The sun is rising across the United States, and at retailers everywhere you can finally purchase the standard edition PS Vita. A large group of gamers have already gotten their grubby mitts on the first edition bundle a short week ago. Should you pick one up today? Is it worth the price tag? Read on to find out.

My first impression with the system will always be that it is quite large. The 5″ display is nestled between dual analogue sticks, a d-pad, and the standard circle, square, x and triangle buttons. It’s about 1/8 or 1/4″ thicker than the PSP 3000 and weighs a bit more.

The weight is a direct result of the amount of hardware included.The front and back touch screen, quad-core processor, and advanced video processing make for a beefy unit. The back touch screen is being thrown around by Sony as a “game changer” or rather one of the systems pieces that make it a game changer. Depending on which game utilized it I found it to be more of a gimmick than anything.

Whether stroking the back to help Drake climb a rope, or tapping the back to push a robot off a cliff in Little Deviants the current utilization seemed a touch forced. Little Deviants used it in a creative way, and Uncharted utilized it in a non-obstrusive way, but I found myself using the analog stick to perform the same tasks with a touch more comfort.

Display:The display is gorgeous and the capabilities of the handheld are mind bending. The games are all visually stunning. Uncharted looks so close to a PS3 title I found myself wondering whether I’d ever turn on the console again. Everything was crisp, the water and lighting effects were rendering perfectly with no delay, and even the distance the games were rendering was up to snuff.

Touch Screen and OS: The touch screen is quick and responsive and the operating system on the console is a stroke of genius. The bubbly interface wouldn’t be my first choice for icons, however, the way it differentiates items to be launched and what’s currently running is perfect. The flawless multitasking is something to be envied by the mobile and pc industry alike. The Web-OS style cards, that are simply peeled away to close is another design stroke of genius. At any given point I’ll have 3-4 items running in the background and a game running. Generally I would leave NEAR, the Playstation Store, Maps, and any of the games I’ve been playing recently and the system runs as if nothing has changed. Jumping in-between a game and an app is simple and fast. Press home, slide to the app you wish to load, tap it and, voila app loaded.

Bluetooth: I’ll touch quickly on the bluetooth integration for the Vita. It’s amazing, there I said it. Full a2dp support allows you to pair any bluetooth device such as your Jambox, or any headset for that matter, and utilize it for in game chat during multiplayer or to simply give yourself a better sound experience. Jawbone LiveAudio and Uncharted: Golden Abyss = handheld bliss, just saying.

3G: Im a huge proponent of having data wherever, why ever, however. I can’t figure out tho, why spending monthly money to have data on this one is worth it. If you don’t have a smart phone or tablet, it makes total sense to have the Vita with you for maps and other application utilization. If you have a smart phone, then the need to utilize the 3g portion of the Vita goes away almost entirely. I have loved not worrying about WiFi when searching for a nearby person or quickly looking something up, but realistically I could get by without the data plan. Setting up the data plan through the device also lead to a huge headache, after 3 attempts I finally moved to my laptop and set the connection up through At&t’s main site. I realize that using the early access bundle not everything was ready for the full launch. But AT&T and Sony should have had their information together for the mobile site to ensure that the device was a quick set up. Once it was configured the data ran beautifully, it was simply the set up stage that caused tears of frustration.

The Price: You’re paying a bit of geek tax to purchase this guy on day one, and it’s worth it. The amount of hardware put into Sony’s latest handheld makes the value proposition very strong. The amount of titles available at launch also put forward a tempting proposition. You can walk into the store to pick up your handheld and leave with Uncharted, ModNation Racers and, Hot Shots Golf to provide yourself with hours of game play opportunities.

Battery Life: As with any device dedicated to gaming, the battery life is a tough battle. The 2100 mAh battery does a good job at keeping the system alive for about 4 hours of gameplay. My only complains are based on the lack of warning that you’re running low, and if the system powers down due to battery drain, it doesn’t give you a message or heads up at all. The screen goes black, and causes you to panic ever so slightly. When recharging it generally takes 30 minutes of sitting on the charger untouched before the unit will find life again.

Application Availability
This is probably the biggest frustration I had with the console itself. When shopping for Vita software in the Playstation Store, I found it frustrating how many items simply said, “not Vita compatible.” I understand that it is a different genre of code, and the game has to be built for use on the console, but I had hoped that Sony and developers would prepare for launch by making some of the SEN titles easily transferrable. On a positive note, I love that a huge chunk of the PSP releases are available in the Store for download, and will play on your Vita. I also hope to see growth in the “App” section of the Playstation Store. Currently the only application you can purchase for the Vita is the extended service plans of varying lengths, LiveTweet (thank god they released this, I was going to write an entire section bitching about the lack of twitter integration.) Flickr, and Netflix. These are 3 very important pieces of the application puzzle, but I hope to see more come. I’m impressed with how fast a Netflix application was brought to the handheld. This section has a bright future.

Summary:

Pros:

• Gorgeous display, beautiful graphics
• Quick and simple multi-tasking
• Easy access to the Playstation Store
• Well designed “mobile” version of the Playstation Store
• Quick development for applications seems to be bringing, “must have” apps to the store
• Bluetooth Integration all around is stellar
• Near Integration — People are actually using it!!!
• Great list of launch titles, and a bright future of more software releasing quickly

Cons:

• Rough 3g setup through the device
• No warning on battery drain shut down
• Wait time on charging when battery is fully drained
• small list of apps currently available in the store
• The Sony web browser is still clunky, I don’t know when they’ll get that running smoothly

Should you buy one? I say yes, this is the strongest handheld launch I’ve seen Sony do yet. There are actually titles for this one worth playing Hot Shots and many others will keep you grinding away for hours, while Uncharted gives you the blockbuster play you need. This system is worth the investment in this robots eyes.

For me, DC/WB Animation’s direct-to-video series has been incredibly hit or miss. Even the ones I like tend to be compared to the original comic stories they were based on unfavorably. When I heard about Justice League: Doom, I was going in expecting another fair to middling comic adaptation. Boy, was I wrong. Let me just say that if you’re on the fence about grabbing this flick, GET IT! As to why I think this is an insta-buy, read on.

The premise of JL: Doom is that Batman, being the über-prepared guy he is, has a series of countermeasures to be used if his fellow Justice Leaguers ever go rogue just sitting on the Bat-Computer. Now, what do you think would happen if someone without the Dark Knight’s altruism got their hands on them? If you’re thinking a bad day for the JLA, you don’t know the half of it! JL: Doom is adapted from writer Mark Waid’s  JLA #43-46 Tower of Babel arc, originally published in the year 2000. Adapting the story for the screen is the late Dwayne McDuffie. The man knows how to bring superheroes to the screen, based on previous experience on the JLU animated show as well as past DC DTV’s. In fact, the biggest strengths JL: Doom has going for it is that while it takes the major story beats from Tower of Babel, it isn’t a slave to it. McDuffie throws stuff out that works on the printed page, but wouldn’t translate to the screen. Simultaneously even if you know nothing about the League, the film’s opening scene gives you a basic understanding of all of the characters.

The opening fight introduces you to the JLA nicely.

One of the most refreshing, yet possibly controversial changes in JL: Doom is that the villains are completely different from the source material. In the movie this works because each villain is the opposite number of a hero. It’s a kind of storytelling shorthand that lets the movie jump straight to the action in the limited time it has, rather than the months long story the original told. For those who remember the original story, Ra’s Al Ghul has been replaced by the immortal Vandal Savage. The motivation behind the plot remains the same, which is slightly irksome as it’s definitely a Ra’s plan. I forgave this, as it is changed enough to fit Savage as well.

Of course when you have a cast so large, it is a bit difficult to focus on all of the personalities present. McDuffie does manage to give everyone a shining moment, including the unexpected appearance of Cyborg, but since this is essentially a Batman story guest-starring the JLA, your mileage may vary in regards to if your favorite character gets enough screen time. That being said, besides Batman, the character I actually connected to the most in the film was Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, which surprised the heck out of me. In most incarnations, Hal is presented as a cocky jerk who has overconfidence that’s only matched my his willpower. In JL: Doom however, Hal’s attitude is clearly shown to be due to his absolute lack of fear. That makes his bat-planned takedown all the more poignant when he shows his nobility. I won’t go into spoilers, as it needs to be experienced first hand. I will say that it is just another reason why it’s so sad we lost McDuffie and his vast talents. This is a Green Lantern that I would gladly read/watch/pay 10 bucks at the theater for. It doesn’t hurt that this Hal actually uses his ring to make things other than guns.

"The cat's in its cradle, Star Sapphire!"

In the film, the JLA is of course triumphant, but it’s the journey here that is important, not the destination. In JL: Doom, the League feels like a team of true equals that play to each other’s strengths. It’s hard to explain in words, but the action just flows. One aspect that brings this story to legendary status is that once the threat is over, there are still things to resolve. Namely, Batman’s paranoia getting the League into this mess to begin with. Again, no spoilers here, but it’s handled very well, with the Leaguers and especially Batman discussing their viewpoints in a manner that doesn’t come off as preachy or forced at all. It may not sound very compelling, but trust me it’s one of the strongest moments in the film when Batman refuses to back down when faced by his accusers.

Don't look now, but I think Bats just got hit on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

When it comes to the production side of things, the voice direction by Andrea Romano is top-notch as always. It helps that most of the cast have played these characters before. It was nice to hear Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy reprise their roles as the World’s Finest team. Michael Rosenbaum as the Flash is a nice touch as well, though it is a little jarring once you realize he’s playing Barry Allen rather than Wally West, but he adjusts his performance accordingly. Nathan Fillion is my favorite Green Lantern voice actor and his acting made the aforementioned scenes what they were. If he can bring half of the game he brings in this movie to the CGI GL animated series, it’ll be the best show on TV.

Animation wise, JL: Doom uses the same character designs as the previous Justice League film, Crisis on Two Earths. The villains are completely new designs however, and they work very well, although Star Sapphire has a softness to her at times that is very anime-esque. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but I felt her in-costume look didn’t match up as well as the other baddies. Otheer than that, the visuals are beautiful, the color palette seems toned down a bit from the previous film. The tell-tale sign is the baby blue of Superman’s uniform. I think it’s works much better than the darker hues WB animation has used for Supes up to this point. The opening credits are an inspired sequence of the contingency files on the Bat-Computer and sets up the premise of the film without the aid of dialogue.

My bottom line is Justice League: Doom is a day one purchase. Whereas I was content to wait for the older DC DTV’s to hit the discount bins, I was happy to pay full price for this one, and I suggest you do so as well, be it on Blu-Ray, DVD, or Digital Download.

A few weeks ago a jewel of nostalgia came to the Xbox Live Arcade and the Sony Entertainment Network in the form of the Simpsons Arcade game. For those of you too young to remember, this was one of the rare four player coop machines. I spent quite a few quarters back in the day playing this with my brother and any 2 other kids that would try their hand at it.

The story for the game is pretty simple, Smithers robs a jewelry store and runs into the Simpsons family. In turn a large diamond falls into Maggie’s mouth as a pacifier and Smithers takes her instead, it’s now up to the family to save her. You can play as any member of the family; and each member has their weapon of choice, there is minimal difference, it’s really just a change in skins. Other than the joystick only two buttons are used, jump and attack, simple enough. It’s pretty much a hack-and-slash all the way through fighting mostly common henchmen in suits, and a boss fight at the end of each level. Working your way through some common Springfield locations such as: Krustyland, Moe’s Tavern, downtown Springfield, and the Power Plant for your final level.

The game is much more fun with others, and can be played over PSN, Xbox Live, or local coop. Even after romping through the game, you’ll find yourself going back to play as a different character. If you complete the game with each character you unlock different options in the “cool stuff“, menu. The download also came packed with the Japanese version of the game, and various difficulty settings. The achievement list is varied and fun giving different styles of play and thing to do within the game.

I find this game well worth the $10/800 points, the 18 mb file size is shocking for such a quality title! I highly recommend downloading this one. It’s good for all ages and gamers alike. Similar games I’d recommend are X-Men Arcade and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games.

Well, if last night’s episode doesn’t quell the constant belly-aching of those who claim there isn’t enough zombie action on the show, then there is nothing that will shut them up.

Last night’s episode was tense and heartbreaking, forcing each character to make horrible choices to protect both the group and more importantly their loved ones. The pair of fellas Rick was forced to kill Old West Style last week had friends and they’re not about to move on without putting up a fight, so naturally Glen, Hershel, and Rick spend as much ammunition fighting walkers as they do living, breathing humans.

Back at the camp things aren’t going any better and Shane is going off the deep end, telling lies confessing his love to people, and asserting as much control over the situation as possible.

For me, the situation with Shane is far more interesting than the business with the zombies. Shane is a barreling freight train, running down the tracks at top speed, ready to crash headlong into whatever gets in his way. And if the comic book is any indication, it’s not going to be pretty.

Since day one, I’ve been saying that I find the human element more interesting than the zombie one in this series, comic or otherwise, and I think after this episode people might start seeing things my way. The fractures in the group, the decisions the people are making, are vastly more intriguing than assholes being pinned down in a firefight by zombies. Look at the decisions Glen is making as far as Maggie is concerned? Every decision he made fighting zombies was predicated on the last 6 episodes of relationship building between them. This episode wouldn’t have been half as good without the so-called “boring” episodes.

Though I will give one bit of concern: Now that Sophia has been found it feels like the writers have no idea what to do with Daryl. If he’d have been in the town with the boys, there wouldn’t have been a contest and it would have turned into an action movie, so it was the right decision to keep him out of the action, but I hope they know what they’re doing with the character. By all accounts though, they’ve made all the right moves so far, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Also: that dude’s leg?

Wow. That was one of the best moments of gore on the show since they had to chop up zombies to rub their parts on their clothes.

I don’t think I’m off base on my assessment of these episodes at all, but I’d still like to hear your opinion. Especially if you disagree with me.

And I also hope to see you come out to see our screenings of The Walking Dead on the big screen in coordination with Brewvies and City Weekly. (More info here.)

Editor’s Note: Wrath.O.Tron is looking to be a new bot here at Big Shiny Robot! and wants to come at us with a weekly Sunday column called “The Blue Key.” Here’s his first contribution. And I have to say, after I read this column, I went and downloaded the free alpha of Desktop Dungeons and will be purchasing the beta with no hesitation. –Swankmotron

Alright folks, here’s the rundown: Desktop Dungeons is an indie roguelike with an average session length between ten and forty-five minutes depending on your play style and the difficulty level of your current dungeon. Despite being a self-described “coffee break game” with such a short session time, it remains true to its roguelike roots. The alpha prototype build won the “Excellence in Design” award at the 2011 IGF awards, and also made Gamasutra’s top ten indie games of 2010, and for good reason.

That alpha prototype is free to play, and will remain free forever and ever. (Note: The rest of this column concerns the newer, beta version of the game.)

After all this praise rained down upon them, the small South African development team (the awesomely named Quarter-Circle Forward) deconstructed the whole game and started rebuilding it from scratch in Unity. If you like the free alpha version, you can gain access to the latest beta build right away with a pre-order of just 10USD. (There’s also a “Special Edition” for 20USD.) Since you access the beta through Unity’s in-browser player, you unfortunately have to be connected to the internet to play it. On the other hand, your stashed equipment and progress through the persistent upgrade system are cloud-synced.

Be forewarned: there’s a good chance you’re going to die—and a lot—before you figure out how the game ticks. Procedural dungeon generation means that every dungeon run is going to play out a little differently. You have to make careful use of very scarce resources if you’re going to survive the inevitable boss fight. The development team once said they didn’t want to give the player any easy decisions. There are potions, equipment, and spells to make use of, but you also have to ration the actual exploration of each dungeon. Tiles are revealed when the character steps into an adjacent square, and each revealed tile heals your health and mana—the amount depends on your class and level. The catch is, they also heal the monsters that populate the dungeon, so in most cases you have to beat a monster in a single engagement. (Unless you’re getting tricky, which you should be.)

Speaking of monster beatdowns, at present there are over fifteen classes, and every one has an entirely unique playstyle. It’s actually pretty remarkable how differentiated the classes are while still feeling well-balanced. Throw different race bonuses and various god-worship boons into the mix and things get really complex. Spells and stat-boosters are randomly dispersed through each dungeon, which forces you to be resourceful and adaptable—sometimes a wizard’s just gotta beat down a goblin without the help of a trusty BURNDAYRAZ (fireball) spell.

If the name of the above-mentioned fireball spell is any indication—and it is—you can see that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. The writing is full of genuinely entertaining absurdity, and the game’s artistic aesthetic plays into the cartoonish atmosphere. Watch out for the fearsome Goats. If you’re an indie game fan, you should also catch more than a couple references to other great indie games from recent years, the most prominent being the “Meat Man” monster. The art, by the way, is crazy stylistic and downright charming, and every race/class combination rocks a unique character portrait. These portraits and other visual design concepts are mostly the product of a shadowy figure known only as “Lurk.”

Sticking to its roguelike roots, the game is brutal and unforgiving. In harder difficulty dungeons, that means if you don’t play conservatively you’ll probably end up retreating with an empty swag bag. And nobody likes an empty swag bag.

A single dungeon crawl is fun, but what will keep you coming back is the persistent Kingdom system. The Kingdom is basically the game’s menu, it’s a sort of meta-game where you can stash useful items for later dungeons, upgrade buildings to unlock new classes and races, and later on you can even affect the layout of your next dungeon by adding extra shops, or more gold piles for example. A more dramatic example is the “Smuggler’s Den,” it snags a bunch of low level monsters and stat-boosters from around the dungeon and sticks them in a sub-dungeon right near your spawn point. Handy.

If all of this is still not enough for you—you spoiled jerk, you—as you progress through the game’s quests, you also unlock puzzle dungeons. These are non-procedural, preset dungeons where you must solve, you guessed it: puzzles. These are fun, challenging, and act as a palate cleanser besides being a nice, occasional change of pace.

I highly recommend checking out the alpha prototype, all you have to lose is a few minutes of your life—and if we’re being honest here, we all waste plenty of life-minutes on the internet every day, so it’s hardly a sacrifice. If you like it, the measly $10 investment is nothing compared to the hours of entertainment you’ll get out of Desktop Dungeons.

(About the author: Connor Cleary is a video game columnist and critic, a freelance web and graphic designer, and an aspiring fiction writer. He is a reviewer at GameShark and an occasional opinion and analysis columnist at Gamasutra. His writing archive is The Blue Key and his freelance design business is Four Stair Multimedia and Design.)

You like music, you like your tablet you like your phone, but you hate docking them. Or maybe you’re tired of finding an outlet for your iHome, know I was. Until I talked myself into this fancy gadget, my mobile devices were rarely used for music, i’d plug my Vivid into my wife’s iHome or into my surround sound, but this has made all of that pointless.

The Jawbone Jambox, runs a scant $199.99, and gives insane sound quality, decent bass, and plenty of volume. Packing a litthium-ion battery you have no need to drag wires with you until your 10 hour battery life has died out. The frequency response is pretty impressive for a wireless set up giving you a 60Hz-20kHz in range. Some of your sub bass is lost, but I haven’t found a song that I noticed yet.

The sound coming from this 6″ x 3″ box is stunning, it’s a touch muddy, and the blue tooth does compress the highs a bit, but comparing it to other blue-tooth pieces utilizing A2DP, this guy puts a lovely signal through. As per Jawbones MO the device is customizable through the myTalk web interface. The interface gives you access to device customization settings as well as the newly release live audio software. Live audio gives you simulated surround sound, and a sort of concert hall style reverb for music. Live audio was the real clincher for mr, songs with drastic stereo panning can be fully experienced without expensive monitors or using your home surround, hearing on this one is believing.

Aside from the painful battery drain to your mobile for the consistent blue-tooth and data stream, this device is well worth it’s weight. It’s made it’s way into my shoulder bag permanently for random street parties that may break out. Don’t judge they’ll happen eventually, I swear.

This week’s Star Wars comic is the long-awaited first issue of John Ostrander’s and Jan Duursema’s new series, Dawn of the Jedi and GONK has your spoilery review.
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The new table from our friends at PinballFX2 is out today and I’ve got the scoop for you. This one is called Epic Quest and it is excellent for beginners. The biggest reason is because it has an RPG element to it where you can gain armor and better weapons and they hold over from one game to the next. So basically what that means is when you have sunk all three of your balls and you start over on the table, your experience and your items are still there, it’s like hitting the continue button instead of game over. So the game rewards you for the more you play, and the more you play the better you get.

In this picture you can see though it is a little small the ramp which says sword underneath. So how this table works is you are a young knight trying to defeat monsters and save the princess. There are 12 underling type monsters and then one final boss. When you fight the monsters you shoot the sword ramp to swing your sword, the shield ramp to raise you shield, the dodge ramp to dodge and so on and then when you defeat them you can loot them for better armor to help against harder bad guys. You also gain experience which helps you raise your score and that experience stays with you through multiple games.

Now here is the reason why I think this might be one of the best tables for beginners. After killing each monster you are able to shoot a ramp which lets you drop one of the balls onto this princess pictured above, when the princess has three balls you start the princess multiball. Now here’s the thing, it’s like a roulette table where you can get special bonuses by dropping each ball into one of the slots, and it’s really easy to time your shot. Well one of those slots is the extra ball and so during the multiball you need to get one of the 3 balls to trigger the extra ball basically giving you yet another chance at the table. Add to that the slot that says “add ball” which if you sink one of your multiballs you just shoot that ramp and you’re back up to 3. It’s a great combination, and because of this one of my first times playing I ended up having 7 balls instead of the usual 3, because of this extra ball slot.

After playing for a couple hours I was able to quickly get up to 150 Million in points and really felt accomplished with the table. If you haven’t picked this up yet this would be a great one to start on and the more experienced players will find this one will boost their ego quite a bit. You can get this for 240 points on Xbox, $2.49 on the PS3 of 99 cents on your iphones or androids.

As a SModcast/SIR Network/Kevin Smith/Tell Em’ Steve Dave fan, I’ve had super high hopes for “Comic Book Men”, since it was first discussed on the “Tell Em’ Steve Dave” podcast. After watching the show, I can’t say that I was let down, but the show just left me feeling luke-warm.

The show itself deals with people who come in to Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash (Kevin Smith’s comic book store in Red Bank, NJ), and try and sell things that they think have great value. The other portion of the show is a contest to see who can sell more at the Collingswood New Jersey flea market. The show features all of the guys who are normally on the “Tell Em’ Steve Dave” podcast and the “I Sell Comics” podcast. They are:

Walter Fanagan: Manager of Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, illustrator and long time friend of Kevin Smith

Bryan Johnson: Writer and long time friend of Kevin Smith

Ming Chen: IT guy/lackey/friend of Kevin Smith

Mike Zapcic: Employee of The Stash

If you’ve been a fan of the SModcast network, there is really nothing new on this show. The guys make fun of Ming, have some pretty witty one-timers, and throw in a little ribbing at one and other. I found the show to be super slow moving, about a half hour too long and did not have a whole lot to offer it’s female watchers or it’s non-geek watchers. They begin the show talking about which super heroine is the hottest and then make fun of the only chick in the entire show. To be fair, the chick was a bit of a train wreck, but they didn’t have anything as rude to say about the other people (men) who came in as they did about her.

If they were trying to reach a large audience, I think they really missed their target. Unless you are a pretty big comic book fan, you won’t even understand half of what they’re saying. I understand that AMC thought “The Walking Dead” would be a great lead in for the show, since it’s based on a comic, but the biggest thing that “The Walking Dead” has that “Comic Book Men” doesn’t is content. I hate to say it, but I think even the most hardcore of Kevin Smith fans will be disappointed.

“Comic Book Men” is on Sunday nights at 10 PM on AMC.

And if you want a  super funny TV show featuring one of the guys of “Tell Em’ Steve Dave” watch Brian Quinn on “Impractical Jokers” Thursday nights on TruTV.

DC COMICS “THE NEW 52”

BATMAN….ISSUE 5….”FACE THE COURT”

WRITER: SCOTT SNYDER

ARTIST/PENCILS: GREG CAPULLO

INKS: JONATHAN GLAPION

Mexicus Prime: Holy Shit! This is one of the most enjoyable comics I’ve read in a long time. I’m not going to spoil anything on my half of this review (or try not to) just so the reader can hopefully come away like I did, dumbfounded. First off, I’d like to say that I heard an incredible amount of buzz from this issue. The reason for picking this particular issue up was to see if it lived up to this expectation everyone’s been singing about in the comic community. The “comic choir” was right. “Face the Court” was an amazing issue from beginning to end.

Greg Capullo, issue after issue has been knocking this series out of the park! This could be the best and most creative panels in the series thus far. The panel layout is one of the main treats in this issue as well as top notch ink work from Jonathan Glapion. I have many favorite panels in issue 5 that I took some time to just sit and absorb how disturbingly awesome they were. One of them was when Bruce’s parents show up in the issue pages 20 & 21 and hug him (you should probably assume a twist here). Finally was the climax from the great build of the issue (just before Robin demands they get a new bat signal) where our mentally unstable hero is “confronted”. HOLY SHIT!!!

The story for this issue was psychotic, intriguing, and very mysterious. Right from the jump, it reads like you are watching a movie (very well-paced & balanced reveals). As the story progresses you get entangled into the scene and before you know it, you’re reading a book that you could’ve sworn the pages were stapled together wrong. I would like to point a small one but an idea to think about throughout the read. SPOILER: Pay close attention to the color when BATMAN is trying to “get to the dark” and when the scene comes to an end the color from which an OWL is present. I challenge you to read this issue for that reason alone a few times to really sink yourself into the psychotic-ness of the issue. Black is calming in its secluded nature. White is more revealing – stops deer in the tracks sort of speak. White also can be very disorienting like when you walk out of a movie theater during a bright day. Take these ideas and re-read the issue if you didn’t feel that you got your money’s worth. I’m sure you’ll be very happy you took the extra read to enjoy this book again.

Vagatron: I had a luxury with this issue that Mexicus Prime didn’t, I have been reading this series from the beginning and over the past few months, Batman has steadily made it to the top of my favorite DC re- launches. The Court of the Owls storyline is turning out to be what I believe will be called a classic in my book. The art of Greg Capullo is very reminiscent of Miller’s Dark Knight. In this issue Batman has been missing for eight days and no one knows what has happened to him. The first three pages of the book set this part up; the rest of the book is the story of Batman’s decent into insanity! He has been trapped in a labyrinth beneath the city. No food, only water. Drugged we are led to presume.

The storytelling is top notch, but the biggest attraction of this book is the amazing ‘gimmick’ that is used to help us feel a bit of Batman’s growing insanity. 13 pages into the book the pages shift making the reader have to turn the book clockwise to continue reading. Six more pages in I was forced to turn it clockwise, yet again. For the next few pages (with the exception of the ads) I was reading the book upside-down. The last page I read is a splash page with an image so jarring that when I turn to the next and final page I am a bit disoriented due to the fact that, in order to read it, I have to turn the book back to its original upright position.

I love this title, and I particularly love this issue. I think the overall storytelling will remain solid in the issues to come, but I sincerely doubt Snyder and Capullo can top the overall awesomeness of this issue. After Mr. Morrison had seemingly destroyed my love of the character, these guys are bringing me back to Batman and to DC comics in a big way!