Batman #686

I'm about to commit comic blasphemy. I didn't think this issue was that great. Sure, Neil Gaiman has a nice turn of phrase here and there... "It ended how you'd think it would. He died." Gaiman writes what is essentially an Elseworlds story here. He's having characters take turns talking about how Batman could have died, not necessarily how he did. The versions of characters telling the tales are not the in-continuity versions in any case, we've got some mixing of pre-Crisis and post-Crisis going on, leaving me a little confused. I don't have a problem with this kind of thing, but wasn't this billed as the cap on the modern Batman story? I expected something other than an Elseworlds, I guess. Again, I feel like I've been misled by the DC marketing machine, since this would probably be fine as a one-shot or out-of-continuity annual, but as issue 686 of Batman following issue 685 (which followed on RIP and Final Crisis) I don't see how this really continues the story at all.

Andy Kubert's art is great, too bad he's so slow. His take on Catwoman is awesome in that pre-Crisis costume.

Fair