Aerodynamic haircut, Batman references galore, and one last fight with the Red Hood Gang.
After the .1 "Forever Evil" issues plug, it's time to get back to the BATMAN story at hand; his ORIGIN! Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are back with the conclusion to the Red Hood story arc!
The Good
Scott Snyder did a outstanding job with this final Red Hood issue! In this story arc, he's established Bruce/Batman as a young and arrogant hero that is slowly walking towards the path of the Batman we know today. This origin story isn't breaking any new ground, but Snyder without a doubt had the most fun establishing HIS version of Batman in this solo title. And that my friends is not a bad thing!
From start-to-finish, Snyder kept me engaged in this final story! The past couple of issues from this story arc has had Bruce question himself and his mission against the criminals of Gotham. He NOW knows who he is and what he must become to fight crime in Gotham; BATMAN! Snyder handled Bruce's realization of this fact pretty well too; with a semi-moving speech about, "what Gotham means to YOU?" It was a minor piece of the story that didn't make much of a difference, in terms of taking or adding to the final outcome, but it was nice of Snyder to show how much the character has changed in this period of time.Plus, there were a couple of references to past Bat related things like; Bat fire polls and a homage to Detective Comics 27 cover.
There were a lot of cool interior art scenes from Greg Capullo (i.e. the "Bat" overlook of Gotham City, Red Hood in the A.C.E. Chemical Vat, etc etc). Capullo made those scenes (especially the Red Hood one) look so simple, yet complicated at the same time; it was really breathtaking. The action sequences with Batman fighting X amount of Red Hood guards was pretty impressive as well. His artwork is just sooooooooo great to look at and I'm always happy when he draws an issue of BATMAN.
On a side note, the ending of Scott Snyder's main story followed seamlessly into his and James Tynion IV's side story. I was really caught by surprise how the two stories actually connected for once. It was a sigh of relief from me that I was not taken out of such a great issue, with an ok side story from Snyder and Tynion. Thankfully, this time both the main story and side story were equal to one another. Hoping this is how things will be in the future! The artwork by Rafael Albuquerque was top notch as usual.
The Bad
No complaints. Snyder and Capullo came back strong after the Forever Evil plug.
The Verdict
This is by far one of the BEST issues of the title (for the reasons above of course). I recommend picking this one up! Overall 5 out of 5.
Next review:
Batman 23-26 & issues 28-29 (cause I already reviewed 27, duh) ;)
Arrow review:
Last Batman Reviews:
Upcoming reviews:
1.Snyder & Capullo's BATMAN! -- Comic catch up! (issues 22-29)
2.Millar & McNiven's NEMESIS! -- Comic special! (issues 1-4) COMPLETED!
3.Tomasi & Gleason's BATMAN AND ROBIN! -- Comic catch up! (issues 22-28)
4.Posehn & Duggan's DEADPOOL! -- Comic catch up! (issues 12-24)
5.Snyder and Lee's SUPERMAN UNCHAINED! -- Comic catch up! (issues 2-5)
6.DeConnick's CAPTAIN MARVEL! -- Comic catch up! (issues 13-17)
7.Slott's SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN! -- Comic catch up! (issues 13-28)
8.Wood's STAR WARS! -- Comic catch up! (issues 3-14)
9.Kirkman's INVINCIBLE! -- Comic catch up! (issues 104-109)