A review by rhganci
Batman: Fear Itself by Steven-Elliot Altman, Michael Reaves

2.0

I was really enjoying this book, its clever allusions to various horror fiction, some very nicely-written scenes that explored the dynamics between characters, and I had some pretty high expectations for the last 40 pages when all of the sudden, from nowhere, two gelatinous blobs that the Scarecrow somehow rounded up and “programmed” with internal computers to kill an interesting character. It shattered my conception of the book, its connection with Batman Begins, and it became a poorly drawn and badly written issue of the comic book. The climax was way too Batman Forever with the Scarecrow’s “lair” set up in what was a pretty cool characterization piece for Grey Berwald. Maggie Tolleyer was very much an interesting character, but I kept picturing her with very mannish hair and not a whole lot of feminine charm, which threw off my understanding of her attractiveness to Grey and to Bruce Wayne. The prologue and the scene between Gordon and Batman in the Batmobile were two excellent scenes that explored some cool aspects of the characters, but the climax just buried this book.