Batman - Detective Comics Vol. 2

As with the first volume, this is another volume of really disconnected stories that don't seem to have a coherent narrative among them other than "Batman good, fight bad men." This is a shame because it starts with what could easily be one of the most interesting discussions about Batman and could've easily set up a way for him to come to a reckoning. (Honestly, the book references 'Meghan and Harry's Wedding', so this set of comics is recent enough to come to terms with a billionaire playboy buying fancy toys and being a pretend cop when he could be giving his money to the city to invest. In the form of taxes.)

The character I'm referring to is Arkham Knight, and she starts off the conversation about how Batman is actually... not as good as he seems. And I think this is a cool point to check out, especially since Batman keeps institutionalising people (and that institution, much like real institutions, doesn't help anyone).

Instead, she's a villain working with other villains because she mistakenly thinks Batman killed her mother (when it was another villain who just used Batman's weapons, erm...). I feel like so many of the writers for Batman, especially in the present iterations, just side-step what could actually be interesting conversations to have? And so the stories are boring and fall flat.

Maybe Batman should take at least one page out of the changes made by the Mask of Zorro: Zorro stops being billionaire playboy and passes the mask to an Every Man Character to take his place.