Detective Comics #1,000: For the fact this issue is 96 pages, it's largely forgettable. I don't mean that in a nasty way. Like, it's fine. But, I can't say any of these stories really rise above your average "anniversary issue" fare.
Some of them were way too heavy handed, like "Manufacture for Use," where Batman finds the gun used to kill his parents and melts it down to use as the insignia on his Batsuit, and "Return to Crime Alley," where Denny O'Neil, for reasons that aren't clear to me, embitters his own "There Is No Hope in Crime Alley!" to make Leslie Thompkins loathe Bruce for the violence that he commits.
Some were fine but obvious, like the "Legend of Knute Brody," where it was clear the Bat-family was acting as the incompetent titular henchman. Others were fine but light, like "The Precedent," where Bruce half-heartedly worries about taking on Dick as Robin given the precedent it'll set for other kids. (Dick wisely notes Bruce himself is the precedent.) "Batman's Greatest Case" should've been lovely, with Bruce gathering the Bat-family for a photo to show his parents, but Bruce inexplicably doesn't speak or tell anyone what they're doing; it's just unnecessarily vague.
Some made little sense or didn't seem to go anywhere. "Batman's Longest Case" inducts Batman into the "Guild of Detection," a group for detectives looking into the universe's most complicated unsolved cases. It took years for Bruce to solve the case that leads to his induction, and he (understandably) wonders why it took so long. The guildmaster, "Slam Bradley," simply implies that he's still a young man (despite the Question also being a member). "The Batman's Design" has Batman using various metahuman enhancements to chase a group of villains into a warehouse that he's rigged to take out each member, which...doesn't seem like his modus operandi at all. (It's a shame, too, because I love Warren Ellis.) Christopher Priest continues to be just downright bizarre with "Heretic," where a kid steals Bruce Wayne's wallet in Lhasa years ago and somehow comes to love capitalism so thus runs an underground railroad to help initiates like him escape the League of Assassins. (Yeah, it made no sense to me.)
The best story to my mind was "I Know" by Bendis (of all people), where the future Penguin gets a surprise when he tells a paralyzed Bruce Wayne that he knew all along that he was Batman. The "Last Crime in Gotham" by Johns hits probably the most emotional note, if you can get past the truly awful art, as Bruce wishes for his nearest and dearest to him to solve the last crime in Gotham, as committed by the Joker's dying son.
The least interesting was the most relevant. "Medieval" introduces the Arkham Knight, who clearly isn't Jason in this iteration. After so many random stories, though, it's lost in the shuffle. Again, this issue wasn't bad, but for the price tag, it didn't really clear the bar DC set for itself.
The Realm #12-#13: Not a lot happens in these two issues, as they mostly involve adversaries and potential adversaries circling one another. But, it's fun to watch the dance.
The party arrives at Jacob's, but it's pretty clear that he and his wife, Ellen, aren't running the same type of establishment as Everett. Although Will seems to trust Jacob somewhat in issue #12, in issue #13 he more clearly views Jacob as a means to an end (i.e., weapons) and not an ally. Peck makes that even more clear when Jacob comments how his son Brian is bringing up supplies from the South, but Will correctly notes Jacob previously said that Brian was up North. Meanwhile, Molly offers to help Ellen with the chores, but she refuses, taking the laundry into an underground fall-out shelter that suspiciously glows green. Rook watches her leave the shelter later and enters, seeing something that causes her to open her eyes as the green glow reflects off her.
In terms of the bad guys, the party that Johnny Eldritch sent to find Will finds Everett instead, and I'm not sure if Everett and his already battered charges are going to survive. The goblin and his partner (who I only vaguely recognized) run across a guy who tells them that Redjaw and his party moved through the area a little while ago, and the goblin agrees to his partner's request to "kill Bunny." Meanwhile, Johnny assures Neera that he's on top of the search for the "key." We learn from Neera that three pieces of the key are still missing, including one that David is obviously carrying. Later, Bearded Guy comes close to killing Redjaw but Johnny appears suddenly and knocks out Beard Guy. He then pulls both of them through his portal.
Back at the farm, David gives Will a modified version of the amulet that the "Spider-Guy" used against him, which should help him control the monster inside him. (I'm glad to see David helping after swiping the amulet and not plotting something. Though, the jury is probably still deliberating on that front.) David leaves, and Molly and Will proceed to get drunk, as Will promises to tell her the story of the monster inside him if she explains their quest. We learn that they're headed to Kansas City because Dr. Burke worked at a facility where they were researching the Breach. He had an artifact and a notebook that he was trying to get to the team in Kansas City, and, again, it's pretty clear the artifact is at least one of the parts of the key. The fact that we're in issue #13 at this point and learn that all this effort Eldritch and Neera are expending is for just one part of the key gives you a sense of how large of a story Peck is telling. Anyway, we learn David was really just Burke's assistant, so he's not 100% clear on what Burke learned.
All in all, I'm still fascinating with where we're going here.
Transformers #2: Ruckley goes to great lengths to show how upsetting Brainstorm's death is to all the Transformers who learn of it. Chromia, Cybertron's security chief, arrives at the station with Prowl, Cybertron's best investigator. After a cursory search for clues, they're stumped. Chromia seems to think that it's the Rise, who we learn are the more extreme form of the Ascenticons. (It's interesting that Megatron doesn't seem to be leading the extremist wing; I wonder who is. Starscream?) Meanwhile, Prowl takes Windblade to task for not more thoroughly interrogating the Voin scavengers who she and Bumblebee earlier encountered. Chromia sends Bumblebee and Rubble to Wheeljack, where they get to watch the wonder of Cybertron's winged moon unfurl. We learn that someone named Termagax created it; in his speech on Tarn, Megatron describes her as the first Ascenticon. He exposits that she called for an end to the Nominus Edict, which requires kilocycles between forgings and energon rations. Earlier, Bumblebee said that he heard the moon isn't the most efficient way to harvest energon, and Ruckley seems to be implying here that Termagax may have been overly optimistic in her thinking about how much development Cybertron and the Transformers could experience without negative impacts. As Orion Pax predicted in a call with Chromia, events start to unfurl when a mysterious assassin opens fire on Megatron. In the background of all these events, Ruckley also seems to be advancing a xenophobic narrative, from Prowl's hostility towards the Voin to the introduction of the Skitters. I can't say I'm enthralled with this series at this point, but we'll see where we go.
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