Batman: Eternal #34 Review

Written by: Kyle Higgins

Art by: Alvaro Martinez

Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: November 26, 2014

Kill Shot

In the past couple of weeks, Baternal has gone from a bunch of varied stories to a Wayne Enterprise death watch.  DC, in their usual wisdom, released Arkham Manor ahead of time and I've been waiting for this book to catch up.  To fully catch up, however, means that Bruce has to lose everything including the company that bears his name.  After this week, we are knocking on the doorstep.  This issue is mainly setup for the next part of the story, but we also get a close call and a pretty cool fight.  I always enjoy Kyle Higgins and Alvaro Martinez's art was really good with one exception.  All-and-all, this was a pretty good issue.

Last week ended with Julia face-to-face with Hush.  We pick up this month with him cracking wise, but he soon learns that Julia is no push over with a funny Bat name.  Unfortunately, they are fighting in a Wayne weapons cache and Hush has the big red button.  We are left wondering if Julia is alive, but there are other concerns as well.

Batman figures out where Hush is and rushes off to confront him.  The location is very personal to both of them and so is the fight that breaks out.  Hush comes off as a jealous little brat, but that's because he is.  However, he must have been hitting the heavy bag because he goes blow-for-blow with Batman.  I don't know what was cooler in the fight...Hush's awesome suit or Batman's headbutts and batarangs.  It may be a tie, but the fight wasn't.  Batman may have won the battle, but he quickly learns that he may have just lost the war.  Spoiler alert...it looks like Bruce will be slumming it in the near future.

Like I said, this was a pretty good issue.  Higgins' main job was to set up the fall of Wayne Enterprises and when it happens it's obvious this was the plan all along.  I have mixed feelings about Julia's situation and Alfred's reaction to her being involved with Batman.  The whole thing suddenly felt forced and Alfred's concern was a classic case of "too little, too late".  I did enjoy watching Batman beat the crap out of Hush, though.  Overall, this issue felt like Higgins completing an assignment more than his own story.  I still liked it, however.

I also loved Alvaro Martinez's art this week.  Everything looked really good, except for a few panels of Bruce Wayne.  It may be a big sin to give the reader a weak version of Bruce in a Batman book, but it's brief and everything else looks so good.  I really liked Martinez' Hush, especially the armored version.

Bits and Pieces:

Batman: Eternal #34 sets the next big story in motion, but it's a bit more than just setup.  Batman and Hush battle it out and another young person finds out how dangerous it is to hang with the Bat.  Everything pushes the story forward which is good, but also doesn't allow it to breathe on it's own.  Most reader's will already be invested in the story as a whole and should find a couple of things they like here and be excited to see where it goes.

7.8/10