Fearless part one
Brubaker, McDaniel, Story
Reviewed by The Angry Batman.

Art: One of Scott's best artwork on Batman this far. The cover alone is worth the asking price for this issue, very interesting with a scene that looks like Batman in the Matrix movie. The inside art is great, every scene looks like it has been carefully detailed and drawn to make it one of the best Batman art I've seen in a monthly. McDaniel has great story telling ability, because I wasn't confused by the action in any scene. His Bruce Wayne is very good, someone you can either take lightly in Bruce Wayne mode or seriously when in Batman mode. His Batman is very good indeed, I like how the cape seems to have an attitude all its own. Batman is tall and dark again, no use of lighter blues in this issue, he is now full of really dark blues, grays, and blacks the way he should be. Character design is good over all, especially the details Scott puts in the uniforms of the police or clothes of a regular person on the street. Definately an improvement from Scott's previous Batman issues. So I definately give the art an A.

Story: Overall the story was good. I wouldn't say better than Greg Rucka's, but this story by Brubaker is definately much, much, much, much, much better than Hama's or some of Grayson's Batman stories. I liked the pacing of the story, where it ends, before it ends with Jeremy's death and that gets the reader interested and hooked for the rest of the issue. But Brubaker does need to get to know a few characters better such as the way the Penguin talks and maybe the akwardness of Gordon with Batman, etc. But other than that all the regular characters such as Robin, Oracle, and Batman/Bruce Wayne were done right and really good, IMO. But Jeremy was not a character I got interested in or feel sorry for. Maybe it's because he's basically a plot device and will be forgotten soon after this storyline is over, but maybe Brubaker has something else in mind. The background story about Jeremy and Batman/Bruce was good, but needed to be longer for me to really care for the relationship/connection between the two characters and for me to see really why Batman would go out of his way for him, especially after NML. I'm not saying that Batman shouldn't be concern for this person, he should, but this Jeremy shouldn't be Batman's main objective incorporating Robin's, Oracle's, Nightwing's, Gordon's help, when there are others needing help. I felt more interest in this new mysterious villian, than Jeremy and would like to know about him. Since this is part one of a two parter, I'll assume for now that my questions and confusions will be answered in the next issue. So overall this was truly a good story and Brubaker has lots of potential to be a great Batman writer, that is why I'm giving it a B.

Overall this was one great issue of Batman! Grade: B+

I hope the reason that I got the last copy of this issue at the comic shop, but the Waldenbooks in the same mall had about 20 copies of the last Hama issue was due to the writer switch, and not the fact that people don't buy from newsstands.