr., the son of Commissioner James Gordon. Jim Jr. is a psychopath, and he has been since he was a little boy. The Commissioner has discovered Jim’s collection of trophies — a box full of keys from the people he’s murdered. And the Commissioner and Babs Gordon have learned that Jim has managed to make his anti-psychotic medicine work backwards — instead of making him feel empathy, it strips empathy from people who take it. And he intends to add the drug into Gotham City’s baby formula, creating a generation of sociopaths. And on top of all that, he’s also managed to kidnap Barbara, who he’s hated since childhood because she was the only person who could tell he was insane. And he plans to kill her, too, slowly and bloodily.

As Batman tries to track them down, he gets a call from Jim, who had long ago figured out that Dick Grayson was now the man inside Batman’s cowl. He’s never been a fan of Dick, either, because he was the member of the Bat-family who had the most empathy for others. Can Dick save Barbara, stop Jim, and foil the plot to poison Gotham’s infants, all without compromising his principles?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a great final issue for this version of “Detective Comics,” with Scott Snyder and Jock providing a story that’s claustrophobic, deeply suspenseful, and action-packed. Jim Gordon winds up as an incredibly chilling villain as he describes his motives and plots — I don’t know if DC will be able to use him in future issues, but I hope they can bring him back — he’s too scary to leave behind.

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth – Monsters #2

Liz Sherman is temporarily without her pyrokinetic abilities and on the run from everyone. She’s been hiding out in a rednecky trailer park and impressing her no-good roommates with her ability to whup the tar out of anyone who pisses her off. But things go sour when she discovers that there’s a murderous cult hiding out inside the trailer court — and things get even worse when she finds out that the only people who aren’t in the cult are her two no-good roommates. Does Liz stand a chance against a horde of angry, semi-human cultists? Does she stand a chance when the cops think she’s the bad guy? And what’s the latest bad news coming out of the B.P.R.D. headquarters?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one isn’t quite as shocking as the previous issue — a whole trailer park of cultists ain’t nothing once you’ve had the dismembered hillbilly corpse dropped in your lap. But the action’s good, the dialogue is fun, and the art is awesome. It’s also cool to see what’s going on with the B.P.R.D. — they’re all watching England blow up, just like you saw if you read “Hellboy: The Fury” — and there is a big surprise for all of us on the last page, too…

Today’s Cool Links:

• The guys behind “Reed Gunther” have a great introduction for anyone interested in all-ages comics.
• I was kinda expecting this to be some generic “Superman should be dating Wonder Woman” wishfulfic. It was a lot more insightful than I was anticipating.
• I’m still reading Grant Morrison’s “Supergods” but I’ve been grooving on the idea of the superhero as the champion of optimism and opponent of nihilism. The blog post author and business pundit Dylan Ratigan specifically point out how this can be seen as a statement about how society, business, and politics should operate.

The Amazing Spider-Man #666

Six! Six Six! The Number of the Beast! Hell! And fire! Were spawned to be released!

Oh, wait, comic books. Okay, so it’s the long-promised beginning — or according to this issue, only the prelude — to the “Spider Island” storyarc, with vast numbers of people all over New York City suddenly getting Spider-Man’s powers. A lot of this story is background — and re-introducing Peter Parker and his supporting cast to new readers. The contagious spider-powers, by the way, come from genetically-modified bedbugs created by the Jackal. We get to see Spidey stopping bank robbers, foiling Hydro-Man with a little super-science, enraging current NYC mayor J. Jonah Jameson, working at his real job as a scientist, getting martial arts training from Shiang-Chi and Madame Web, hanging out with the Future Foundation and the Avengers, and just generally being vastly overworked.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I initially wasn’t real fond of it, ’cause I wanted to get into the “Spider Island” story, but I came around pretty quickly on how important it was to show off Spidey’s current supporting cast and personal problems. I try to stay up on comic book stuff, but wasn’t aware of most of the stuff happening in the Wall-Crawler’s comics. So instead of throwing us into a new story with a bunch of people we don’t know, we get an extra issue to get acquainted with who’s who and what’s what. Besides that, it’s well-written by Dan Slott and very entertainingly illustrated by Stefano Caselli.

Detective Comics #880

The Joker has broken out of Arkham Asylum, and Commissioner Jim Gordon desperately calls his ex-wife Barbara (not Oracle/Batgirl — Babs Gordon is, um, dangit, is Batgirl the daughter, niece, or adopted daughter of the Gordons? SO CONFUSING) because he’s concerned that the Joker may target her the way he’s so often targeted Gordon’s family members. Sure enough, his ex is ambushed, slashed, and dosed with Joker venom. While she recovers, Dick Grayson goes from investigating the crime in the lab to looking for the Joker as Batman, tracking him to Gotham City’s sewers. The Joker is able to tell that Dick isn’t “his” Batman, but reveals that he didn’t attack Barbara Gordon. So who did?

Verdict: Thumbs up. More wonderful, creepy Bat-storytelling from Scott Snyder and rough-edged, dirty, awesome artwork from Jock. Last issue didn’t feature Batman at all, with all the focus on Commissioner Gordon, but this one included more of a mix in emphasis between Gordon and the Dark Knight. I think it worked well.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Need to know if they’ve raised the debt ceiling? This website gives you the fastest and most direct news about it. I recommend it highly.
• John Seavey picks the best five Dr. Doom writers.
• Here’s a nice essay about the Muppets, post-Henson.
• This collection of photos of huge masses of books and bookshelves kinda makes me want to go out and buy a lot more books.