Batman, Two-Face Take Road Trip from Hell in ALL-STAR BATMAN

Scott Snyder (Best Comics Writer, 2016) pens the newest Bat-title to join the DC library -- ALL-STAR BATMAN, and the inaugural chapter is a real nail-biter.

Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face (or maybe it's the other way around) has been captured. The Dent side of the personality tells Batman that the Two-Face side is getting stronger, and that the only way to foil him is to take him to a mysterious house with which Two-Face and Batman (if not the reader) are already familiar. But there's a hitch: Two-Face has a system in place to control criminals through blackmail, and he believes that the everyday man is just a criminal waiting to be born. So he's put out a standing notice. If anybody can stop Batman and free Two-Face, he will give them all the money of the three time crime bosses of Gotham. Now the crime bosses are in to save themselves, every hired gun is out for the bounty, and Batman is straight out of people he can trust as even your everyday citizen is looking to get his hands on that kind of a prize.

The mysterious house is nearly five hundred miles away. At the end of this issue, Batman has travelled one.

It's going to be a long, long trip -- especially when there's seemingly a traitor within the Bat-Family itself in "My Own Worst Enemy." The art here by legendary John Romita Jr. is another reason why you should give this book a try.

Mysteries get deeper in the second feature of this book, drawn by Declan Shalvey, which finds Batman training his new sidekick, Duke. This one gets a little more bizarre, as it involves some sort of color-wheel that represents a condensed version of all of Batman's training. He's used it on all the sidekicks, including one who turned criminal -- and no, that's not Jason. Looks like the writers are planning on revealing an untold chapter of the Dark Knight's history as Duke learns to confront the worst that Gotham has to offer.

ALL-STAR BATMAN is a less obnoxious Batman as was the character in the the similary titled ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, so if you're expecting more of the G.D. Batman, that's not what this series is about.