Mirror
mirror on the wall................
Jason Bard
finally got some much needed spotlight, while Bruce took on Hush. Bard has been
with us from the first page, and while it’s sometimes been frustrating not
knowing his allegiance, the mystery make him a complicated character.
Pulling the
curtain back a little thankfully doesn’t diminish his character, but may have
just put him in a label that can’t be rid on now.
Most of the
revelations are done well (and Fabok returns briefly for an awesomely drawn book),
but several glaring contrived situations leave a sour taste.
SPOILERS
FOLLOW.........................
Jason Bard
has been an endless source of intrigue and frustration since Batman Eternal
began. Is he villain, misled hero or something more complex? Well, Eternal took
some time to get to the origin story and manages to portray Bard as a mirror to
Bruce’s own psychosis in a novel manner that neither Hush or Prometheus were.
But first,
Hush continues his plan to blow up Bruce’s caches as a way to ruin WayneTech
and Batman, and admittedly succeeds quite well. The fact that this plot point
hinges on Batman having an arsenal of guns and explosives hidden away at
different Gotham locales makes the premise weak, but contributes enormously to
the overall theme that Bruce is increasingly growing isolated from Gotham.
Julia
Pennyworth’s first physical foray as a Batfamily member goes terribly wrong as
she is badly wounded by Hush and barely manages to escape. With multiple
casualties, WayneTech has no option but to let the government seize its assets,
leaving Bruce broke.
Not just
that, Jason also enlists Fox in his crusade against Batman and manages to use
the WayneTech designs against Batman in order to take over his Batmobile and
almost murder him.
Meanwhile,
Hush confronts Bruce under the Martha Wayne Foundation Hospital (seriously
Bruce, you keep guns and live ammo under a freaking hospital???) and though
he’s beaten physically, Hush knows that it’s Bruce who’s licking his wounds.
While chaos
reigns in Gotham, Vicki Vale follows leads into uncovering Jason’s story and
finds some unexpected and unpleasant news – apparently, Detroit had a Batman
wannabe that got Jason’s cop partner and unrequited love interest killed during
a siege.
There are
some nice touches, like Bruce keeping Hush in the Batcave (due to a lack of
Arkham Asylum) and the themes involved. But the cache incident in itself leaves
a bad taste – feeling seriously out of character for someone like Batman to be
involved in that (maybe if Red Hood had the resources, but the rest of the Bat
family –nope).
And what set
of fighting skills does Hush have? The way in which he one-upped Julia felt
forced.
About the B
plots, apparently Alfred is still at the cave and feeling the effects of the
fear toxin (though indirectly he helps in rescuing Batman from the Batmobile
issue by mentioning the failsafe to Julia) while Harper, whom I’m growing to
dislike, is still sick over her half-dead brother and the nanobots issue.
With both
Jason and Hush proving red herrings to the actual mastermind, we finally seem
to have found our main villain, and it’s a pleasant one – the Riddler.
SPOILERS
END..........................
Bard proves
to be a good foil to Batman, but his enigmatic nature is tarnished a little by the
reveals, while the Hush conflict has a naturally done closure.
There’s
still a long road to go, but things are picking up and soon, the endgame will
come.
So, I give
this a 7.5 out of 10.
+Bruce
pushed to a wall
+The themes
+Fabok’s
brief return to art duties
+Bard gets a
good backstory...................
-That
tarnishes his enigmatic nature a little
-Contrived arms
cache situation
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