Thursday, May 21, 2009

Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3 (of 3)

And with a final burst of brutality, bloodletting, death and destruction, we finally bring the Battle for the Cowl to a close, and a new Batman is rolled out.

And not a moment too soon, as far as I'm concerned. Tony Daniel provided both art and story for this mini-series, and while his pencils are solid, the plot leaves a lot to be desired.

The main problem is the massive cast on the stage here. There are so many players, including every member of the Batman family (except for Batman, of course) and virtually every Bat-villain, that there's not much room left for actual story advancement.

We just see lots of characters running around, getting into fights, being shot, stabbed, and blown up - it just makes it difficult to care.

Of course, the whole story just feels like it's treading water - marking time until the "real" Batman returns.

The Bat-books have been feeling very disjointed lately, and perhaps the long-range plan is to shake things up and establish a new status quo - and certainly something needs to be done, because right now Gotham City is crawling with super-heroes.

Rather than spark interest in the Batman line of comics, this series has left a bad taste. Hopefully the new Batman and Robin comic by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely will get things back on track.

Grade: C

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