Batman 596 - City on Fire

Joker has unleashed the jokerized mentals of Arkham Asylum to Gotham.

Among them are such as a crazy Santa Clause about whom nobody knows anything (ie, he has not previously appeared in the Batman booklets). Moreover, Batman has to face with the war between Lew Moxon and Gotham Russian Mafia. Moxon's lieutenants, Philo Zeiss wants to showdown with the boss of Odessians, Gregor Popavich and her daughter. Zeiss kidnaps Popavich's daughter, Anya; so Batman is helpless.

But then, the crazy Santa appears, confuses Zeiss,

So Batman can take the little girl. However, Zeiss can move by blowing up the neighbouring house.

He erases any traces behind himself by this, Popavich is silent as the grave, so the police arrest Santa. (Well, it is not quite the end of this, but it would at least be better.)

Ed Brubaker's story is sufficiently dark, but it's the best thing I can say about it. It is trailed, uninteresting and boring. Scott McDaniel's draws are less quality. He works with huge, full-page frames, but even he can't fill any content the little ones.

The whole book is a gaping emptiness. The cover is the best part.

Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen are investigating too, they are also labelled.

The original Hungarian blog post is here.