Colourist: Tomeu Morey, Letterer: Clayton Cowles
I have to be honest, the longer Chip Zdarsky's run on Batman has gone on the more I've ended up disliking it, and this final arc might be one of the best examples for why I dislike it. There are multiple reasons why this issue annoyed me, things such as Bullock being fired from the cops again after just having gone back to them, a lingering question over whether Gordon was mind controlled or not when he murdered the mayor so might actually be a killer, Thomas Wayne having had an affair, Gordon having had an affair. Things that either cast our characters in a poor light, or things happening just for the sake of having them happen to have no lasting consequences (like Bruce maybe having a brother who's taking away his company, but no, he's not really his brother so that whole sub plot was a big nothing).
But the thing that I disliked most was the ridiculousness of the stakes and what Batman does in this issue. The simple (ish) plot about The Riddler messing with Gotham and framing Gordon for murder turned into a global plot by the Russian government to steal tech that would allow them to get the US nukes and start World War III, meaning Batman is now racing to stop a nuclear apocalypse and global war. This leads him to boarding a private jet and stopping the Russian agents, killing one in the process because everyone kills now I guess. However, the jet loses control and is crashing towards Gotham. So batman climbs onto the plane, uses two machine guns and some explosive gel to blow the wings off so it'll fit on the street it's crashing towards. He then lands the wing-less jet perfectly, bringing it down right in front of the villain. Before the jet even stops moving he's dived out of the windows, throwing batarangs to save a woman being hung, and lands whilst hitting the villain in the face. Because Batman can do ANYTHING.
This has been a common theme in Zdarsky's run. We've had Batman literally falling from space and walking away without much hassle, him fighting his way across the multiverse, having to battle an unstoppable robot that even Superman can't beat, stopping World War 3. Batman is a great character when he's a vigilante detective, but Zdarsky seems to want him to be the greatest human that's ever lived who can fell from space, save the world, and do the impossible without any preparation. This run feels like the worst example of the Bat God trope, and if Zdarsky turned around and revealed that it was all a parody of those kind of stories I'd still be annoyed, but at least it'd feel like it made sense.
The art, by Tony S. Daniel, Jorge Jiménez, and Tomeu Morey is superb, and the book looks great, and there are some really great panels here that out of context look like amazing Batman moments. But in context of the story and everything that's happening great art can't make up for a poor story. That being said, if the art wasn't as good as this I dare say I'd have ended up marking the book lower.
I really tried to like this issue, and the entire Zdarsky era, but by the close of this issue all I felt was relief that it was over. The final scene raising the possibility that Gordon murdered a man without mind control and did it in a fit of rage took out any sense of joy of the book at least being over.
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