When I was visiting Bremen, I've encountered some cool comic-book-stores and I had to buy something (in my town there's only one and the us-comics are ordered only by request). So I went with this mini-series.

Love the cover-artworks. Also the flashbacks with Penguin's disturbing childhood. Letting Batman only appaer as a side-character was also an interesting choice. But the overall-storyline is quite a let down. There's some solid ground for a good, tragic story but the conclusion seems hasty and lost in some weird BIRDS and robot-stuff. In addition, some panels are that dark, that I could only guess what's happening on these ones.

Overall, not a mispurchasing, but the beginning promised me more. Wouldn't recommend it.

_________________

I had heard good things about that series. The concept sounded pretty cool...sad to hear the execution left something to be desired.

_________________

I have sort of agree with Bob: the conclusion didn't really live up to the rest of the story. A bit of shame. The flash-back scenes of the Penguin's childhood were really well done, and those, along with his growing relationship with Cassandra, helped to show that even though he was evil and insane, he was also extremely lonely and vulnerable - inside he was still that same hurt, abused little boy from the early scenes.

Overall I'd give it 4/5 - if the ending had been better it would have been an easy 5. Oh, and the Joker cameos were brilliant!

One detail which bothered me the most, was Penguin's plan to build that giant bird-lure-rocket for terrorizing the city because in that way he'd leave no fingerprints or traceable evidence. That was one of the dumbest explanations I've ever read in a comic book, at least it's 60's quality of writing. I would give the flashbacks and built-up also a 4/5 but the conclusion's heading to a 1/5. Quite a shame. As if they switched writers in mid-process. Or they didn't know what to do with their strong premise and just wrote it anyway.


True.

_________________