Batman: Detective
As lead writer of the popular 1990s animated TV series Batman, Dini was instrumental in restoring the character's noirish tone. Here he takes the reins of the comic-book Batman and rather than putting his own idiosyncratic stamp on the Caped Crusader, as Frank Miller and, more recently, Matt Wagner, did, simply turns in a complement of better-than-they-need-to-be tales spotlighting longtime series villains the Penguin, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, and, of course, the Joker. The artists of the various stories range from exemplary (Promethea's J. H. Williams III) to competent. Not groundbreaking, but eminently readable. Flagg, Gordon