Detective Comics #3

Title: Detective Comics
Issue: 3
Date: January 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Tony Salvador Daniel
Penciler: Tony Salvador Daniel
Inker: Sandu Florea
Colorist: Tomeu Morey
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Katie Kubert, Janelle Asselin, Mike Marts
Cover: Tony Salvador Daniel, Tomeu Morey

The Batman has to do battle with Dollmaker's "family" while fighting the effects of a paralyzing drug, and that's just the start of things in an issue that was pretty heavy on violence and mayhem.

Unfortunately, it's all a bit too much, and writer/artist Tony Salvador Daniel resorts to bad cliches like cannibal serial killers and evil kids all while ratcheting up the violence including a purposeless beatdown/torture session by the Batman on one of Dollmaker's surgically-altered minions that went on for two pages. And of course, another Gotham cop killed. Just put them in red Star Trek uniforms and be done with it, already.

Jim Gordon is pretty much the only bright spot in this. He's a captive of the Dollmaker and actually displays some reasonable intelligence as he deals with his situation.

We end pretty much back where we started, with the Batman brawling with more surgically altered minions and the promise of more "shocking" medical horrors to come.

I'll be shocked if I end up reading much more of this title the way things are going.

Rating; 4/10