Batman: Fear Itself

Ok so this book took a little to get in to. After about the first Hundred pages or so you really start to wonder about who the bad guy was in the book. Yea it deals with feel and at first thought your thinking the scarecrow but the author does a good job to make you think. I guess I am too much of a Batman fan but I enjoyed this book.

I tell you, the recent series of Batman novels produced have been...on and off for me. Dead white was a very good novel, but Inferno was written in a poor, first person narrative style that I found very distracting. So, picking up this book, I knew that it could go either way. What I found was a very intense and bone chillingly descriptive book about fear and one of my favorite Batman villains, the Scarecrow. Its fast paced, and with more twists and turns than a mountain highway. I really enjoyed this book, and I think any Batman fan should read this.

Well, once again a new batman novel is out in stores and the time has come to review it. This like the previous two novels, is well written and adds to the legend of the Batman. This novel, in particular, explores the topic of fear. This topic is constantly mentioned thorughout the story and is the major mystery that batman has to solve. Most of the story can be predicted easily, but the book is still well written. I would recommend this novel for batman fans and readers looking for a novel the explores parts of the human mind. PARTY ON, DUDES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope they keep cranking out these new Batman books! Batman: Inferno had trumped Batman: Dead White by leaps and bounds but Fear Itself is an entirely different animal devoid of the money-shot moments from Inferno. I admit I'm usually a little biased in favor of Joker stories but this book was more what I'll call passively satisfying - a very real world with nothing too over the top, very believable. Fear Itself is a toned down, flat black story. As with the previous books, it is set in a kind of post-Batman Begins continuity that blends some flavors from the modern Batman comic. There is a constant mention of "The Quake" which rocked Gotham - very reminiscent of Cataclysm/No Man's Land story line. Other ingredients of modern Batman include the familiarity with a long list of various martial arts Bruce has studied, mention of Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy and the introduction of an improved grappling gun, resembling the current mono-filament grapnel in the comics. This book does a little better job of the previous 2 in the series in making you feel in a very familiar world to Begins. You have Lucious Fox's involvement, plenty of Wayne Enterprises involvement, new gadgets, & a very healthy dose of the Bruce Wayne side of things. The ratio of Bruce Wayne to Batman in this book seemed like 85% to 15% to me and that's not a bad thing at all so don't let is scare you. It's done very well and taps into what they were trying to do in Begins since it is such an interesting side to the story. Bat-Fans will salivate when reading this at all the possibilities for the new movie that they touch on in this book, including suit modifications to a reactive hardening material, mentions of the new improved Batcave & its entrances, layout, systems etc. Despite the give away cover art & title, you'll find yourself in suspense when the villain you're waiting for is merely suspected for two thirds of the book before anything happens - the building action was very satisfying & a good amount of character development done on new characters Grey Berwald, horror novelist & Maggie Tolleyer the journalist type. Reaves has a solid grasp on the Batman universe. He really makes you want to see Jonathan Crane pop up again in full-on Scarecrow garb! If you liked Batman Begins and are counting down the days until the next movie is released, then this book is definitely for you.

A train in the subway has gone out of control and when Batman goes to investigate, he finds the driver nearly frightened to death and mumbling something under her breath. Other instances of people becoming similarly frightened trigger the Batman to investigate further, but with all of his nemesises locked up, Batman has a new enemy that he knows nothing about. This story was very well crafted and the descriptions were terrific. I found it very heard to put this book down. All the characters were desribed wonderfully. Unlike some of the other novelizations I have read, you don't need to know all that much about Batman to figure out what is going on in this book. I highly recommend this book!