Detective Comics #8 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

At first, I thought that this issue might be proof that Daniel is better at writing single-issue stories than multiple-issue arcs.  The premise is pretty decent, with Scarecrow using a hostage to send Batman on a few "errands" for him.  The first errand involves stopping Catwoman from stealing the anti-fear agent that Batman developed for the GCPD.  Bats learns from Catwoman that some guy named Digger Jones asked her to steal the agent and Jones in turn informs Batman that he was going to meet some guys who wanted to use his fighting dogs to run some experiments.  But, around the middle here, the wheels fall off the bus.  Instead of accomplishing the next errand, Batman finds Scarecrow, who confirms Batman's suspicion that he's actually trying to stop someone from developing a competing version of his fear toxin.  The first problem, however, is that Daniel never connects the anti-fear agent with the fear toxin.  I was confused at first and it's only upon re-reading the issue that I'm assuming that Scarecrow's competition wanted the agent just in case something went wrong with the experiments on the toxin.  But, again, Daniel doesn't say that explicitly, so you're suddenly wondering how Batman knew that Scarecrow had competition in the first place.  The second problem is that I don't know why Scarecrow just didn't send Batman after the competition.  Why send him to stop Catwoman and interrogate Digger if he knew exactly where the competition was developing the toxin?  The final problem is that everything really goes off the rails at the end, when we learn that the "competition" is Hugo Strange and his "son," Eli, introduced a few issues ago working for Catwoman.  We learn that Eli is a genius who graduated from college at ten and was working for the Pentagon at seventeen.  But, Daniel also seems to imply that he then killed his supervisors in two freak accidents two weeks apart and then appeared in Gotham a month later.  But, we're never given any reason for why he (presumably) snapped.  Moreover, Batman doesn't seem to care, dismissing Scarecrow's assertion that Eli was a victim, asserting that Gotham was the victim.  Once again, I finish a Daniel issue scratching my head, wondering what exactly I've read, and barely recognizing this totally compassionless Batman.