Ragman's history is very complicated, sort of.... Created by Joe Kubert and some Kahniger guy, Rags starred in his own short lived series back in the mid-'70's. He had guest appearances and back-up stories sporadically over the next decade and a half, until mid-'91 when Keith Giffen ret-conned him (ie. changed some aspect of his past) in an 8-issue mini-series and turned him into one of the few Jewish heroes in comics. He then appeared in a single issue of Legends of the Dark Knight before entering into a second mini-series, Ragman:Cry of the Dead. R:CotD was a very complicated story which relocated Rags from Gotham City to New Orleans. The place being known for what it is, CotD dealt with a lot of voodoo mumbo-jumbo and was very difficult to follow. That mini-series ended in early '94 and Rags hasn't been seen since... until now.
Batman 551-552 is a 2-part Ragman story featuring Batman. It deals with typical threats which setup the character's squirmish for the issue (in this case it's young skinheads who attacked a Synagogue. The Ragman, who's rags steal the souls of evil men (and women I suppoe), captures one of the punks and, for the first time, they kill him. Now here's the setup, Rory Regan can no longer control the rags, so he seeks the help of a rabbi to coach him. The Batman, involved since the skinheads murdered a Jewish man, assists Rory in his quest to control the rags and to bring the skinheads to justice. Sounds kind of conventional and it ends that way too.
Competently written, the story itself is relatively uninteresting. Considering it's been four years since we'd last seen the character of the Ragman, I would have expected to see more of an update on the character. Rory could never control the rags too well, before and that flaw made him more human, Moench has eliminated that flaw and the character is now dull as a phone book. He will likely be shelved until his next Batman appearance, which is a shame because the character has so much potential which has never been utilized - ever!
The art by Jones and Beatty is dark as usual, which is good for a Batman book. They draw a mean Batman with plenty of shadows, and Ragman (in my opinion one of the coolest looking characters in comics) has never looked better. Unfortunately, Rory's not in costume enough, and Jones' strong point is not drawing regular people... they always seem to look a little tired or a little dead.
It's great to see Ragman again, but this wasn't a very good show.