SPOILERS in the thread title.
So this is out. At this point I think we're all pretty experienced with both Tomasi-style stories and Mahnke art, the competency (good!), the hangups and hiccups, the nature of middle chapters in stories, and so forth. The story's nowhere close to resolving yet. It's still almost "Space Horror" levels of monsterness, the twosome's Green Lantern history ... perhaps not fitting the Batman world that well ... but the competency/skill and solid stage-craft still on full display. Perhaps nothing mindblowingly inspiring but c'est la vie.
So those usual suspects of descriptors out of the way, what do we get? Obvs news sites have been commenting on some of the key things here.
1. Henri Ducard. And he dies. About as convincing a death as Leslie last issue. But he does seem to and the motivation of the ... demon? ... taking away the "makers" of Batman so that he'll what, be "unmade"? is interesting. Whatever the hell its goofy space-monster-looking butt is.
2. Kyodai Ken. So welcome an addition to canon that I frankly can't believe he's never turned up in any canon books before? But a round-tripper of Batman visiting the "builders of Batman" is a pretty solid story usually. (Maybe we'll get Harvey Harris?!)
3. Thaddeus Brown. I mean if anyone can escape death, you know ... it's Mister Miracle. But what? Intergang's ability to kill that bad? Does Scott know? Does Shilo know? Does Ted Brown know?
4. Robin. Batman's interactions with Robin, then Henri, had built in levels of "This is a Pseudo-Sequel to 'Born to Kill'". That cohesiveness in Tomasi's work feels nice, because ... the villain in this is weird and ungrounded.
5. I'm pretty done with the "Batman walks into Arkham and beats up every character" trope.