: (3 of 5cowls)

Hrm, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this cover. My biggest gripes have to be that it only very vaguely eludes to the story within, and the muted monochrome colors made me almost overlook it in the stands. This could have been helped with some kind of contrasting color on it somewhere, like the Detective Comics covers employ the yellow and black cowl logo. All in all it's a nice painting, though the flow of the sky and softness of the colors seems to be disturbed by the odd anime-esque spikiness of Nightwing's hair. I did, however, like the architectural pieces in the image, and the shattered bat signal in the sky, which would have been much more effective if it weren't so washed out but instead made the focus of the cover, as it says more about the story than anything else.

Story: (3 of 5 cowls)

Dixon usually does not disappoint, but I think the cross-over aspect of this issue distracted him from his normal focused writing. Chuck, either dive headlong into the cross-over, or skip it and continue with your current story thread. There was no real need to focus on Lockhaven at all in this issue, as most of the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" events have happened over 4 weeks real time compiled into about 4 days of book time. I would have liked to see more of the process of Dick getting in to see Bruce, and more with their conversation, and his conversation with Barbara. It also would not have hurt to have Dick (or anyone else for that matter) consider that Sasha Bordeaux was arrested with him, and that she and he were together that night. Ring, ring…clue phone. Hey Former Boy Wonder, did you ever consider maybe the person who is supposed to watch your boss 24/7 might know where he was and be able to give him an alibi? Sheesh! I was also sorely disappointed with Dixon's treatment of Amy Rohrbach in this issue. In all other issues she has been painted as a compassionate, good hearted woman who doesn't make snap judgments about people, as well as being a pretty good investigator in her own right. Are you telling me after being partnered with Grayson at least a year she has no idea he's Bruce Wayne's adopted son, or that at least he was raised as the man's ward? And she's going to be so cruel about her assessment of the crime based on a news story? Come on, that is insulting to the character's integrity. Other than those things, Dixon moves his own story along in a methodical manor, though I think much of its fluidity is hampered by the art (See below).

Artwork: (1 of 5 cowls)

Ok, I gave Trevor McCarthy a few issues to get more in synch with the character, and Dixon's storytelling, and to find his niche. Instead of improving however, he's gotten steadily worse. He seems caught somewhere between wanting to be Scott McDaniel and wanting to draw for the animated series, and ends up making everything look like a bad caricature of inconsistent character design and confusing layouts. His page 3 full page panel was promising, but his work deteriorated from there on out. I don't think it helps that his inker seems very heavy handed, and too much black in the panels obscures and confuses the action. Dick's look ranges from that of a deranged elf to a 50 year old man (sometimes on the same page--take page 12 panels 2 and 5 as an example). A few times he even looks more like a woman or maybe Michael Jackson (page 21, last panel) His exaggerated expressions only seem to work for Amygdala, who himself is a caricature of a man. For the rest it looks distorted, sloppy, and would make me hard pressed to put names to characters if I wasn't reading the book title. Please, please get a more experienced artist who shows some consistency on this title. I really miss Land and McDaniel who spoiled us all with their renditions of our hero.

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