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apageinthestacks's review against another edition
5.0
Greg Rucka is one of the most underrated Batman writers (and honestly comic writers period). His chapters in this truly shine and made this volume in particular incredible.
rouver's review against another edition
2.0
I believe I've decided that I really like Damion Scott's illustrations best. It's that perfect balance between realistic & cartoon. I enjoyed the storyline where Two-Face tries to put Comm. Gordon on trial for making a deal with, well...Two-Face himself.
This book & the last one finally gave some backstory to several characters that I knew nothing about, as well as telling the *beginning* of the No Man's Land story; specifically where Batman was when everything went to hell. It didn't really say WHY, other than perhaps he was sulking. I've got this feeling that's kind of something Batman does well & honestly, I don't have time for that. My girls do plenty of whining. I don't need self-pity in my superheroes.
Unless you're already a fan (and in which case, you've probably already read these), I'd skip them.
This book & the last one finally gave some backstory to several characters that I knew nothing about, as well as telling the *beginning* of the No Man's Land story; specifically where Batman was when everything went to hell. It didn't really say WHY, other than perhaps he was sulking. I've got this feeling that's kind of something Batman does well & honestly, I don't have time for that. My girls do plenty of whining. I don't need self-pity in my superheroes.
Unless you're already a fan (and in which case, you've probably already read these), I'd skip them.
thaliathemortician's review against another edition
2.0
I'm actually so mad that they retconned the single best storyline in comic history, Harley Quinn deserves better
thecommonswings's review
3.0
And as if failing to learn the messages from the previous volume, the closer we get to superheroics, the less the collection holds together. It’s messy, careless and the art is wildly variable. I admire how the editors have tried to create a variety of styles for these stories, but there’s a sense of knowing all are phoning it in when the Penguin becomes a caricature rather than the genuine threat of the early stories. It’s like all concerned are tired of the experiment and just want to go back to the old normal, which as we know from things like the New 52 is very much the problem with D.C. for me
cjordahl's review
3.0
I liked the overall story. There were some very good 4-star issues/chapters, and some really bad barely 2-star issues/chapters. And as always, I dislike the variegated artistic style and tone in these massive multi-title crossover collections. Different authors and artists are obviously a main cause, but also each book has it's own unique positioning with their target audience and whatnot. And so when you mash them all together the book doesn't cohere.
rhonig's review
3.0
While I enjoyed the No Man's Land books overall, and I thought the concept of No Man's Land was great, there were just too many superfluous issues in the books that didn't add anything meaningful to the main storyline. Especially bad were the Catwoman issues, which were a real chore to get through, and the decision to stick the final Robin issue (which wasn't terrible) right in the middle of the last main storyline. But there were certainly some great stories here. The storyline with Two-Face and Gordon's trial, and how not Batman, but Officer Montoya, mediated the disaster was great, and the issue with Gordon and Batman making up was absolutely wonderful. Overall, this was a good series of books broken up by a little too much extra material.
captwinghead's review
3.0
Easily the best part of this entire overlong arc. Rucka wrote the majority of this collection and that was definitely it's saving grace.
This is the conclusion to the No Man's Land arc. I certainly have no idea why it had to be so long. I'm reminded of the fact that recent events don't get nearly as much time because series just don't last as long as they used to. I often lament that fact, but this is the first arc that made me think shorter events might be the best choice. This event should've been 50 issues shorter. The same lessons were learned over and over again and with such bleak material, that just made reading this a sludgefest.
That being said, there were some highlights in this volume:
- No Man's Land #0: Ground Zero was the best issue in the entire arc. It tells of Bruce's first days when the National Guard closed Gotham down. You see him just after losing the fight in congress, encountering Talia (again, I don't get people saying Morrison ruined her - she really wasn't great here either), and him realizing Huntress has taken over as Batgirl. While I still do not understand why Huntress cares so much about earning Bruce's approval, this was the only issue where Bruce wasn't horrible towards her. This was also the only issue where Bruce really felt like a person. Why couldn't this have been the vibe throughout the entire arc?
- I enjoyed the final confrontation between Bruce and Commissioner Gordon. While I've hated 99% of what Gordon has done in this arc, I enjoyed the tension of that issue.
- I enjoyed Babs showing concern for Cass' wellbeing. She's the only person that seems to care (aside from that weird vibe later with her and Azrael and I hope they weren't trying to make that romantic because Cass is a teenager).
- Pretty par for the course that Luthor was the one responsible for the NML law getting repealed. I think it's meant to be implied that Lucious was working on it through legal means, rather than dirty press, but then the next issue says it was Luthor that did it. So, yes, this was an entire arc where the major great events were thanks to villains. I could've gotten behind this idea if there weren't so much of the Batfamily drama.
I'd read the conclusion with Joker and Sarah Gordon before in the Celebration of 75 Years of the Joker. That came with the added context of watching the Joker progress from a wacky clown poisoning Gotham's fish supply to a domestic abuser that beats children with crowbars, puts women in wheelchairs and takes naked photos of their bodies, kidnaps babies and kills women trying to protect them. I think we were supposed to glean that the Joker finally snapped after Batman kept sending in his allies to deal with him rather than giving Joker the attention he so desperately wanted. However, when you read all of the issues, it does seem a bit out of left field. Anyway, it's a sad conclusion but everything's sad in this arc so I didn't really feel much of anything. Sorry Sarah died for the same reason Babs was shot - for Gordon's pain.
I have mixed feelings about it taking ages for Huntress to realize that the crazy murderous cop maybe wasn't the best guy to rally behind. How many people did he gun down and force under his control before she realized something wasn't right? I also don't love that it takes her being shot 3 times, half dead lying in the snow for her to hear a "good job" from Bruce. This was strange... but also one of the only issues where she wasn't intolerable in this entire arc.
Catwoman's issues were so hard to look at that I skimmed them at best. After two seconds of the first page, all I saw were tits. And I say this as a bisexual, there were so many horribly drawn poses of Selina Kyle that I think I came out of this heterosexual. I'd never been so upset at seeing tits and ass before. She gets shot, the panel is drawn to show as much T&A as possible. She lands in the water and her tits float above the water. I can't express how gross this art was. Was there text? I do not know. All I saw were tits.
Anyway, as a whole, this entire arc is not a recommend from me. The few issues I enjoyed were not worth sludging through this entire arc. It's joyless, the heroes don't feel particularly heroic and I just kept seeing ways it could have been better. Maybe it's COVID, but I think if this had focused more on the heroes all starting out forcibly isolated from each other and showed us each of them helping civilians trapped in Gotham at the start, this would've been better. Instead, it was mostly Bruce being a bully, Gordon making horrible choices, Blue Lives Matter rhetoric, hatred of the poor, a few dashes of racism, executions, and some of the worst of 90s art I've seen in a long time. It was also way, way, wayyyyyyy too long.
This is the conclusion to the No Man's Land arc. I certainly have no idea why it had to be so long. I'm reminded of the fact that recent events don't get nearly as much time because series just don't last as long as they used to. I often lament that fact, but this is the first arc that made me think shorter events might be the best choice. This event should've been 50 issues shorter. The same lessons were learned over and over again and with such bleak material, that just made reading this a sludgefest.
That being said, there were some highlights in this volume:
- No Man's Land #0: Ground Zero was the best issue in the entire arc. It tells of Bruce's first days when the National Guard closed Gotham down. You see him just after losing the fight in congress, encountering Talia (again, I don't get people saying Morrison ruined her - she really wasn't great here either), and him realizing Huntress has taken over as Batgirl. While I still do not understand why Huntress cares so much about earning Bruce's approval, this was the only issue where Bruce wasn't horrible towards her. This was also the only issue where Bruce really felt like a person. Why couldn't this have been the vibe throughout the entire arc?
- I enjoyed the final confrontation between Bruce and Commissioner Gordon. While I've hated 99% of what Gordon has done in this arc, I enjoyed the tension of that issue.
- I enjoyed Babs showing concern for Cass' wellbeing. She's the only person that seems to care (aside from that weird vibe later with her and Azrael and I hope they weren't trying to make that romantic because Cass is a teenager).
- Pretty par for the course that Luthor was the one responsible for the NML law getting repealed. I think it's meant to be implied that Lucious was working on it through legal means, rather than dirty press, but then the next issue says it was Luthor that did it. So, yes, this was an entire arc where the major great events were thanks to villains. I could've gotten behind this idea if there weren't so much of the Batfamily drama.
I'd read the conclusion with Joker and Sarah Gordon before in the Celebration of 75 Years of the Joker. That came with the added context of watching the Joker progress from a wacky clown poisoning Gotham's fish supply to a domestic abuser that beats children with crowbars, puts women in wheelchairs and takes naked photos of their bodies, kidnaps babies and kills women trying to protect them. I think we were supposed to glean that the Joker finally snapped after Batman kept sending in his allies to deal with him rather than giving Joker the attention he so desperately wanted. However, when you read all of the issues, it does seem a bit out of left field. Anyway, it's a sad conclusion but everything's sad in this arc so I didn't really feel much of anything. Sorry Sarah died for the same reason Babs was shot - for Gordon's pain.
I have mixed feelings about it taking ages for Huntress to realize that the crazy murderous cop maybe wasn't the best guy to rally behind. How many people did he gun down and force under his control before she realized something wasn't right? I also don't love that it takes her being shot 3 times, half dead lying in the snow for her to hear a "good job" from Bruce. This was strange... but also one of the only issues where she wasn't intolerable in this entire arc.
Catwoman's issues were so hard to look at that I skimmed them at best. After two seconds of the first page, all I saw were tits. And I say this as a bisexual, there were so many horribly drawn poses of Selina Kyle that I think I came out of this heterosexual. I'd never been so upset at seeing tits and ass before. She gets shot, the panel is drawn to show as much T&A as possible. She lands in the water and her tits float above the water. I can't express how gross this art was. Was there text? I do not know. All I saw were tits.
Anyway, as a whole, this entire arc is not a recommend from me. The few issues I enjoyed were not worth sludging through this entire arc. It's joyless, the heroes don't feel particularly heroic and I just kept seeing ways it could have been better. Maybe it's COVID, but I think if this had focused more on the heroes all starting out forcibly isolated from each other and showed us each of them helping civilians trapped in Gotham at the start, this would've been better. Instead, it was mostly Bruce being a bully, Gordon making horrible choices, Blue Lives Matter rhetoric, hatred of the poor, a few dashes of racism, executions, and some of the worst of 90s art I've seen in a long time. It was also way, way, wayyyyyyy too long.
lavenderspark's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
All of the Bane stories were in the volume I read previously. However, this did finish up some of the storylines from the previous two volumes that I worried had been abandoned.
booknooknoggin's review against another edition
3.0
Didn't realize this was an omnibus and that was why it was so big. I had already read most of this in other volumes.