I'm once again combining a single review for two issues which are the penultimate and finale. That's mostly because I have less to say about each, and given that my long absence (in spite of the fact I did read and review The Batman Who Laughs last year at least) had kept my writing muscles atrophied when it came to comic books, I want to slowly build my way into budgeting my tim better so I can get used to reading comics once AND ALSO writing reviews. I mean, I still read comics during my three-year hiatus; I just wasn't sharing my insights and thoughts as religiously as I used to do when I created this blog (and two more others for X-Men and Hellblazer).
A recap: Batman stumbled upon a series of crime scenes that featured corpses that imitate murder of his parents from the clothes they wore down to the grisly details like matching gunshot wounds. As he and Commissioner Gordon tried to make sense of this, he gets a call from Dr. Leslie Thompkins who was used as bait by a morphing monstrosity that shot her withthe Joker's laughing has. She expired several minutes later even after an antidote was administered. Alfred, too, got stabbed a moment later when he answered the door. He described his attacker as 'Zorro'. Naturally, Batman deduced it could have been Henry Ducard, one of his former mentors who happened to be a criminal and a master of disguise. The same monstrosity came to kill Ducard, all while wearing the faces of the infamous Rogue's Gallery, every villain that Batman defeated and put in Arkham Asylum--some of whom he recently took his anger on after he lost Leslie and almost Alfred (thankfully Damian, Bruce's son, came around to help).
By the time Batman encountered another former teacher, Thaddeus Brown (a.k.a Mister Miracle), his suspicions were confirmed that this creature seems to be interested in harming people who had trained him. I, too, was already suspecting something longer before I reached the last two issues. The fifth installment featured Dr. Hugo Strange, Demon Etrigan, and Dr. Silas Stone, and that's why it's such a clunky issue for me overall. The panels are quite busy. Mahnke and co. are working overtime here!
Here's the only bright spot amongst the incoherence: a callback to the Hellbat and its history!
RECOMMENDED: 7/10
The finale was...a bit of a letdown only if you, as a reader, may have already guessed what the heck was going on all along. I may have my suspicions, but I was also hoping they'll be disproved. Sadly, they weren't. Apparently, Bruce subjects himself to a psychological nightmare sequence for EVERY BIRTHDAY of his. And this is what it looks like; his loved ones dying over and over again so he could face the sacrifice he has to make to become the Dark Knight. Really, though. Every. Birthday. And people used to wonder why they cast Robert Pattinson in the role for the latest Bat-flick, when the original emo heartthrob vampire was not Edward Cullen but Bruce Wayne. That scene where he buries young Bruce in order to become Batman was bad enough, but really? EVERY BIRTHDAY, BRUCEY? It doesn't nearly resonate, something I wouldn't expect from Tomasi, but even the seasoned Scott Snyder has his duds (TBWL being the latest one, in my opinion). What I can say about the closing chapter was that it provided us with very great scenes that involved Batman being confronted by his child-self. A tiny Bruce in Batman costume? It's cute and freaky all at once! I also like these particular pages below (and the one at the cemetery which I didn't bother to screenshot. Those were bittersweet panels if not morose).
I don't have anything else to say, really, except that even though the first two issues and the fourth had been great in building up the suspense and giving us some dark camp, the entire Mythology was simply not going to Peter J. Tomasi's finest work. I'm not even excited for the #1000 issue of Detective Comics, but you know, I'll be an optimist. It could get better. It has to!
RECOMMENDED: 7/10
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