Batman # 617

This is the latest chapter of the "Hush" storyline, which sees Batman opening himself up to Catwoman even as he hunts for a mysterious foe who is using old Bat-rogues to go after him.

It opens with a rather unsatisfying fight between Robin and Catwoman in the Bat-cave. An angry Catwoman then races off on a Bat-cycle, only to encounter the Huntress. The Scarecrow pops up but is routinely disposed of, after which we get the shock revelation we have all been expecting.

Loeb spins an interesting tale that manages to bring in all the members of the Bat-family and confrontations with most major Bat-foes. This issue is less cluttered than the past ones since we don't have to deal with Superman and his cast of characters as well. Some action sequences seem to begin and end so abruptly but the story moves so quickly you don't really notice this.

One thing that is getting tired is Loeb's use of Batman as a first person narrator. It is one thing to see Batman's thoughts in little balloons, another thing to listen to his internal dialogue constantly, especially when the narration sounds like an attempt to sound poignant. The lines where Batman compares Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake seemingly suggest that he doesn't think very highly of the first two. If Batman wasn't virtually telling the story, such a line wouldn't even be necessary.

The Scarecrow is again depicted as a gibbering maniac, which isn't as scarey as he used to. It doesn't help that Batman beats Jonathan Crane by simply shrugging off his fear gas. How formidable is this guy supposed to be when Batman always overcomes his best gimmick by simple force of will?

The real attraction of this book has been Jim Lee's art. Frankly, I haven't considered his work on this series as among his best. He takes some sheen off and puts Batman in an appropriately gloomy, dark world but as happens so often with these new hot artists, it can still be a bit hard to understand what is going on in each panel, especially with all the shadows and the similarly-colored characters tumbling around each other.

One scene is shows the Huntress in her new peekaboo costume, fighting a hallucination of herself in her old costume. Seeing the new costume beside the old one, you realize just how much better the old one was.