Oh it definitely is, but it also dismisses everything we knew about the previous Croc other than he's a strong guy with scales.  When the only thing that writers seem to think they have to get right about Croc is he's big, strong, and green, the character quickly devolves into a poor man's Lizard and canon fodder for the next big, strong guy to come around (in this case, Bane).  So while Batman 471 is a good issue, it also helps explain why everything which has followed has been forgettable.

This was the storyline that caused me to drop the Bat titles as a kid too. Contextually, this was the moment where Marvel was suddenly all the buzz, with the release of the Todd McFarlane Spider-Man title the previous summer, and X-Force and Infinity Gauntlet having just dropped a few months prior to this. Meanwhile, Denny O'Neil was giving us...this. Even the cover totally lacks eye appeal.



Short-sighted thinking, I'd wager. O'Neil had taken the books bi-weekly for the summer. He did this for the previous two years too, but then he had his key creative teams onboard and launched major multi-part storylines in both titles to correspond to the summer publishing schedule that people still remember today. Dixon and Lyle's "Shadow Box" should have kept that legacy going, but O'Neil counted too much on their marketability post-Robin limited series and not enough on their actual talent at this early point. As for how Louise Simonson ended up heading the 'Tec multipart arc, I can only speculate.

I'm not sure where Grant and Breyfogle are at this point -- getting a vacation, preparing for the launching of the Shadow of the Bat title (still eight months away), considering their options outside of working for Denny O'Neil? O'Neil mentions in the letter col of this issue that Grant has written a video game that has just come out, but I'd imagine his work for that project would have concluded months prior to this.

So, the Detective Comics creative void was created when Wolfman left (presumably due to a difference of opinion about how Tim Drake should be developed). Peter Milligan stepped in as a filler, but we're about to see him get hired on as a regular. And Grant and Breyfogle are about to get shuffled around yet again. I would argue O'Neil's weakness from Day One as editor has been how little value he's placed in his creative teams. He sees the big picture, the hype, the major storylines, but fails to care much about checking in with his actual creative teams and maintaining communication with them. Now he's allowed a void to last for entirely too long, caused by his need to push for Tim Drake without taking any of his creators' input into account (don't forget Grant and Breyfogle are pissed about Tim Drake too). So it's entirely possible O'Neil doesn't see a problem with what's happening right now. Hey, he gave us twice as much Batman and 'Tec for the summer, as well as multi-part storylines, right?

I agree with you. Most of the credit he's given is for stories that were co-credited to John Wagner. Grant claims Wagner didn't even help write most of those stories, but then why are they so much better? After Puppetmaster, Ratcatcher, and Cornelius Stirk, Wagner was off the credits and Grant didn't seem to have anything left to say.



See, I'm excited for the same reason that you are not -- NO ONE cares about or even seems to remember these stories. It's the great unknown. Any gem I find in this stretch will be big news, and everything else I can have fun mocking

Guess I’m the only one who loved Milligan’s “The Bomb” issue? May have been a bit contrived as to why Batman was in that situation, but I thought it was a phenomenal issue.

I'll add my voice to the growing chorus, this period was definitely a wasteland. After years of fairly consistent storytelling things got really uneven, really fast.

Though I don’t remember Infinity Gauntlet coming out at all, I do remember McFarlane madness over at Marvel (of course, Spidey is and always was my fave, but even I knew at the time that McFarlane’s Spidey was pretty watered-down stuff outside the nice art), and I remember X-Force #1 of course, and later, the insanity over Lee’s X-Men #1.

Funny enough, not long after this fallow period in Batman, DC came up with Knightfall which DID also take the fanboys by storm. But yeah, they lost the plot big time over the Bat-titles before that. I blame editorial for never nailing down a consistent team on Detective when Grant/Breyfogle left, or keeping one on the main book.

OK, "The Bomb" is one that I like. I didn't much like it when I first read it six or seven years ago, but I liked it this time around, even though it's not one of the issues I singled out for comment on the "Batsplaining" thread.