Batman #8

Wow, there is no rest for the wicked here. Bruce Wayne has been through the ringer the past few months, and things pick right up again here. Alfred is trying to encourage Bats to get some rest, but Bruce is spending his time brooding over a scale model of Gotham City (much like the one he battled through a few issues ago). He’s understandably upset to find out that the city has been guided and manipulated by the mysterious Court of Owls for quite some time.


And while the Court doesn’t know Batman’s secret identity, they seem to realize Bruce Wayne is pretty physically fit. Last issue closed with a horde of Talons waking up and setting out to assassinate Gotham’s best and brightest. Well, four of them are assigned to take out Bruce Wayne. For not knowing he’s Batman, they sure do respect the guy!

Greg Capullo eases a lot of my fears about this crossover right off the bat. The Talons all have different, unique designs that should keep them from becoming a faceless horde of ninjas. I was concerned the Talon would lose their edge when more appeared, but by having many generations of Talons appear at once, we’ve got instant reasoning for just about any variable in design and character a creator could desire.

The back-up is entirely unnecessary. As near as I can tell, the entire point is to SHOW that Alfred called in the Bat-family, rather than just having him declare his plan in the core story. At least I’m getting something for the extra buck, but man, surely the back-up material can be a little bit more essential.

As for the crossover, it is going to work better than I thought. Scott Snyder should be able to maintain control of his story in the core title, but the endless iterations of Talons out there are unified enough to sponsor a crossover, but with the potential to be used in almost any fashion. I’ll only follow the core book, but as crossovers go, this isn’t bad.

Good