OK, this issue is pretty amazing. It's the first time that you really get the scope of the story that Snyder and his partners are going to tell in this series, and it's exciting, to say the least.
This issue's biggest news is that Stephanie Brown enters the New 52! in real time here. I know little about Stephanie, so I had no idea what she was going to discover when she returns to her father's house unexpectedly because she left her "Q-Pad" there. Needless to say, it's a bit of a shock when she not only discovers that her father is the super-villain Cluemaster, but also that he's holding a pretty dodgy looking meeting with other super-villains in his kitchen. I'll say that the only part of this issue that I didn't fully understand was that the super-villains decided to kill Stephanie because she overheard their plans. I certainly get why they would want to kill her if she had overheard (after all, #supervillains), but I don't get why they thought that she had. After all, their mysterious leader knocked her unconscious almost immediately, making it unlikely that she heard much. However, she herself tells her mom in a voice-mail message that she knows their plans. It only seems possible that she does because the idiots left her "unconscious" on the floor while they schemed and she was clearly faking it. In that case, you'd have to wonder why the super-villains didn't just move her into the hallway. (Then, it would've more or less been Cluemaster's problem, since the only thing that she would've learned was his identity.) It would've been nice for Snyder, Tynion, and Fabok to make it a little clearer that Stephanie heard something, rather than just telling us that she did. (Also, to complicate matters, we're told that she saw the mysterious leader's face, despite the fact that he knocked her unconscious from behind.) That said, I'm willing to take it more or less on faith. After all, Snyder and Tynion use this scene to remind us why Batman had to go find Stephanie in "Batman" #28, since she's the only one that knows the mysterious leader's plans. I'll just have to buy that some stuff happened off-camera, if you will.
On the mysterious leader, it seems likely that he's not Falcone, or Snyder and Tynion would've revealed him. At this stage, it's unclear if the leader is the one manipulating events (which he may be, given his comment about "building the Gotham that will allow myself and my associates to rise up and take power"), or if he simply knows who is manipulating events and plans on using that knowledge to emerge a winner. But, just this quandary conveys the message that Snyder and Tynion want conveyed, that multiple people are playing a long game and it's unclear how much everyone knows about everyone else's agendas and plans.
Also, I'd wrap up the Stephanie section of this review by noting that Stephanie's father seems unmoved as he goes to kill her. I'm not sure if he really meant such disinterest or not. They seem to have a loving relationship before that moment, so I'm wondering if he was faking it to save face in front of the other villains. I guess that we'll have to wait to see how their relationship develops.
Moving onto the GCPD, Maj. Forbes tells Mayor Hady and Falcone that he has absolutely no problem ignoring the coming gang war, recalling the days when cops were kings of Gotham. In a move that should've surprised no one, Hady appoints Forbes interim Commissioner, and Forbes re-directs police resources from Falcone's coordinated hits on the Penguin's criminal empire to a war on Batman. (Bullock and Sawyer are shocked, though I don't understand how they could be that naive to think that a good cop like Sawyer was going to get the nod.) Meanwhile, the new kid, Jason, talks to Jim, expressing hope that Batman is going to have him free soon. It's likely no accident that Fabok portrays Jason as a younger version of Jim, making it all the more seamless that he embraces Batman in much the same way that Jim does.
Finally, I'm not 100 percent sure why Batman went after the Penguin to get to Falcone, given that the Penguin seemed to play a role in ousting Falcone from Gotham five years earlier. It seems to unnecessarily tip off the Penguin, giving him time to prepare for the gang war that Batman has to know is coming. But, the scene in the Batcave shows Bruce desperate, so maybe it makes sense. Alfred found no traces of a toxin in Gordon's blood, calling into question Bruce's hypothesis that he was under some sort of mind control. Moreover, we still don't have an answer to why the guy that Gordon shot -- one of Falcone's men -- was working for Pyg. I have to say that this plot is still the most tedious, since I'm just waiting for some sign that the general public is aware of the fact that two trains speeding at one another was a bad thing, even without Jim shooting out the electricity box. But, Snyder and Tynion are starting to use it to show effectively how clever (or, at least, in control) whoever it is that set up Gordon is, so I guess that I can tolerate it for a few more issues. (That said, Stephanie invoking Gordon's image at the start of the issue when referring to the possibility that a villain is going to attack her on her walk to her father's house felt a little OTT to me. At best, Jim is responsible for causing an enormous accident, so everyone treating him like some sort of crazed serial-killer just doesn't make any sense, particular given the aforementioned evidence that it wasn't him. But, I digress.)
At this stage, I almost feel like I need to start keeping a list of questions to be answered, given how quickly Snyder and Tynion are raising them. They're really using this weekly format well, contributing a real sense of drama as the story picks up steam week after week. It gives you the feeling of being part of something, like reading a serialized novel in an 18th-century newspaper. If they can keep up that feeling without seemingly creating unreasonable obstacle to resolving issues just to drag out the story, we're going to have a good time.
**** (four of five stars)
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