Scan barcode
A review by crookedtreehouse
Batman Eternal, Volume 2 by Tim Seeley, Scott Snyder
3.0
Around the time this multi-writer/multi-artist story was coming out, Marvel was putting out [b:Avengers vs. X-Men|16002121|Avengers vs. X-Men|Brian Michael Bendis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565481669l/16002121._SY75_.jpg|60047664]. Their top tier writers working together to put out a massive crossover. It was awful. The tone switched from issue to issue, the stakes were unclear, the characters behaved vastly differently depending on who was writing them. It was one of the worst books Marvel put out.
This fares better, tonally, as all of the writers and artists seem to be on the same page and are headed in the same direction. Unfortunately, there are too many detours to keep track of, too many unnecessary and unfulfilling plot twists, and too many characters in this volume.
As with the last volume, the supernatural angle totally hampers the flow of this book. While the destruction of Arkham is a pivotal part of the story, there are dozens of better ways it could have been accomplished than throwing The Spectre, Deacon Blackfire, and The Joker's Daughter at it. It has no emotional impact, no fun dialogue, and no real relevance to the rest of the story.
And while the Falcone/Bard/Gordon/Batgirl/Red Hood/Batman/Alfred's daughter interweaving was fun in the first volume, it drags here as the writers try and complicate things too much. I didn't lose track of the plot because the writing wasn't clear, I lost track of the plot because it was boring and my mind wandered.
I'm not incredibly excited to see where the final volume takes us. This volume had a twist where we found out that the people we thought were the main villains in the previous story turned out to be pawns to the villain in this story, and now we're promised that they too were pawns and ... I don't care. It's almost certainly The Joker. It's almost always The Joker.
This fares better, tonally, as all of the writers and artists seem to be on the same page and are headed in the same direction. Unfortunately, there are too many detours to keep track of, too many unnecessary and unfulfilling plot twists, and too many characters in this volume.
As with the last volume, the supernatural angle totally hampers the flow of this book. While the destruction of Arkham is a pivotal part of the story, there are dozens of better ways it could have been accomplished than throwing The Spectre, Deacon Blackfire, and The Joker's Daughter at it. It has no emotional impact, no fun dialogue, and no real relevance to the rest of the story.
And while the Falcone/Bard/Gordon/Batgirl/Red Hood/Batman/Alfred's daughter interweaving was fun in the first volume, it drags here as the writers try and complicate things too much. I didn't lose track of the plot because the writing wasn't clear, I lost track of the plot because it was boring and my mind wandered.
I'm not incredibly excited to see where the final volume takes us. This volume had a twist where we found out that the people we thought were the main villains in the previous story turned out to be pawns to the villain in this story, and now we're promised that they too were pawns and ... I don't care. It's almost certainly The Joker. It's almost always The Joker.