I hate writing reviews of books I don't enjoy because I think it's important to focus on what I like when reviewing something. I am always happy to acknowledge what I dislike about a given work but the truth is that if you, the reader, want to skip analysis and simply ingest some rant against a given work, well... it's a big Internet, and there's plenty of that out there; one might even say there's more than enough whinging and that it's all too easy to find. There's also plenty of mindless fannishness, a seemingly ceaseless tide of they-can-do-no-wrong generated by the fanatical adherents to one or another work or creator or team or publisher or whatever. What I don't as often see is someone willing to endorse something and explain why.

So, I'm going to try to start with the positive and end there, but those bits are going to be woefully brief.

What did I like most? The art. Good gods but I loved the art in this book. Multiple styles, all of it adding up to show us a variety of eras and expressing lots of very different kinds of stories being told nearly simultaneously. The shot of Valentine doing a rolling jump onto the ghost ride? Loved it. The '50s look of Kathy Kane? Flawless. The modern fight scenes of Batwoman and of Batman and El Gaucho? Again, I loved them. The villains are drawn as wicked and strange and their victims as desperate and anguished in a way that only a pulp can manage. If Detective Comics is the noir and Batman & Robin is the crazy adventure story then Batman Inc. is the pulp more than any other. Morrison just effortlessly cranks out the zany and seamlessly joins it to the established and the obscure. I love that. The parrot guy from the last issue? Loved him because, as far as I know, he's completely new, completely random and instantly recognizable as a type. That's Morrison's gift for archetype, right there. He knows that the off the wall, thematically focused villain is something we all get. It's the same kind of meeting-us-in-the-middle done by, say, the very best episodes of Venture Bros. It knows we can do the math and it lets us and that feels a lot like respect.

What didn't I like? Well, to be honest, almost everything else. For one thing, I don't like the way Kathy Kane's story is stitched into place in Batman's history. Far be it from me to criticize an extended flashback - I honestly love them for a lot of reasons - but this one just didn't work for me. I know just enough history of the original Kathy Kane to see that Morrison is doing more of the long work of integrating all of Batman's history into Batman's current continuity, sure, but his treatment of Batwoman's relationship with Batman takes it way, way, way, way, way over the top. The overall ambience of the flashbacks is of that cheesy sort of cartoony quality of really old Batman, and it knows it - Robin discusses it explicitly, after all - but when it goes so far as to show Robin walking in on a makeout session and Batman covered in lipstick it just... I don't know, something doesn't work. I grew up on the Adam West Batman so it isn't like I'm uncomfortable with the Batman story being presented in a cheesy, even satirical light but this takes it a step beyond that to mocking the work itself.

I even get why one would want to mock the original Batwoman gimmick. After all, Batwoman was invented - the first time - to counter allegations that Batman was gay. She was transparently a prop for his heterosexuality, a woman who could be the Vanna White to his big, light-up sign that read "CERTIFIED HETEROSEXUAL." I want to mock that, too. I want to grind that sort of stupid bullshit beneath my fabulous heel.

What do I not want? To grind Batwoman under my heel in the process and something about this presentation feels... petty. I don't know. Insulting, maybe? Something about it was very off-putting to me, as though in the process of trying to deride the original motivation for the creation of Batwoman, Morrison has accidentally derided Batwoman herself. I can't even explain why I feel that, but it's something that stuck with me throughout.

In all honesty, I think a part of it is that this issue was so clearly intended to be another reminder of J.H. Williams III's Batwoman title scheduled to launch in a couple of weeks. Given that last week's comics featured promos for that book, now delayed for probably several more months, it's obvious that this book went to press way before that postponement had happened. If all had gone according to plan then Morrison would reintroduce the fantastic new Batwoman just in time for J.H. Williams III's book to come out at the exact midpoint, in the publication schedule, between this issue and Batman Inc. #5. Heck, DC hustled two issues of Batman Inc. out the door in two weeks to make that happen. This isn't exactly a punctual title to begin with and we get two in the month of March to make sure that there's some synergy with Batwoman #1 and then that book gets delayed? Ugh. Now that we know that can't happen, this book feels oddly out of place and the Batwoman story - perhaps Batwomen - feels shoehorned in. It feels bothersomely out of place in a book that's about Batman finding compatriots in other cities. Batwoman is in Gotham and she already has a thing of her own going. She's already her own character. There's a way in which her inclusion in this issue feels like a place of honor, yes, but also a way in which it feels like a demotion when viewed without the context of the ongoing book that was expected by now.

There are other things I liked, though. This book has some fantastic dialogue. That line about flirting with death until his heart shatters? Holy hells but I loved that line. Likewise at the end, when Batman says that his enemy has wasted his budget and he's coming to get him. That's Batman - so very Batman - and that's also Bruce Wayne. If that isn't a CEO super hero then nothing ever will be.

I also - and I feel zero shame in saying this - love, without reservation, the absurdly campy tune in next week! style finish of this issue. Remember how I said I grew up on the Adam West Batman and Robin? That last page hit absolutely all the right buttons for me. It didn't feel forced or campy. It felt like going home.

The fantastic art and that wonderfully absurd finish didn't fix everything in the middle, though, and for that... well, all I can say is that I hope next month is better. I'm spoiled, I know, but for a book that has been as great-on-every-page good as this one, I expect more. Here's hoping I'm not disappointed.