Let’s get right to it…
This issue was a bit of a letdown.
After hitting a nice stride the past few months, BATMAN #8 slows down to check in on two plot points, while adding another…which relates to another. The boy who captured the events from the beginning of the run is feeling the heat, Commissioner Savage pleads his case to Mayor Ivy, and Batman has coffee with Alan Scott. Sure, each of these threads relates to what writer Matt Fraction has been building since the debut issue of this version of the legacy title, but it just seems to take its time…too much time…to get moving.
Fraction has hit every speed up to this point and made it work. Last month’s issue is arguably the best so far, and was mainly a conversation between Batman and Joker (in a tube!) in one location. Here, I don’t know, it just…staggers. While the writer has been building for the past 8 months, this issue could end up extremely important in the end. But in the now, it’s just sort of…there.
Dynamite artist Jorge Jiménez does the cover, but not the interiors (he’ll be back in issue #10). Filling in is pro Ryan Sook. Not an easy task to follow Jiménez, but he does an admirable job. The book opens creatively, with the art being the standout. There are a lot of close-ups and conversations throughout these 20 pages, without Sook really getting to show off his action chops. Maybe that’s coming next month? Regardless, the art wasn’t a problem in this issue.
I wouldn’t say I necessarily have a “problem” with this issue at all. It’s just the BATMAN book has been on a roll the past 3 or 4 issues, and this one really just pumped the brakes for me. I look forward to what’s coming, and hope it finds the gas again. – Ryan Lower