Monday, June 9

Batman Eternal #1-4 (DC Comics, June 2014)

By Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jason Fabok, and others

DC Comics are trying to recapture the magic they inadvertently stumbled on back in 2006 (eight years ago?!) in the year-long weekly 52. As usual these days, it seems they are blundering right in with little thought – in the next few months no less than three (is that all? – this one plus Future's End and Earth 2: World's End) new weeklies will be going. Hey! – If one is a good idea, three must be a better idea, right? – Throw 'em at the wall and see what sticks!  Whether they will “stick” and be going “strong” is another matter, but I am happy to say that this first one out the gate is a winner in my book. I'm not going to say a whole lot about it, except that this is the kind of Batman story I like – characterization and action, fast-paced, an intriguing mystery, involving both the full range of primary Bat-family characters (including the New 52 debut of Stephanie Brown!) and secondary (sometimes new, sometimes just New 52 reintroduced) characters including the Gotham City Police – all graced by dark, moody, but cleanly realistic art. Makes me wish I had a local comic shop so I could be there every Wednesday for the newest chapter rather than waiting until the end of the month for my mail-order subscription service to dump them all on me at once. Which is part of the strategy of the weekly model in the first place – to encourage that weekly compulsion to get thee to a comic shop! I'll make do, but at the moment, just four weeks into the story, Batman Eternal has catapulted to the top of my short list of titles I'm really looking forward to each month. It sets a very high bar for those to come.

Cheers, and Thanks for reading!

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