Batman, Volume 5: Zero Year- Dark City (New 52)

   This collection contains the last two acts of the Zero Year storyline. Act Two continues the excitement and mystery of Act One. Here, the Riddler has succeeded in crippling Gotham City by shutting off all of the power. In total control now, the Riddler uses lethal drones and his own personal power source to act as big brother keeping the populace in line and in fear of escaping. Meanwhile, a killer named Doctor Death is killing former Wayne Enterprises employees by causing their bone structure to mutate.

   Seemingly one would think the two villains are not intertwined but Batman has uncovered a link and it could result in mass casualties in the area. With the added threat of a massive hurricane bearing down on Gotham, the Dark Knight and the Gotham PD race to restore power and stop Doctor Death from using the storm clouds as an irrigation system of death.

    The final act occurs a few days later with the GCPD having failed to restore the power, and the storm having flooded the city. Now, the Riddler promises to restore power to the crippled city if someone can best him with a riddle that he cannot solve.
   To me, having Batman best the Riddler in a battle of wits would be an awesome ending to this book. But it just doesn't happen that way. Yes, at some point Batman tries to stump the Riddler but then there's an added plot of having to disarm a series of bombs that the Riddler has placed around the city. Should they go off, the city's foundation would crumble into Gotham Bay. So Lucius Fox and Commissioner Gordon must work to disarm those. Plus there's a series of flashback sequences involving Bruce Wayne committing himself into Arkham peppered in for some reason.  All of this really does stretch out the story to a point I'm begging it to end.

  Zero Year started off perfectly. The first act was nearly flawless. Act Two was very clever and it featured the Caped Crusader solving a murder mystery which is an element of Batman that's often overlooked, but I really enjoy when they happen. But by Act Three, the story is starting to lose steam and it barely crosses the finish line. I was sorely disappointed. If it wasn't for the epilogue to this story showing some of the rebuilding of Gotham would I have rendered this book NOT WORTH CONSUMING. But thanks to it's addition, I'll say it's okay.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars