In this edition of Weekly Weeklies, we have Batman Eternal #7 and Futures End #3; in Batman we get back to the gang war with Tim Seeley taking the lead and over in Futures End we see random story points happening featuring Frankenstein, Firestorm, and more. Let’s take a look at the action.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
Batman Eternal #7
Lead Writer: Tim Seeley
Corresponding Writers: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, John Layman, and Ray Fawkes
Artist: Emanuel Simeoni
Story:
Batman has caught up with Professor Pyg after an explosion went off at his hideout but he’s going to have a lot of trouble getting the porcine-dubbed maniac. Why? An army of Dolltrons, that’s why! Elsewhere, Catwoman breaks into the Iceberg Lounge looking for information about the disappearances involving Gotham Underground inhabitants. While that is all going on, Falcone makes his final move of turning the city completely over to him.
Spoiler Corner:
With help from his fellow crime bosses Bixby Rhodes AKA Roadrunner and Tiger Shark, Falcone has the Iceberg Lounge blown up and sunk into the depths of the Gotham Bay. With that, Penguin’s entire enterprise and organization has been wiped out.
Before the place sinks, Penguin reveals to Catwoman that he has no involvement with the disappearances of the citizens from Gotham Underground and that Dr. Phosphorus is working for him as an agent. This explains why he blew up the truck at the end of the last issue.
Batman manages to beat down and capture Professor Pyg, but when the police arrive with Commissioner Forbes, Forbes releases Pyg, saying the police don’t need help from vigilantes in catching criminals. This can only end in good things. (End sarcasm.)
During beat down, Batman reveals to Pyg that he was set up to be used as a distraction by Falcone and Rhodes so that Batman couldn’t get to the Iceberg Lounge in time. Trouble is though, with Pyg freed, he takes his revenge by blowing up Rhodes and his car dealership. With that, he declares that Gotham will be his personal lab now.
Thoughts:
After a weak week last time, Batman Eternal is back on top with another exciting and intense issue. Tim Seeley delivers the strongest issue of the series since #3, escalating the gang war to its climax and apparent conclusion (for now at least). The strongest thing about the issue itself is the characterization with everyone. Seeley gets these characters quite well and how they work. Penguin, Catwoman, Batman, and even Professor Pyg are all fantastic here and feel very much in character, showing us why we love these heroes and villains. Also, hooray for person who knows how to actually write a good Catwoman.
The rest of the issue is pretty good even beyond the characters. The story is quite exciting and a lot of fun to read, seeing new and old characters return. The dialogue was decent outside of one area where it felt a little off. The pacing was strong and made this a fast, but very engaging read. Outside of one plot point towards the end that leaves me baffled (why the hell did that person do that?!) and a slight confusing opening (poor transition between this and the last issue), the writing was great. The artwork by Emanuel Simeoni and his work is better here than it was with Talon, with the inking and tone being more reminiscent of Jason Fabok’s style in this comic. Some characters do tend to look a bit off at points and there is a tiny bit of clunky fighting, but not too bad overall.
Best Moment:
Fisher Price toy meet headbutt.
9.0Overall Score
Futures End #3
Lead Writers: Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, and Keith Giffen
Artist: Dan Jurgens
Story:
Frankenstein is currently hiding out in northern Canada; the monster is just trying to mind his own business when S.H.A.D.E., the organization he formerly worked for, tries tracking him down. He is not pleased. Ronnie, the physical half of Firestorm, is still being a douche. Grifter is still out hunting aliens and wondering what the hell his next target will be. Mr. Terrific watches someone breaking into his company. Lots of fun all around.
Spoiler Corner:
Ronnie has kept Jason trapped inside of his Firestorm form for days now; he hasn’t let him out due to his belief that Jason’ll rat him out for letting Green Arrow die. Jason is naturally a little pissed off being stuck inside of him.
Batman Beyond doesn’t have any luck with breaking into Mr. Terrific’s company and is forced to flee due to the heavy security guard presence. Terrific remarks that he’s glad that BB didn’t get anywhere near his mysterious new uSphere project. He’s also not sure if that’s really Batman or not due to his observations on BB’s fighting style and behavior on the security footage.
Of course, Batman Beyond/Terry is not one to give up easily. He seems to have a plan… disguised as a beggar who gets some cash handouts from Terrific personally.
Curiously, in the 5 Years Later future, everyone has Earth ID cards that help identify whether or not they are from this earth or Earth 2. Also, people have much more negative feelings towards superheroes nowadays (Are you sure these new people on Earth didn’t come from the Marvel universe?)
Lois Lane’s recent information takes her to a bar called The Wounded Duck. There, she observes a bartender toss out two customers who talked about getting rich on betting after Green Arrow and Wonder Girl dying. After all the research she’s done, she concludes that this mysterious partner is Red Robin, who didn’t really during the war with Earth 2.
Thoughts:
Having read these past three issues, I have reached a conclusion in regards to this story: this comic is similar to 52 in that it benefits more if you read the issues back to back after reaching a certain point. At this time Future’s End is a bit slow, even with its weekly pace; the story is interesting but we are definitely stuck in the setup phase of the book as it continues developing storylines, explaining where the characters are currently at, and what’s going on with the world currently. Once the comic gets past that and starts setting up the action, I’m sure we’ll have a great book on our hands.
As of right now though it’s just kind of… eh. Not bad at all, but it needs more to it. The writing is fine, the rich backstory we get for the world is fine, these storylines that are developing have potential, the dialogue and narration are fine, and so on. The only thing that’s not completely fine is the artwork by Dan Jurgens. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly memorable either, especially with it how scratchy and bland it looks in some portions. I’m hoping we get Patrick Zircher back soon.
Best Moment:
Finally! Someone beats the crap out of these annoying superhero haters in comics. I hereby dub you the best character of this comic so far.
6.5Overall Score
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