CREDITS: Written by Hilary J. Bader; art by Craig Rousseau and Rob Leigh.
REVIEW: There's quite a bit of hand-waving about how one of Howard's friends apparently helped Terry and crew get to dinosaur island, and indeed, where it is exactly. After wasting time on an apparently harmless bear, the dinosaurs attack. Or rather, contemporary animals spliced with rare (yeah, I bet!) dinosaur DNA. Apparently, Kraven--I mean Stalker has been making them to give himself a greater hunting challenge.
Look, it's as good a justification as any to get cool monster designs on the page, but it does lead to "random encounter" syndrome, where our hero fights this monster, then that monster, then this one... It's barely a plot. I do like that they include a montage where Batman captures several fantastic beasts, including a morse-like beaver (below) and a tiny but stinky tricera-skunk. Sadly, the dino-elephant on the cover isn't in the story! Such a cool design though. Better than the silly Hippopotamus Rex of the climax.
So some fun action beats, and Terry wins the day using his wits more than his brawn, but do I buy for a second that Stalker would allow Batman to help him hunt these animals, let alone ask him to? If the DNA is so rare (and we don't know where he got it), why would he waste it on skunk hybrids? Why would he let someone else hunt the animals? Especially given they all have a very limited life span (which is a sadness that makes Terry's non-lethal actions a little futile). And why would Stalker let them all loose at the same time instead of savoring each distinct hunt? The villain's motivation doesn't track.
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