Batman #20 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue confused me greatly.  It seemed so uncharacteristically chock full of logical inconsistencies and forced moments that I found myself assuming that it had to be me misunderstanding what Snyder wanted us to believe and not Snyder writing so poorly.  After all, Snyder wrote such tightly plotted stories for "Detective Comics" that I found it hard to believe that he could stumble so badly here.  However, I can't see anyway around coming to just that conclusion.

Clayface claims to have engineered the kidnapping of Bruce Wayne in order to draw out Batman, all so that he could touch Batman and learn his identity.  But, all he seemed to have to do was look in a mirror to learn Batman's identity.  When Clayface took on Bruce's appearance, he also took on his clothing, including the Batman costume.  The costume is clearly displayed throughout the chase sequence with the GCPD.  In fact, as he steps into the elevator at the end of the chase sequence, "Bruce" has buttoned up his shirt to hide the costume.  So, Clayface clearly looked at his chest at some point.  It seems like even Clayface could put two plus two together when discovering that Bruce Wayne is wearing a Batman costume under his street clothes

Beyond just this logical confusion, I was baffled by the inartful inclusion of Clayface taunting Batman over Damian.  I get where Snyder was going with this scene, but it felt really forced to me.  Does Clayface really care about rich people enough to hate them for failing to pay attention to their children?  It seems weird that he would even bring up Damian, since Clayface seems like the type of guy who cares little why the rich do what they do, so long as the keep the "little green streams" coming.  Claiming that he targets people like Bruce because they're insensitive rich people just seems uncharacteristically deep for Clayface.  In the end, it's clear that Snyder had to sacrifice characterization to work in some mention of Damian's death before plowing into "Year Zero," showing exactly my problem with the long arcs that have dominated this series.

I've been disappointed with this series for a while, but, man, this issue was just a new low for me.  Hopefully, "Year Zero" will go better, given that Snyder has had a while to focus on it.