Outside of an admittedly perfect opening scene, set on the steps of the Gotham City courthouse - in which our Dark Knight administers some deserved rough justice to a celebrity who had just escaped a few felonious assault convictions due to obvious corrupt and/or extralegal means - this graphic novel quickly spirals into a big but also thankfully brief quagmire.

The monster is killed, and Killer Croc is arrested, but Batman remarks that Croc is still mutating, and could become something even worse in the future. The pitch was accepted, but sadly, before any work could begin on the art, Steven Dillon passed away. Yes Batman is a dark character, yes he uses fear as a weapon, but in this book he comes across as much of an uncaring sociopath as the criminals he is chasing or "putting into traction". I loved his Green Lantern stuff with Morrison recently, and his new digital style, while controversial with some people, just works so well for this story. And, aside from a short run on Ghost Rider, I don’t think he’s ever written a mainstream superhero comic and has only written Batman as a side-character in books like Hitman and Section Eight.He also finds Joker to be the single most annoying character in all of comic books, which is an unfathomably based take. Batman has some moments, though is a bit too talkative, Alfred's British humor is always welcome, even the Batmobile is funny with its 'thank you's after every line. The only complaint I have with this book is I think it should’ve been a three-issue series, in those magazine-sized black label books, instead of something like Superman Vs Lobo, that ended up getting them. Instead of exaggerating muscles and femininity, it's sometimes caricaturistic, especially with the villains.

In the end, this graphic novel is not the surprise any fan would’ve expected to get and, hopefully, isn’t the beginning of this creative team’s descent into mediocrity.An intelligent architecture, the way the mini-series unfolds manages to take us by surprise without playing the card of subverting expectations just for the sake of it. The story is set within Gotham City with Batman following the tracks left behind by a cruel and unforgiving freight train of a monster who happens to only be hunting down the villainous powerhouses of the criminal underworld, such as Penguin, Riddler, Poison Ivy, and so on. I don’t stick with Batman’s theory on Croc’s origins and if you go to the bottom of it the main argument is a bit far-fetched if not totally dumb.

This is one of those stories that starts with a pretty okay first issue but just gets better and more absurd by the end. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.Reptilian is all painted artwork and extremely dark - literally - throughout, so that it’s often hard to discern what’s going on amidst the murkiness. All this while Batman compares the creature's life cycle with that of other animals, to Croc's despair. I think there’s something perfect about the way Ennis is throwing all sorts of ideas at the wall here, and even if none of it really sticks, it’s a really fun ride, but it’s also a mess, and at times it feels like he’s using his irreverence as an excuse for lazy writing. I think most Batman fans have a definitive version in their mind and Ennis' is a jarring change that doesn't come off as very heroic. Batman: Reptilian is a phenomenal disappointment that mutilates a beloved villain’s background through a lackluster and mediocre horror mystery.

Each of the last three issues seems to devolve further and further into a parody of itself, which given Ennis’s well-documented disdain for superheroes, could very well be the point. His style, unfortunately, is an acquired taste, at times painting (yes, the whole story is painted) some depressingly gorgeous panels, but at other times portraying characters in odd and absurd designs or with comical expressions that seem incredibly out of place. The Cameo: Most of Batman's Rouges Gallery become this, as they don't actively participate in the story and are mutilated after a villain meeting, some of them off-screen. All a bunch of neat little extras and Sharp’s concepts show he was going to initially draw this in a different style, which just confirmed to me that the style he ended up going with in the final product was the perfect choice for it.Sharp’s art adds an air of ambition to the proceedings, and at times it feels like Ennis is trying to craft a new sort of story for the Dark Knight. Batman knows he represents justice, just as he knows that those who oppose him represent a kind of secular evil.