Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Batman #52 Review and *SPOILERS*



Moving On........ Up?


Written By: James Tynion IV
Art By: Riley Rossmo, Brian Level, Ivan Plascencia, Jordan Boyd, Steve Wands
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 11, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

This is it folks, the final issue of our New 52/DCYou Batman run and while I wasn't the biggest fan of Snyder and Capullo's Super Heavy story arc, that threw Jim Gordon into the role of Batman, I have to say that their last and final issue on this series was just executed beautifully....... and really felt like it should have been this issue.  There really isn't a lot of lead in going into this story since like last issue, this is a once and done deal just getting us to that fifty-second issue that DC seems to be all about.  So yeah, last issue we found out what "Gotham Is", let's check out how a young Bruce Wayne planned on moving on from his parents deaths.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Dr. Leslie Thompkins coming to see a young Bruce Wayne two weeks after his parents were murdered and goddamn does Bruce need a doctor because he's just creepy as hell with him staring off into the distance, looking like a goddamn psychopath....... but I guess that can be expected.  We find out that Leslie has given Bruce a notebook to fill out with all the things he thinks he needs to do to move on from his traumatic experience............  Which becomes the focus of our issue.  We see that Bruce put "Disappear" into the notebook and then we see him training as a ninja years later, like we see him withstanding pain in another part of his training to fulfill his goal to "Feel Nothing" and it goes on like that throughout the book, while being encompassed in our main story of Batman taking on a high tech bank robber named Crypsis, who has stolen something out of a safety deposit box.  This seems like a really weird way to end this series of Batman because while we could have had anyone in the Batman rogues gallery be the foil of our Caped Crusader in this issue, we get a character, who I've never heard of before and who I'm pretty sure was created just for this issue....... and because of this point, it feels less than it should.



So yeah, we've got this Crypsis taking on the Dark Knight and our not so big bad has a high tech suit that allows him to phase through objects and teleport short distances, but he's obviously no match for the Bat as we see our hero Urban Surfing like Teen Wolf before quickly beating the ever loving shit out of him to the point where our villain can't teleport away anymore.  It's at this point where we find out that Crypsis' whole plan was to break into the bank, steal the contents of a safety deposit box, which we then find out belong to Bruce Wayne because Crypsis knows that billionaires always have a book of secrets that they don't want getting out and he plans on selling it to the highest bidder........... but since we've spent a lot of issue already dealing with this notebook that a young Bruce used to try and move on, there really isn't any big reveal about what Crypsis stole, only the satisfaction in knowing that he hasn't retrieved what he had hoped to........ and maybe that's the point, but it just doesn't come off as strong as I would have hoped.



In the end, Batman tells Crypsis to look at what he stole, leading to the villain being outraged that the book is just full of nonsense that a traumatized kid jotted down, but this all leads to Batman returning to the Batcave and Alfred seeing the notebook for the first time in years and realizing that an argument that a young Bruce and him had was all for nothing and that Bruce loves his surrogate father.  You see, Alfred had written a segment for Bruce in the book that he thought was going to help the boy, but the young Bruce was furious and ripped the segment out.  Here it turns out Bruce actually recovered the torn pages and taped them back together, but found it hard to look at because while Bruce could escape into himself with his ways to move on, Alfred's addition to the book "Remember that your parents will always be proud of you" was something that Batman didn't know if he could actually achieve........ you know, since what he does every night in the streets of Gotham is his attempt to make his parents proud, but what we get from this is that Batman will never stop trying to achieve that goal so that he can finally move on.



That's it for this series of Batman before the Rebirth renumbering and I have to say that even though this was a really decent attempt at a nice story.......... the previous issue really feels like it should have ended this series because while this was kind of touching, it was nowhere close to what the last issue achieved in giving Batman a decent send off with an issue that gives you the feels....... The real feels!  Not to mention that we get a throwaway character like Crypsis that just feels like a wasted opportunity to give us somebody that at least is thought of when you think of Batman, especially with this being the fifty second issue that DC seems to be all about.  Ultimately, this issue was a let down from what we got here and even though I was a huge fan of Riley Rossmo's art and style in Constantine: The Hellblazer, I can't say that I really enjoyed it here.  It just didn't feel right and that's the only way that I can describe it.

Bits and Pieces:

While we get that all important #52 on this issue, I can't say that this story feels all that important or even worthwhile because while it tries to give us the feels that the previous issue did, it sadly didn't come close and gave us a throwaway villain to boot.  I know I shouldn't compare this issue to the previous one, but it's really hard not to when they seem to be trying to do the same things and this one just comes up short.

5.8/10

1 comment:

  1. Predictable story but still a nice read. What was up with that Bugs Bunny watch that Crypsis took?? It seems odd to focus on that if it turns out to be nothing.

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