Batman: Knightfall, vol. 2: Knightquest, by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench, Alan Grant, Jo Duffy

 Batman:  Knightfall, vol. 2:  Knightquest - 656 pages ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Someone has to take over for Batman while Bruce Wayne recovers from a broken back.  Bruce refuses to contact Dick Grayson for help, as he believes he has his own identity as Nightwing now.  Instead, Bruce enlists the help of Jean-Paul Valley.  Jean-Paul's father was Azrael, the assassin for the Order of St. Dumas.  Azrael wanted Jean-Paul to be his successor, so he brainwashed him with a thing called the System that gives him the ability to perform amazing feats of strength and agility, as well as invent things.  Side effects may include hallucinations, delusions, and disregard for human life.  When Bruce leaves for South America to rescue his doctor and Tim Drake's father from kidnappers, Jean-Paul goes off the deep end, leaving many to wonder whether Batman has just changed his methods, or become a different man entirely.

In case you were wondering, no, this book is not about Bruce and Alfred rescuing Mr. Drake and Dr. Kinsolving.  That isn't even a subplot, which is a shame, because it would probably make a much more interesting story than the tale of Jean-Paul Valley as Batman.  There is, apparently, a separate volume that follows Bruce and Alfred's storyline.  Knightquest, however, is a whole 656 pages of Jean-Paul Valley as Batman, fighting obscure villains, arguing with hallucinations of his father and St. Dumas, and repeatedly insisting that he was born to be Batman and that he will cleanse Gotham City of the criminal scourge that has corrupted it.  There are some stand-out moments, like when the Joker tries to make a movie about killing Batman that features him actually killing Batman, or when Batman fights the gunslinging cowboy twins who look and sound like they're from the 1966 Batman TV series.  Those moments are few and far-between, though.  The majority of this volume consists of forgettable stories about forgettable villains and an annoyingly sanctimonious character who believes he is the Batman.  Robin/Tim Drake barely appears after Jean-Paul attacks him and insists that he doesn't need him anymore, leaving Jean-Paul without a voice of reason and the reader without a break from Jean-Paul.

Knightquest only gets interesting in the last 50 or so pages, when Jean-Paul really starts to lose it and crosses a line that Batman has never crossed before, Bruce returns, and Tim decides to say something to him about what has been going on since he left.  Although I did enjoy those last 50 pages, the other 600 are just boring and pointless.