Bat-Mite #4 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Corin Howell, Mike Atiyeh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 2, 2015

Do The Mite Thing

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Bat-Mite's at it again and after having such a great time with the previous issue, where we saw Bat-Mite and Damian Wayne team up to take on the nostalgic Gridlock; I can't wait to see what our creative team have in store for us with this issue and the pairing of this 5th Dimensional Imp and the gold standard of superheroes: Booster Gold.  Let's jump into this issue and see what's crackin'.

Explain It!:

As we saw in the cliffhanger to the previous issue, Booster Gold is going to need Bat-Mite's help in saving the future from Gridlock, but right away it looks like Bat-Mite will need Booster's help instead because when Bat-Mite's "kinda pals", who are giving the little guy a place to stay for the time being come home, they find that Bat-Mite's damn near destroyed the apartment.......... Well, the kitchen anyway and if that wasn't bad enough, he also destroyed Reagan's family photo album.  It looks like Bat-Mite's time under this roof are numbered.  Luckily, our pseudo hero has a reprieve when Skeets and Booster Gold come to the door, looking for the Mite's help.  Obviously, Booster is going to regret this decision.

While our time traveling hero simply needs Bat-Mite to locate Gridlock so that Booster can stop him and save the future from his nostalgic nirvana, Bat-Mite decides that Booster really needs his help in maximizing his hero persona....... and what we get is a Batman-ed up Booster and it's funny as hell.  While Booster is trying to figure out what the hell just happened to him and how he's going to end the Mite's existence for what he's done, Bat-Mite comes up with the perfect new name to go with this darker version of our hero....... Black Gold!  Poor, poor Booster.  After the makeover and the realization that even though Booster is a huge sellout, he may not be as hopeless as Bat-Mite originally thought, Bat-Mite simply snaps his fingers and the duo appear in Gridlock's "Vault of Timelessness".  It's here where Gridlock takes all the things that he loved from his childhood and preserves them so that they'll never age........... You know what?  I love Gridlock.  In the previous issue he was going on and on about how the younger generation is terrible because of all their social media and selfies and what not and I found myself just nodding my head and telling Gridlock to preach it up.  Here, we delve a little deeper into Gridlock's mindset when we see that he's obsessed with the things from his childhood and I stopped to think to myself........ Holy Shit, I'm Gridlock!  

In the end, Gridlock tries to defend himself against the two intruders to his Fortress of Solitude and while they trashed up the joint, our new hero Gridlock was able to escape the villains that were trying to get all up in his face and wreck his stuff.  That's right brother man, live to fight another day!  As our issue closes, Booster Gold bids Bat-Mite farewell....... even though the future is probably still in danger from Gridlock making it awesome, but before he leaves, he gives Bat-Mite a thank you present in the form of Reagan's family album before it got all burned up....... you know, since he's a time traveler and all.  With the photo album in hand when he returned to the apartment, Bat-Mite was welcomed back with open arms.......which I'm sure will be closed again in the next issue.

That's it for this issue of Bat-Mite and while I still think that this is the best "funny" book that DC is putting out right now, this issue wasn't as good as the previous, but really, it would have been hard to top that masterstroke.  This is still a great book though, but I think I'm missing the point of this mini because as of right now I'm totally rooting for the bad guy here because it's like Dan Jurgens took a peek into my "sad" life and based a villain off of it......... which is not too far off because if I could stop time around things, I totally would.  I originally thought that the pairing between Bat-Mite and Booster Gold would have been........well, comedy gold, but due to Booster not having a lot to do in this issue besides for sit back and take his makeover, this issue just comes off a little too much like the story with Hawkman and it feels like a missed opportunity.  The art continues to be great in this book and I loved Corin Howell's inclusion of Marty McFly's costume and Captain Kirk's chair to Gridlock's Vault of Timelessness....... even though it's probably just there as any sci-fi Captain's chair, it's Kirk's in my mind and I thank Corin for agreeing that Kirk is the best Captain.

Bits and Pieces:

Bat-Mite continues to be fun as hell, but sadly this story falls a little short when compared to the previous issue.  Yeah, I know you should base an issue on it's own merits, but it's hard after we had such a great pairing with Bat-Mite and Damian Wayne last month.  This is still fun and looks great though, but Booster just didn't have much to do.  The real hero of this book to me is Gridlock and after reading this issue, I'm rooting for the bad guy.  

7/10