Batman Eternal #52 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Not surprisingly, for a series spanning 52 issues and an entire year, Snyder and Tynion have a lot of ground to cover here, in this final issue.  In reality, this issue is really two separate issues, the first handling the denouement of the story and the second giving us the aftermath. 

Let's start at the very beginning (always a very good place to start).  I'll admit that I was skeptical about Lincoln Marsh appearing as the Big Bad.  (We learn here that it really was Lincoln, not Hush, that Stephanie saw in the kitchen.)  It was too Gary Stu-ish, Snyder inserting his creation into a story where he didn't seem to fit.  That said, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he was more or less necessary.  For all Cluemaster's brilliance in pulling together the scheme, he really did need resources to do it.  He made a compelling case last issue that all he really did was suggest that bad guys do the sort of things that bad guys do.  However, he definitely needed some seed money to facilitate them actually doing said things.  Lincoln provided that funding, something he could easily do given that he controlled the Court of Owls at that point.  You could argue over whether it had to be Lincoln, or whether any A- or B-List villain with access to that sort of funding could've filled this role.  But, in the end, Snyder chose Lincoln, and he's frankly as good of a choice as any.

As Bruce himself alludes, the fight between him and Lincoln goes pretty much the same way that it did the first time.  Lincoln monologues as Bruce dismantles his attacks.  In the end, we have the moment that Snyder and Tynion clearly view as the denouement of this series:  as Lincoln tells Bruce that his death will send Gotham into a permanent chaos similar to the one currently spreading throughout the city, Gordon flashes Bat-signals throughout the city, telling Gotham's citizens to be like Batman and save themselves.  I have to say, though, that this moment fell flat for me.  One of the hallmarks of this series has actually been how little Bruce has done.  While Batgirl, Batwing, Bluebird, Red Hood, and Red Robin have been out there saving people (as they do again here), Bruce has hid in the cave or flown to Pakistan.  He's done precious little to help Gotham; in fact, his quest to find the identity of the mastermind had more to do with his ego than it did with Gotham.  If that Bat-signal means anything, it's because of the Bat-family members' actions, not Bruce's.  In fact, combined with Snyder's theme of Batman's incompetence, you could almost read the moral of this story as:  Batman Irrelevant.  Even common citizens can do what he does now.  Maybe it's time for him to retire.

Looking to the aftermath, Snyder and Tynion leave a lot on the table.  It's still unclear if Bruce is going to get back his money.  Bard is allegedly going to tell his story to Vicky; she warns him that he'll never work in law enforcement again, but you have to wonder how he'd ever walk the streets a free man again after he was accessory to the murder of several GCPD officers.  Despite Mayor Hady a few issues ago calling Jim Gordon the most hated man in Gotham, doubting that even the truth could redeem him, it seems that all sins have now been forgiven.  Sure, he's no longer Commissioner, but how long will that last?  The only real resolution that we get is Catwoman bringing even the Penguin under her control.  (She was the boss that the Penguin mentioned as he fled Blackgate with Croc.)

Snyder and Tynion also don't focus on how the events of this series impact the Bat-family.  In fact, the only character to show any emotional arc over the course of the series is Jason.  When he thinks that he's dying, he tells the Cave that he wants them to record him, because he has to tell Bruce something.  (Boy, I would've loved to have heard that message.)  Later, he deletes a message to Babs about the possibility of something happening between them.  Other than Jason, the only hint of emotion happens when Stephanie and Tim share an awkward moment.

I was tempted to write a retrospective post, looking over this entire series.  But, honestly, I just don't care enough to do it.  When I read through my past review, I was reminded that my dislike of this series stands on pretty solid ground.  In the end, the story was just too big.  Moments like the Penguin being in Gordon's jail cell in issue #49 but then escaping on a boat with Croc in issue #50, with no explanation of how he got from Point A to Point B, were too frequent.  The story lacked any real emotional underpinning, other than the moments in this issue with Jason and a few moments of Babs coming unglued over her father's imprisonment earlier.  For the fact that this issue brings together the Bat-family after the events of "Death of the Family," you would've thought that we would've gotten some honest conversations between the team and Bruce.  But, Snyder and Tynion kept them separated for most of the series, funneling their communication through Julia.  Other than Catwoman, everyone is exactly where they were when they started.

In the end, I'm just glad to see it done.  I can't think of a better epitaph than that.

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #51 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Whether you enjoy this issue is going to depend entirely on whether you buy Cluemaster becoming a Bond villain during it.

The tension in the issue lies in the fact that Cluemaster doesn't immediately kill Batman.  As expected, he delivers his expository speech explaining how he and his merry crew of misfits came to realize that they could use Batman's obsession with his A-List adversaries to distract him while they wrecked havoc on Gotham.  Cluemaster tells Batman that he got the idea at a poker night with other C-List villains; the Joker was in the middle of launching one of his schemes, and Arthur realized that they could take advantage of Batman focusing on the Joker to pull off a major heist.  To give credit where credit is due, it's actually a pretty believable twist, to be honest.  (Look, I said something nice!)

The problem is that, as he walks us step-by-step through his plan, we never learn why Arthur did what he did.  After all, he didn't pull a heist, at least that we've seen.  The only motivation that he provides is that he wanted to show Batman that he wasn't a small fish.  But, it just seems too over the top to be believable.  He was willing to destroy Gotham just for his ego?  Are we really supposed to believe that he's that evil?  Snyder and Tynion haven't really done anything to introduce us to Cluemaster or his motivations, so it's hard to make our own judgment on that.

Moreover, this revelation speaks to Snyder's defining take on Batman, of him as an incompetent bungler.  Once Stephanie alerted Batman to the fact that her father was Cluemaster and allegedly colluding with Bruce Wayne, you have to wonder why he didn't send anyone after him.  Even if he thought that Hush was the guy posing as him (and we learn at the cliffhanger that ends this issue that it was his other doppelganger), it's pretty standard police work to go after the small fish first.  Sure, the fact that he didn't go after Arthur proves Arthur's point that Batman did consider them beneath his notice, but it does require you as the reader to believe that Arthur is actually right.  Would Bruce really ignore the C-List so entirely, even if they could offer him valuable clues?  I'm not sure that I buy that.

But, Cluemaster becomes a Bond villain not just because of his intricate scheming or excessive exposition, but because he doesn't kill Batman when he has the chance.  He even (somewhat erotically) strips Bruce of his chestplate and cowl, but doesn't kill him.  Tynion actually adds a clever twist in here, implying that Cluemaster wanted him to break free and punch him so that he could show the boys that they did really spar.  I laughed at that, because, honestly, Tynion really sold it.  But, it's the moment at the very end, when he's literally talking about the fact that he's going to shoot Batman where you have to decide if you buy it or not.  If not, this issue is just one more disappointing issue among many disappointing issues.  If so, then you're ready for the surprise.  After all, Arthur can't possibly survive knowing Bruce's identity.

Enter Owlman.

*** (three of five stars)

Batman Eternal #50 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Normally, I make my way through my backlog of comics week by week; I'll read every comic from a certain week before progressing to the next week.  I do it so that I don't inadvertently spoils something, like if I read all my "Batman" issues only to read something that happened in a "Detective Comics" issue that I haven't read yet.

But, after how horrible issue #49 was, I decided that I just need to have "Batman Eternal" done.  I'm reading these last three issues in a row and starting the process of rebuilding my life.

Based on my review of this issue and how I feel about this one, I could really just write these last three reviews as a list of incredulous questions.  Last issue, Gordon beat down the Penguin, hog-tied him, and locked him in a prison cell with him.  This issue, Gordon is alone in the cell, and the Penguin is escaping the prison on a speedboat with Killer Croc, apparently trusting Croc's "boss" (whoever s/he is) more than the mastermind.  Did Gordon let him go?  If not, how the hell did he escape?  It seems like an important detail, unless Snyder and Tynion really do want us to believe that Gordon is corrupt.  Also, Batman calls Harper by her real name in front of Mr. Freeze.  Should she just start calling him Bruce?  I could continue.

But, it doesn't matter.  We finally learn that it's been Cluemaster all along.  The man that Spoiler saw giving Cluemaster orders that looked like Bruce Wayne was, in all likelihood, Hush.  Next issue, Cluemaster will deliver his Bond villain speech when he'll chastise Batman for not taking him seriously.  Let's just get that part done, shall we?

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #49 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Blah blah blah, makes no sense, is terrible, blah blah blah.  If Red Robin was sufficiently paranoid to build his own Batcomputer, doesn't it stand to reason that he would've built it in a way that he could've initiated the override that Julia did from his mobile computer?  What good is it if he has to be sitting in his Nest to do it?  Are we supposed to believe that Cluemaster is the Big Bad?  Bard is suddenly rooting for Gordon to survive the riot at Blackgate, despite being the guy that kept him in there in the first place?  The only decent part of this issue was Gordon beating down the Penguin, but even that part was too little, too late.

* (one of five stars)

Batman Eternal #48 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Seriously, it's like they're not even trying to make us believe this story anymore.

A few issues ago, Jason Bard was so amoral and unhinged that he was working with Hush to kill Batman all because some caped nut-job had killed his crush a few years ago.  It wasn't even just that he wanted to kill Batman; he was willing to sacrifice his own men to do it.  Now, we're supposed to believe that his sins are all forgiven.  He's learned his lesson and, even though said lesson had a body count, we're supposed to accept the fact that he's ready to be a good guy again.  He heroically demands that Mayor Hady exonerate Gordon because he has the evidence that proves that he was innocent.  (Snyder and Tynion don't mention it, but I presume Hady has the power to free someone from prison on his own because martial law has been imposed on Gotham -- at Bard's insistence, of course.)  However, Hady doesn't want to do so, because it's an election year and everyone in Gotham hates Gordon (at least until we forget all about it later).  But, he's also bailing on Gotham (the conversation happens as he's boarding a helicopter), so it's a little unclear why he cares about an election.  Of course, to make it all the more dramatic, someone -- probably the mastermind, because any time someone without a clear identity appears in this series, it's the mastermind -- sends the Penguin to deal with Gordon.  Even though it's probably going to wind up being Batman sending the Penguin to protect Gordon, we're supposed to be worried that Bard is going to get the exoneration too late to save the Commish!  [Sigh.]

Making matters worse, you've got Hush using the Batcomputer to remotely use all the Bat-family's technology against them.  I get why Batwing would be particularly susceptible to this ploy, but are we really supposed to believe that Red Robin's wings or every item in Red Hood's utility belt are connected to the Batcomputer?  Doesn't that seem a little...excessive?

The laziness in the story-telling department doesn't end there.  Vicky Vale tells Spoiler that she can't bother with investigating Signalman because "the biggest villains in Gotham are wrecking the city right now."  The only problem with that statement is that it's false.  Sure, Clayface took a few people hostage and Mr. Freeze froze a few people, but, otherwise, the "biggest villains in Gotham" haven't really done a lot of damage.  Bane is just wrestling folks in the basement of a bar and Joker's Daughter is simply fighting Batgirl in one-on-one combat.  Unless Gotham has become such a bastion of law-and-order that Batwing destroying a few drones mid-air amounts to "wrecking the city," this comment doesn't really make sense.  It's like Snyder and Tynion had another plot in mind entirely when Higgins was writing Vicky's dialogue.

But, even if we buy Vicky's assertion that the super-villains were wrecking havoc in the city, the GCPD apparently doesn't care.  They're more concerned about a riot in Blackgate.  Really?  If you had to chose between a bunch of prisoners killing each other or saving innocent people from the "biggest villains in Gotham" "wrecking the city," why would you go with the prisoners?  I mean, sure, the prisoners could escape, but, seriously, isn't that a secondary concern at this point?

I didn't even mention Batman apparently carrying spray paint in his utility belt so that he can spell "I OWE U [Bat Symbol]" only the tarmac where he stole a plane.  They should've just embraced the absurdity and added "xoxo, Bruce."

Only four more issues, only four more issues...

* (one of five stars)

Batman Eternal #47 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, I'll admit that this issue is better than the last few (dozen). Rather than using several characters involved in several plots, Snyder and Tynion use several characters to focus on one story.  As Bruce returns from his confrontation with Ra's al Ghul, Julia sends the Bat-family to stop the villains before they use the weapons that the mastermind gave them to destroy Gotham.  It seems to be the denouement, with Bruce likely to confront the mastermind as the family takes out the other villains.  If this series started wtih this issue, it would be pretty sweet.

But, of course, it didn't.  We've got 46 issues of baggage, and it still manages to weigh down the story.  Batman tells Julia that destroying Gotham isn't Ra's' style, and you have to wonder why he didn't have that epiphany before he flew to Pakistan in the middle of the crisis.  Batwing appears from nowhere to take down Scarecrow, and you have to wonder if he ever dealt with the ghosts in his apartment.  Bluebird is sent to take out Mr. Freeze, and you have to wonder why she left Spoiler since she's allegedly the key to everything.  The mastermind breaks into the Batcave to free Hush, and you have to wonder whether the Batcave has started appearing on some sort of "Gotham Map of the Stars!" given all the people that've broken into it lately.  Spoiler calls Vicky Vale for...some reason, and you have to wonder where we last left Bard (and, for that matter, Commissioner Gordon).  At this stage, every new development just reminds you of an abandoned previous one.

Also, some of these new developments still don't make a lot of sense.  Sure, the mastermind helped the villains "level up," if you will, but only Scarecrow seems to be doing anything that could help the mastermind in his goal of destroying Gotham (distributing his fear gas via Wayne Enterprises drones).  Bane is fighting some luchadores in a dive bar, Clayface is filming a movie with actors that he took hostage, Joker's Daughter is drawing Batgirl into a trap at Amusement Mile (where the Joker tortured her father with photos of her), and Mr. Freeze is freezing a family in their home.  (We don't see Poison Ivy at this point.)  It's not exactly ambitious schemes of death and mayhem.  What's the point?

I'm not sure what I expect from this series, but it's sad that, even when an issue is decent, it's too little, too late.  Let's just reveal the mastermind and be done with it, OK?

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #46 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I have no idea what to say at this point.  It's like Snyder and Tynion aren't even trying to make sense.  We're just cycling through suspects without any real reason provided for why Batman thinks that they're the one behind the attack on Gotham.  He just figures Ra's is crafty, so it has to be him?  It's like how he thought it was the Riddler because the mastermind's identity was a mystery.  Another issue, another potential culprit exonerated.  This issue is unfortunately also burdened by some of the worst art this series has seen.  At this point, reading this series feels like a hostage situation.  Six issues until I get my life back.

* (one of five stars)

Batman Eternal #45 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Oh, Jesus effing Christ.  R'as al Ghul?  Really?

It's pretty clear that R'as isn't the mastermind.  I can't exactly tell you why he isn't, but he isn't.  His introduction here feels the same as the Riddler's, with Snyder and Tynion simply showing us that someone that we'd suspect to be the mastermind isn't, actually, the mastermind.  The problem with R'as' role in this story is that it's connected to one of the more ludicrous turns of events in this series, namely Bruce's loss of control over Wayne Enterprises.

I haven't really talked about the fall of Wayne Enterprises here, since, usually, we have such bigger fish to fry.  Of all the gimmicky moments in this series, it was definitely one of the more gimmicky ones.  Snyder and Tynion try to explain it here, arguing that, yes, it was extraordinary, but that proves that only someone as crafty as R'as al Ghul could've done it.  But, it really does defy belief that anyone, even R'as al Ghul, could do it.  Wayne Enterprises is a publicly traded company; R'as couldn't just snatch up its constituent parts without someone noticing.  It's not like Alfred runs the company from the cave while Bruce sleeps.  They've got to have an accountant somewhere.  But, it just further Snyder's central thesis, that Batman is actually a raging idiot, since the guy can't even keep control over his own company.  Moreover, it's pretty clear that it's going to be ret-conned at some point.  After all, Bruce depends on that money to be Batman, the same way that Tony Stark needs his money to be Iron Man.  Sure, authors can spend a few issues exploring the idea of them disconnected from their wealth and rising to that challenge, but, ultimately, it's existentially necessary for their alter egos.  Since it's clear that R'as isn't the mastermind, he's essentially been reduced to little more than a nefarious accountant at this point.  I'm not really sure why we're supposed to consider him a serious threat.  But, it looks like we'll spend at least next issue pretending.

Moreover, this issue just randomly dispatches the supernatural aspects of the series by explaining that Dr. Milo was merely a pawn of Blackfire.  As a result, I'm still not really sure why we re-introduced this aspect of the story in issues #44 and #45, since it didn't further our understanding of the events that occurred under Arkham.  It's not like we even get any real character development, since Luke just shrugs off Jim's apology for abandoning him under Arkham and Bruce makes a half-hearted comment about feeling bad about sending Luke to handle Arkham in the first place.  I'm not really sure what the authors meant here.

Seven more issues.  Only seven more issues.

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #44 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue has an usually narrow focus for this series.  Bluebird tries to stop Spolier's attempt to escape.  Some former Arkham prisoners finger a "Professor Milo" as responsible for its "transformation," if you will, of Arkham.  Bats stops Milo from fleeing Gotham, but then some spirits attack him, promising "the truth."

Even with these limited events, Snyder and Tynion manage not to give us all the information that we need to understand them.  For example, we never learn how the prisoners knew that Milo was involved.  It seems weird that he would've been so obvious in helping whoever it was that he helped; after all, he was endangering the prisoners' lives, and they're not exactly the sort of people to take that lightly.  Moreover, Milo claims that he combined his science with the mastermind's magic to do whatever it was that they did to Arkham, but it's unclear how that worked exactly.  Was it all just elaborate hallucinations?  If everyone was just hallucinating, what actually took down Arkham?

We've never really spent a lot of time on the Arkham sub-plot, so I can't say that I really understand where Snyder and Tynion are going with this one.  I guess we'll see next issue when we, allegedly, learn "the truth."

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #43 (HERE BE SPOILERS)

This issue, we finally reach the moment that we saw previewed in "Batman" #28, with Batman and Bluebird busting into Catwoman's underground casino to save Spoiler.  But, the big news is that Spoiler finally reveals the mastermind behind the assault on Gotham:  Bruce Wayne!

OK, we all know that it's not Bruce Wayne, unless Snyder is telling a story where Bruce finally loses his shit and develops multiple personalities.  (Even then, it'd be pretty damn impressive that he at some point manages to tie himself to that cross as he watches Gotham burn.)  But, it seems to confirm that it was, in all likelihood, Hush. The interesting part of that revelation is that it seemingly demotes Spoiler in terms of importance.  After all, we've already established that Hush is a middle man for the mastermind, and it makes sense that he would've been coordinating Cluemaster and his team on the mastermind's behalf.  The raise in the bounty on Spoiler's head implies that the mastermind is really concerned about Spoiler revealing that information, but it's hard to see why he would be.  How would Bruce getting distracted by having to clear his name be a bad thing?  At the very least, it explains why Stephanie hasn't gone to Batman, since she knows that he gets his funding from Bruce Wayne.

So, we're left guessing.  I know part of the goal of this issue is to get us to marvel how far we've come in terms of seeing the development of the world that we glimpsed in "Batman" #28.  But, the problem is that the developments that we've seen have been haphazard and random.  We haven't spent 42 issues watching Catwoman slowly but surely establish her control over the underworld; she just decided to become its queen a few issues ago and she suddenly was.  Bluebird's development has been a little more nuanced, as we've seen her work with Red Robin.  But, we still don't know why she choose the name Bluebird or really why she wants to continue to be a superhero now that they've saved her brother.  After 43 issues, this world still seems as random as it did in issue #28.

All that said, it's still a more solid issue than we usually get in this series, particularly given that Snyder and Tynion have to connect the story to "Batman" #28.  If anything, I'm getting excited that we can only have so many more of these fake-outs before, at some point, the mastermind has to be revealed.

*** (three of five stars)

Batman Eternal #42 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

[Sigh.]  All right, let's just get this one finished as quickly as possible, shall we?

We first learned about the nano-virus in issue #5.  That means that this story has been building for 38 issues.  38.  As a result, I think that it's reasonable that I was a little stunned when the reason for the virus wound up being so...uncomplicated.  Apparently, it all was driven by the mastermind wanting the Mad Hatter to get everyone in Gotham to hate Batman.  Really?  It wasn't more nefarious than that?  He wanted to gain total control over the population -- essentially an army -- simply to get people to dislike Batman?  Plus, Jervis spontaneously decided to make everyone love him?  Why would he do that?  Doesn't he only care if Alice (whoever she is at the moment) loves him?  Also, isn't he a good enough engineer to do both:  have them hate Batman and love him?  Plus, whatever happened to the guy that invented the nano-virus?  Didn't Tim bring him from Japan to Gotham?  (I could be mistaken on that front, but I'm not sure that I enough to look through 38 back issues to research it.)  Also, why was it just children and teenagers?  Why did the mastermind and/or Jervis only want them to hate Batman and/or love Jervis?  Why not adults?  Of all the ridiculous sub-plots that we've seen throughout this series, this one is that one that feels the most like the authors had no plan from the start of what it was going to turn out being.  It just feels like they kept kicking the can down the road and now, with only 10 issues left, they had to resolve it in some way.

Similarly, it turns out Spoiler's mom was the one to hire Deadshot to kidnap her last issue, not Catwoman.  This revelation could've actually been an interesting twist; Higgins certainly winks at us that Stephanie's mom is just as nefarious as her father and pulling a fast one on her.  After all, if she really meant it when she said that they were going to flee Gotham together, why let Stephanie get a good night's sleep?  Why not just get the FUCK OUT OF GOTHAM?  It definitely seemed to confirm that her mom had an ulterior motive.  But, we never learn that motive, since Catwoman appears her to...kidnap Stephanie.  The whole interlude with her mom becomes completely pointless, with us winding up where we all likely thought we were at the end of last issue.  It's just another potential development dropped with little explanation.

Finally, I know that Harper's "DON'T MANSPLAIN ME!" speech to Tim was supposed to be all "FEMINISM, ROAR!" but it fell completely flat, collapsing under the weight of bad narration.  Let's just focus on her being a strong woman and not telling everyone that she is.  It's perfectly reasonable for Tim, who lost everything due to becoming a superhero, wanted to protect her from that as long as possible.  Also, we're also starting to push the boundaries of disbelief on how good she is.  Sure, she has some difficulties with the physical aspects of superheroing here that the authors intend to show what a newbie she is.  But, if she's going to be an interesting character, she has to have some struggles related to her real talent, namely her intellect and hacking skills.  Every plan she has can't work perfectly.  That said, she doesn't have to become a complete fucking idiot like Batman and now, apparently, Red Robin.  (He absolutely should've anticipated the possibility of getting infected by the nano-virus if he's the character that we've always known him to be.)  Both Bluebird and Red Robin need to be facing challenges that test their wits, but make it clear that they still have them; they shouldn't be reduced to the bumbling idiot like Tim is here.

Man, this series just has to end.

* (one of five stars)

Batman Eternal #41 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I'm thrilled to see Harper debut as Bluebird in this issue, because, OMFG, she and Spoiler seem to be the only ones who aren't idiots in the Bat-family.

To be fair, I didn't anticipate the Mad Hatter infesting Batgirl, Red Hood, and Red Robin with the nano-virus.  But, I'm not the all-knowing and all-seeing Red Robin.  He's dealing with a nano-virus that seems to spread easily, but he waltzes into the place where the children with said virus are all concentrated without a protocol to defend against infection?  Moreover, he takes Batgirl and Red Hood with him?  In issue #36, Batman dispatches the three of them not just to solve the nano-virus mystery, but also discover who destroyed Arkham and who hired Falsairo to frame Jim Gordon.  Although we discover how Falsairo did it (by swiping Tetch's technology) in this issue, we're still not any closer to an answer on those questions.  Should the three of them really be assembled together researching just one of them?  The answer, as we learn in this issue, is clearly not.

[Sigh.]  We do take one more step closer to getting to the preview that we saw in "Batman" #25, as one of Catwoman's agents kidnaps Spoiler for her own safety.  But, that also raises the possibility that no one will figure out anything between now and the time that we actually hit that issue, and the denouement of this series will be when Batman eventually learns the identity of the mastermind and his plans from Spoiler.  If that happens, so help me, I will not be a happy camper.

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #40 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Nothing really happens in this issue, and, in a lesson the authors hopefully learn, it's actually one of the strongest issues of late for it.

This strength comes mostly from the fact that the issue doesn't veer randomly into other plots (for the most part), instead building on the developments from last issue.  Batman manages to trap the Riddler and return him to Gotham, and Vicky outmaneuvers her mysterious attacker and get her editor to the hospital.  The most notable event is Catwoman refusing the mastermind's offer to join his side and deciding to get to the bottom of his identity.  Is it maybe a little overly convenient that Catwoman suddenly (and correctly) decides that the answer will come by scrubbing the hit list to identify the most disproportionate bounty on the list?  Yes.  But, to be honest, I'm not going to push on this one, because it's the first time in ages that someone seems to be doing something that makes sense.  In fact, if we started calling this series "Catwoman Eternal," it might stop sucking.

All that said, we also seem close to getting to the bottom of the nano-virus, reminding me that this series will actually come to an end at some point.  For that reminder alone, I'll give it three stars.

*** (three of five stars)

Batman Eternal #39 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I don't know why I'm still reading this series.  I converted to getting it digitally so at least it wasn't taking up space in my boxes, but, at this point, I just feel like I'm torturing myself.

This issue is yet another in a long line of issues where Snyder proves that Batman is an idiot.  He's so desperate to discover the identity of the perpetrator that he plays the Riddler's games, hoping that he'll tell reveal it to him.  Really?  He's suddenly become such a terrible detective that he has to rely on the Riddler?  Jesus, I mean, Vicky Vale and her boss even seem poised to figure out the plan before their duplicitous intern tries to kill them.  Are we really supposed to believe that Bruce is so incapable of solving this mystery?  Apparently, yes, we are.  We're also supposed to believe that Bruce is half-exhausted from the events of all these issues, but, honestly, I just don't buy it.  He's spent most of his time in the Batcave.  Sure, he's had a few fisticuffs here and there, but he's been so inert throughout this series that it's hard to believe he isn't even getting a good night's sleep, let alone that he's close to some sort of breakdown.

We're also apparently supposed to believe that he's so focused on the identity of the mastermind that he has totally abdicated his responsibility to Gotham.  He apparently doesn't care -- at all -- that the weapons that Hush stole from his caches are still out there, evidenced by the fact that the mastermind just gave them to pretty much every costumed villain in the city.  When we dispatched Batgirl, Red Hood, and Red Robin a few issues ago to play catch-up, no one was given orders to find the weapons?  Doesn't Harper need something to do?  She's pretty good at this stuff.  Does it matter if he solves the mystery of the mastermind's identity if everyone in Gotham is already dead?

I hope reading this series is building up my karma for the afterlife, because, man, I have no idea why I keep doing it to myself.

* (one of five stars)

Batman Eternal #38 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

By the time we got to Croc talking about French literature, I knew we were in one of the worst issues of this series.  That just to confirm it.

Seeley's "Grayson" is a study in keeping the reader guessing in a way that doesn't become overly annoying.  We've gone several issues now with only vague hints of the mysterious plot lying at the center of the series, but Seeley gives us just enough information each issue to keep us interested.

This issue is exactly the opposite of that.  We're given so much information that it's incredibly annoying.  Scarecrow and Gordon's cellmate, the Lion, engage in long expository sequences for no reason.  Scarecrow's musings about the pasts of each of the villains in his little group is wholly unnecessary, done as if the reader has no idea who Clayface or Mr. Freeze is.  The Lion's babbling is possibly worse, awkwardly bringing the reader to speed on the happenings in the prison since we last saw him and Gordon.  It serves as a reminder of how we just drop plots for issues at a time and suddenly re-engage with them for no apparent reason.  Moreover, I'm not sure how accurate what he says is.  The Lion says that everyone knows that Jim's not responsible for the train crash, but how?  Batgirl told Bard, but I don't see how or why that information would've been passed to the Blackgate crowd.

Moreover, I have no idea what the point of Scarecrow's gang was.  They were introduced last issue to much fanfare, since a union of six of Batman's enemies seemed appropriate for the last part of this series.  But, suddenly, Batman dispatches them this issue, making you wonder why we even bothered.  Plus, certain parts of their story still doesn't make sense.  For example, how did Ivy get word to Catwoman to set up Croc's confrontation with Bane?  How did Selina even know Ivy was running with that crowd?

I'm not going to even go into Bard's miraculous conversion to the side of angels.  He kills cops willy-nilly with Hush and tried to murder Batman extrajudicially, but now suddenly he wants to save Gotham?  Really?  I feel like I'm crazy to keep harping on it, because the authors just keep treating him like he did nothing wrong.

I just...yeah.  This series needs to end.

* (one of five stars)

Batman Eternal #37 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

To be honest, this issue is actually pretty solid, though the larger problems with this series weigh it down a bit.

Catwoman is in the process of solidifying her hold over the Gotham Underworld, and she's spying on a coterie of Arkham escapees not just to keep tabs on them but to offer them to Batman.  If I were Selina, I'd be quite happy to have Bats take my logical competition off the board, so everything she does here makes sense.

My complaint with the Catwoman story is that it feels like a detour from other stories that we should be following.  We not only have Catwoman in play again, but Batwing also resurfaces, as he apparently brought some of the ghosts haunting Arkham home with him.  Honestly, we only have 15 issues left.  Can we maybe get to the bottom of the nano-virus story?  Maybe we could spring Jim Gordon from jail?  We were really worried about that, but now we don't seem to care so much.  Last issue, Bats sent the team into the field to get some answers to these questions, but it seems that Snyder and Tynion used that as a way to take them off the table (at least for now).  Also, what happened to Spoiler?  Last I remember, Bats saved her from Hush, but where is she now?  Are people still trying to kill her?

Also, I'll say that it would be nice if we got some consistency in the portrayal of Bullock and Sawyer.  Here, they won't even help Bard to his feet, but they've been more or less supporting him (even if grudgingly) throughout this series.  If they're really as good of detectives as we're supposed to believe that they are, shouldn't they be a little suspicious about his vendetta against Bats?  Also, conversely, shouldn't Bats be warning them that they're dealing with a guy who collaborated with Hush to kill his own men to achieve his goals?  I'd certainly like to know that my boss has no problem sending me to my death.

On a side note, has Jason always had a knee injury?  I thought maybe he was using the cane after Batman roughed him up last issue, but I checked and he had the cane before then.

Again, it's a solid story, but I still feel like we're just sort of veering from unresolved threat to unresolved threat.  It feels almost pointless to complain about it at this point, but, here I am, complaining about it.

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #36 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

The Riddler, huh?

First, I'm obviously not sure we can trust that revelation.  As I mentioned in my last review, Snyder and Tynion could just be setting up the Riddler as the third villain (after Falcone and Hush), leaving the revelation of the mastermind for the denouement.  But, the Riddler certainly makes a certain amount of sense.  Setting up this sort of elaborate puzzle does seem like him.  Plus, it makes sense that Snyder began telling this story at the same time as "Zero Year;" the Riddler's role in destroying Gotham five years ago certainly ups the ante of his attempt this time (if it is indeed him).

If it's not the Riddler, he at least hits on the decent point that Batman should've figured out the real mastermind by now.  The good news is that Snyder and Tynion seem ready to stop treating Bruce like an idiot.  He acknowledges that they still know nothing about the mastermind's identity and sends out the Bat-family to dig up some clues.  Again, as I've complained before about this series, it would be nice if Bruce actually did some detective work himself and just didn't leave it to his subordinates, but I have to take what I can get here.

The bad news is that the resolution of the Bard story is disappointing.  Some imitator dressed like Batman distracted his partner (and alleged love of his life) during a drug bust and she was killed.  As such, he hates capes.  He also apparently hates Gordon, for allowing Batman to do the job that he, as a police officer, is supposed to be doing.  I get that, but it's still a hard sell, based on the details that we're actually given about Bard.  Snyder and Tynion don't confirm that Jason was dating his partner; in fact, they imply that he wasn't.  As such, it seems like a stretch that he throws in his lot with an super-villain with a plan to kill a lot of people because his crush died.  As Bats notes, he willingly played accessory to the deaths of dozens of people -- through the detonations of Batman's arms caches under the cops and all the crimes that went unstopped as he diverted resources to the hunt on Batman.  Again, it seems like a lot just because your crush died.  Snyder and Tynion might be implying that Bard is mentally unstable, and it would make a lot more sense if he were.  But, they need to draw that line a little clearer, since his brutality is really undermining his argument here, that cops are better than capes.

But, even more than that, Snyder and Tynion don't explain to us how Hush found Jason.  I mean, he still had the blood from his dead partner on him, meaning that Hush approaches just a few hours after she was killed.  In a few hours' time, Hush heard about some cop getting killed, flew to Detroit, tracked down the surviving partner, and hatched a plan for him to replace Gordon as Commissioner to get revenge on him and Batman?  Really?  It's like they're not even trying to have this story make a lick of sense.

** (two of five stars)

Batman Eternal #35 (HERE BE SPOILERES!)

Man, I just don't know if I can do it anymore with this series.

Lucius Fox tells Bruce that he's working for Bard.  It's not a surprise.  He tells him very clearly.  He's also not really a traitor.  Bruce endangered the entire city by hiding caches of weapons throughout the city and not doing enough to make sure that they were secured from falling into the wrong hands.  If it's not some sort of trick, Lucius is well within his rights to assist a Commissioner that appears to be an upstanding guy in protecting the city.  It's a little odd that he would help him try to arrest Batman, but he's angry and I get it.

But, Bruce walks RIGHT INTO THE TRAP.  I'm not just talking about walking into the trap itself.  Julia even questions him about it, and he says that he's doing it to provoke the confrontation.  I mean that he walks into the trap without anywhere to extricate himself from it.  He knows that Lucius knows all the weaknesses of his equipment.  He's got to know that his likelihood of maintaining control over the Batmobile is low, since Bard and Fox would go straight for it.  But, he seemingly doesn't do anything to install some sort of override system that Lucius wouldn't know is there.  He just blindly drives into the trap without taking basic steps to protect himself.  Are we supposed to believe he's suicidal?

Moreover, within hours of setting foot in Detroit, Vicky Vale has discovered Bard's motivation for working with Hush.  Some superhero likely killed his girlfriend, and he wants revenge.  Did Bruce did that little research into Bard?  I mean, he knows that Bard worked for Hush.  If he had done the research that we would all believe Batman would do on the mysterious new cop that waltzes into Commissioner Gordon's job, he would put two and two together and realize that Bard wasn't going to stop with Hush getting detained.  But, since he apparently hasn't done this research, he thinks that he's just going to magically talk down Bard at some point.

I could continue, but I won't.  This series, man.  I just don't know what I'm supposed to say about it anymore.

* (one of five stars)

Batman Eternal #34 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, for this series, this issue is pretty solid.  We've got some good and bads, but they more or less balance out each other.

Let's take the bads first.  Hush goes for the end game here, tripping a sensor in the cache located under the Martha Wayne Foundation Hospital to bring Batman to him.  The problem is that this moment falls flat.  After so many issues building to it, Snyder and Tynion never really tell us why Hush goes for the kill at this moment.  Given the damage that he's done to the Wayne name, it seems odd that he wouldn't decide to keep detonating more caches, to score the maximum amount of damage possible.  Moreover, Higgins doesn't really do much with the fight itself.  It sounds like the same old fight that these two characters have always had, with Tommy crowing that he's better than Bruce and that Bruce is still crying about his parents and Bruce proving that he's more than Tommy thinks that he is.  It's pretty dull, to be honest.

Moreover, we learn that the federal government has taken over Wayne Enterprises.  That doesn't make a lick of sense.  I could see DHS or the FBI demanding everything Wayne Enterprises knows about the caches and putting investigators into the parts of the company dealing with the caches.  But, it's hard to believe that the federal government could ever get the power to take over one of the largest multinational corporations in the world.  Did they pay shareholders for their shares?  It just feels like a cheap stunt to underline the fact that Bruce lost the company while he's busy protecting the city.

But, the good news is that we have good news.  The revelation that Hush was invited to partake in the destruction of Gotham City just like Carmine Falcone was expected, but still welcome when it comes.  (I'm not sure why Hush would be holding the invitation in his pocket, but I'm willing to overlook that part.)  Hush has never seemed like the type of villain that could pull off the conspiracy that we've seen building in the background so far.  He has neither the personality to inspire followers nor the resources to instill fear in them.  Though it's (again) unclear why Hush would prematurely try to take down Batman, this revelation raises the possibility that he was told to do so, abiding by a schedule that only the mastermind knows.  One question related to his fall is what impact it will have on his use of the GCPD to undermine Gotham's security from the inside.  Will Bard start working with the mysterious mastermind?

We have 18 issues left in this series.  So far, we've essentially had two main segments:  Falcone's fostering of a gang war and Hush's assault on Gotham City.  If Snyder and Tynion follow a three-act approach, it implies that we'll have a third actor come into focus in the next few issues that may, or may not, be the mastermind.  We also have a number of fires still burning, like the nano-virus that, given the lack of attention paid to it so far, has presumably killed all the children in the Narrows.  But, Snyder and Tynion have, admittedly, resolved a number of other sub-plots, such as the super-natural activity under Arkham Asylum and the mystery of Commissioner's Gordon's actions in the subway station.

I guess we'll see where we go from here.

*** (three of five stars)

Batman Eternal #33 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue continues on a theme of this series (and Snyder's run on the Bat-books in the DCnU), that Bruce's overconfidence leads to incompetence.  In fact, at this point, DC should really change the title of this series to "The Greatest Incompetent Batman Stories Ever Told."

Snyder and Tynion engage in the now officially named pet peeve #3 in this issue, using a character to point out an illogical aspect of the story, as if doing so excuses the presence of said illogical aspect in the first place.  Here, it occurs when Julia asks Batman why he never planned for the fact that someone could one day use the 17 ammunition dumps that he has seeded around the city against him.  Bruce doesn't have an answer, but I guess we're just supposed to go with it since Julia took on the role of the reader in asking the question in the first place.  If so, I would also like Julia to ask why he made the codes to open the dumps so easily reprogrammable, since it seems pretty easy for a villain in the DCnU to get his hands on something that could cause an emp pulse.

I gave last issue two stars because I had hoped that Snyder and Tynion would somehow give us a logical explanation for why Bruce managed to keep these dumps so poorly protected.  (I wasn't sure what it could be, but I had hope.)  But, we don't get that here.  Instead, we get confirmation that he's just dangerously incompetent.  At this point, I find myself rooting for the corrupt cops of Gotham to stop him, for the sake of Gotham's citizens.

* (one of five stars)