Batman: Eternal #17 Review

Written by: Ray Fawkes
Art by: Dustin Nguyen
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 30, 2014

Same Taste, More Filler

Ray Fawkes and Dustin Nguyen are back for another scary trip through Arkham Asylum featuring Batwing and Jim Corrigan.  I have enjoyed Fawkes supernatural take in this book and I love Batwing, so why didn't I like this issue?  There are actually quite a few reasons.

This issue's main reason for existing seems to be to tell the origin of Deacon Blackfire.  An evil priest taking advantage of the needy for his own demonic needs sounds interesting if not a bit generic, but then Batman shows up.  "Shows up" may be misleading, but believe me when I say it is totally out of character for him to be in the position we find him in.  His presence ruined the origin story, in my opinion.



The origin cuts in and out with Batwing and Jim Corrigan facing the resurrected Blackfire and his minions.  Batwing has had enough and starts a beat down while Corrigan begs the Spectre to appear.  It's a bunch of nothing which is my main problem with this issue as a whole.  We'll get back to that, though.

The other two stories involve Tim Drake and Harper Row in Japan questioning Sergei Alexandrov about Gotham's nanobot problem and Julia Pennyworth berating her Father for being a servant to playboy, Bruce Wayne.

My main complaint for this series has been the revolving creative teams.  Well, Fawkes and Nguyen are on their third straight issue and they may have overstayed their welcome.  This story could have been compressed into two really good issues instead of stretching it out.  Besides the Blackfire origin (which I didn't like), everything else was filler.

Last week I complained that Nguyen's art was a bit too cartoony, looking more like the animated universe than the dark and scary that the script begged for.  He's back in form for this week with everything looking as creepy as it should.

Bits and Pieces:

Batman: Eternal #17 may show the origin story of Deacon Blackfire, but does little else.  That may have been acceptable, but I didn't like the Origin at all.  Dustin Nguyen does a fine job with the art this week, but it's not enough to save this boring book.  It's a shame because I liked the scary side of things that Fawkes was giving us. but for now I'm done.

5.4/10