CREDIT: DC Comics
Rating: 4.5/5 – A fantastic start to Batman’s weekly series!
by ComicSpectrum Reviewer Shawn Hoklas.
Batman Eternal number one kicks off the latest weekly series from DC, but this time instead of focusing on a larger segment of the DC Universe as they did with 52, Countdown, and Trinity, the focus here is squarely on Batman and his supporting cast. There are plenty of creators involved in this series, which makes sense if they want to make sure that this book doesn’t miss it’s deadlines. The creators involved are some pretty great talents that include Scott Snyder and James Tynion, who happen to write this first issue, Tim Seely, Jason Fabok, Dustin Nguyen and Guillem March just to name a few. Seeing these talents on Batman each week over the course of a year is a bold project, but if each issue can be written and drawn as well as this first one, then I couldn’t be more excited.
This first issue absolutely delivers. From the opening page, Batman is in a situation that we’ve never quite seen him before as Snyder and Tynion choose to show us the future, and it doesn’t look good. It’s a powerful opening page that delivers in the few captions and panels on the page. Artist Jason Fabok, who after Greg Capullo has become Batman’s go-to artist, draws a haunting page that draws the eyes in while the situation absolutely leaves you wondering just how Batman got here. From there we head into the recent past where the story’s focus revolves around Batman and James Gordon. It’s a quickly paced issue that sets up the first major story beat of this year long series.
Jason Fabok has such a great handle on the Batman character. He uses shadows and blacks brilliantly and Gotham City feels like Gotham, blimps and all. His pencils are consistent throughout this first issue and DC made the right choice to have his art kick this series off. We’ll se seeing his art grace the first three issues and hopefully we’ll see his interpretation of a few more villains before he steps away for a while.
Overall, DC delivers a great start to Batman Eternal. If you haven’t been reading Batman since the New 52 launched, this may be the series that brings you in as you don’t need to know anything prior in order to jump in and enjoy this first issue. That said, consistency will determine this series’ ultimate success, we’ll have to see if Batman: Eternal can maintain this level of quality every single week for the next year.
Reviewed by: Shawn Hoklas
(shawn@comicspectrum.com)
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