I was excited to see Chip Zdarsky take over the reigns of Batman around the same time that Tini Howard took over Catwoman. I was neutral on her taking over the title. And while I was wildly disappointed by Zdarsky's time on the Batbooks, Howard's run on Catwoman has, so far, been a delight.

Howard's Catwoman is akin to Frank Miller's and Jeph Loeb's runs on Batman, in that it's all about crime families jockeying for position in Gotham while a chaos of masked heroes and villains battle around and within them.

Using a selection of 21st century classic villains and her own creations, Howard places Catwoman in the center of a Gotham gang war that involves homophobia, generational clashes, and misogyny. When Batman shows up, even he is a soldier of Catwoman, and not the other way around.

Howard has a great sense of the modern continuity, and makes the book both feel like her own thing, while also making it feel like part of the larger Batman story (hopefully ignoring most of Zdarsky's silly magic blah blah blah and killer robot stories, but playing with the Tom King and James Tynion eras).

The end seems like an homage to Brubaker's run on Daredevil. Brubaker, of course, being a pivotal Catwoman writer, himself.

There's a lot to love about this book, even though there's some weird pacing issues and story jumps in the last third or so of the book. I recommend it for all Batman and Catwoman fans, particularly those who enjoyed Tom King's run on Batman.

This was a solid, well-written noir about corruption in the GCPD and in the Wayne family two generations before Batman.

A massive trigger warning: this is a book written by a white guy about racism against Black people. It's clearly well-intentioned but, while he never uses hard slur words, there's dated language used to center the time the story is supposed to take place. Even though I think it was justified by the characters who used the terms (again, no hard slurs), it was still flinch-inducing.

Did the story, overall, make me appreciate the history of Gotham/the Wayne family more? Nope. It had some Easter eggs, and added to the Wayne lore but I don't think it enhances any other Batman story I've read.

If you're a fan of the more noir-flavored Batman, or of Gotham stories that barely feature Batman, or detective stories about racism and corruption, definitely check this out. Otherwise, this may not be the Gotham origin story you were hoping for.

This was a fun Harley Quinn story.

Finally moving on from the Hugo Strange angle, Harley ends up framed for murder by a new villain in Gotham, whom she dubs "Verdict". It's not a great mystery or superpowered foe, just a nice contained battle with a street level villain that builds off the previous storyarc but doesn't depend on the reader having read the previous storyarc. It's also a teamup with Batwoman.

This is a definite yes for anyone who loves Harley Quinn or brightly colored panel breaks with lots of caffeine-fueled, ADHD rants.

Volume one of Demon Slayer was a really focused, fun introduction to a character who loses most of his family to demons, only to discover his sister is now a demon.

It was well-paced, introduced new characters and fleshed them out really quickly. I loved it.

This book is a mess. The pacing is excruciating. Each page makes sense but on the next page you're at a completely different point in the story. The chapters don't have definitive beginnings or endings, they just start and stop arbitrarily.

This was a real letdown. I'm not sure I'll bother coming back to this series.

Even though I didn't particularly enjoy volume one, I decided to give it one more volume.

There's just not enough interesting characters of story developments in this series for me. There's a little too much "eat your vegetables kids" moments and not enough plot twists.

I'm glad I read this and Tokyo Ghoul at the same time, as part of a Manga Quest here on Pagebound, as I'm really enjoying Tokyo Ghoul, which has similar themes and a similar premise. It just has a lot more depth than Parasyte, so I'm going to switch back to that series and not return to this one.

I'm generally a fan of Chip Zdarsky. I like his sperhero work, even though it's often very dependent on another author's run on the same character. His Daredevil was an excellent expansion on the also excellent Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker's runs.

Whether you like this Batman run is probably dependent on whether or not you liked the absolute madness of Grant Morrison's run.

Personally, I prefer the more grounded Batman and family stories rather than magic nonsense. Reincarnation due to the Lazarus pits? Ok. Bruce Wayne cycling through life cycles because blah blah magic magic? Not so much for me.

Morrison reintroduced a zany 1950s Batman creation during his run. Zdarsky brings it back here. I don't enjoy the conceit. I also find the Amazo-tech Batman backup robot idea to be too silly. It creates a tonal dichotomy that doesn't work for me.

If you did like Morrison's run on Batman, I recommend this. It's definitely a spiritual successor with a bit more narrative clarity than Morrison usually provides. But only a bit more.

Personally, I'm not looking forward to the rest of Zdarsky's run if this is the direction he's going in. Fingers crossed there's some unexpected turn to make this story more grounded.