I wasn’t all that impressed with this issue. It featured Harley Quinn who is stuck in Arkham Asylum and is up for a hearing. The vote comes down to Bruce Wayne who turns her down.
On the way back to her cell, the guard breaks Harley out of prison. It turns out the guard is a goon named Moose who is working for Sugar, the new ventriloquist. Harley ends up calling the police and going back to Arkham on her own accord. This causes Bruce Wayne to reverse his decision at her next hearing and she’s released back in to society.

I’m getting a little bored with Paul Dini’s run on Detective Comics. His mediocre reintroduction’s to the most overused villains in Gotham City feel like they’re setting up for future story arcs, rather than sustaining any viable interest themselves. The exception to this statement being Detective Comics #826 which I really enjoyed.

It’s not that Dini is a bad writer. I think his dialogue is pretty good and the stories are well paced, and have slightly interesting plots, but overall I find Detective Comics to be boring. It’s been focusing far too long on the villains and not enough on Batman. Each one of Dini’s issues has a similar formula: villains that aren’t quite villains any more. The Penguin is now a nightclub owner, the Riddler is a private detective, and now Harley was released from Arkham on Bruce Wayne’s recommendation because she turned herself in after being busted out of prison.

All things considered Detective Comics smacks of Batman the Animated Series. They aren’t horrible comics, they’re just not spectacular either. I’m ready for a change. I don’t care if it’s a change in writers or a change in formulas. I’m just sick of reading overdone plots.