The Christmas holiday specializes in bringing unexpected pleasures into your life, and this year it also allowed me to catch up on some neat comics that were passed along to me by my brother.Batman Unseen was a recently ended, twice-monthly, 5-issue miniseries written by Doug Moench and illustrated by Kelley Jones. In this excellent mini, a series of vicious murders have been occurring throughout Gotham City by an unknown perpetrator. Some of the crimes have even been committed in full-view of witnesses by a weird, skinless "meat-man" who seems to fade away after the crimes. It's left up to Batman to deduce the identity of this all-new foe, Dr. Glass, and stop his killing spree.
When Bruce Wayne himself becomes the latest target of the unseen Dr. Glass, Batman must use the invisibility serum on himself to battle the Invisible Man on his own terms. Will The Dark Knight succumb to the same madness as the Invisible Man?
Moench and Jones are considered to be a fan-favorite pairing, and this superb mini-series demonstrates exactly why. Well-written with topnotch dialogue by Moench and featuring eerily-atmospheric artwork by Jones, Batman Unseen left me wondering why DC constantly chooses to release stuff like this in a standalone format. If this tale had been run within the main Batman title, it surely would have been considered a memorable event. As it is, Batman Unseen must struggle for shelf space among the dozens of other plebeian Bat-books, and that is sadly unfortunate to me. This out of continuity mini-series is probably one of the best Batman books that you will read this year - if you managed to find it among the mountain of product obscuring it on the stands. The three-part battle between the Dark Knight and King Tut in Batman Confidential earlier in the year was also this good, and popular or not, Morrison's All-Star Batman truly pales in comparison to these two outstanding efforts starring the real Batman.
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