BATMAN #113 DC COMICS
Finally, Batman is starting to return to some semblence of order. With the world of Gotham completely off the deep end, the Batman returns and starts to throw down as he should. While we do delve into some unrealistic territory (a prototype electrical telepathy devise – really?), Simon Saint’s hopelessly flawed plan is completely coming undone, the pseudo OMAC army of the Magistrate (What? No one else saw that comparison?) are showing weaknesses for Batman to exploit, Peacekeeper-01 is on his way to a serious butt whooping, and the new Commisioner is starting to believe in the Batman. It appears that all this psychiatric blah-blah madness is finally ending even though we get a page or two detailing the theories behind the Fear State which made my head hurt and gave some psychopathic reader some interesting ideas. Here’s hoping that James Tynion IV’s storyline ends with the Scarecrow and his freaky button eyes (freaking Coraline!) gets trapped in a vat of super deluxe fear toxin and is found several days later trying to claw his face off. After so much “Next Big Thing” nonsence involving the Bat Family, this seems to be a step back in the right direction. I give it a 7 out of 10 Grahams. 
AQUAMAN THE BECOMING #1 DC COMICS
Since his early beginnings in the pages of More Fun Comics (1941) Aquaman has been one of those secondary characters who is constantly getting an upgrade usually accompanied with a new series or mini-series. And unfortunately, not all of them have been great. Who can forget the ridiculous blue suit or the time that piranahs ate his hand off?! And his time seems to be one of those times. While Brandon Thomas’s script starts off pretty well, it quickly begins to sputter out. I will admit that I have never been a fan of any version of Aqualad (I could tolerate Garth in the early days) and this hybrid of the cartoon Young Justice version of Aqualad is nothing great. What starts out as an interesting training session, quickly ends and turns into a slice of life piece with our new Aquaman in training interacting with the good townsfolk of Amnesty Bay. And while I can appreciate a cameo by the Human Flying Fish, all I can say is that if this turns out to be all a holographic training session within a holographic training session, I’m not going to be happy. Simply treading water … I give this a 4 out of 10 Grahams. 