Judd Winick’s run on
BATMAN ends -- as does the title’s first story arc with the Dick-Batman -- with issue #691.
So is this a good thing? It depends on what we get starting next month from Tony Daniel who is both writing and providing the art. Anyway, that’s a discussion for the future, so let’s take a look at the current issue.
When we left off (issue #690), Dick-Batman returned to The Batcave after alarms indicted that it had been compromised. The intruder of course was Two Face who proceeds to drug and then beat the living crap out of Batman. That crazy Two-Face Batsuit? Nothing more than a drug-induced hallucination.
If you’ve been reading “Long Shadows,” you know that Two Face has been on to Dick since he first hit Gotham as Batman. Now Harvey’s in the Batcave attempting to beat the truth out of Grayson.
I won't give away the outcome, but come on, who do you think is going to ultimately win?
Not a bad issue, but certainly not an outstanding one either. I wasn’t as down on this title as many other seemed to be since “Batman Reborn” began. I actually thought all the storylines involving The Penguin, Black Mask, “smiling Batman” (or “media whore” as Dent refers to it), and the aforementioned Two Face have been pretty interesting.
Things really didn’t go south for me personally until last issue due to Two Face’s method of infiltrating the Batcave. Really, transporters? I know this is superhero fiction and all, but couldn’t Winick have come up with something a little more realistic than that? Anyway…
Like I said, not a great issue by no means, but an OK ending to this story arc -- though there was certainly a bit of a "OK, let's just get this over" vibe with it. Speaking of endings, Winnick did leave us with a couple of things which will probably end up playing major roles in BATMAN in future issues. I won’t give ‘em away, but it’s safe to say that Two Face didn’t make it to Arkham and a little ‘ol flashdrive may prove to be rather interesting.
(FYI: I was not a big fan of BATTLE FOR THE COWL at all, so I’m a little of leery of Daniel taking over BATMAN as writer. Love his artwork, but not too impressed so for by his writing chops. We shall see….)
