Written by: Brian Buccellato
Art by: Mike S. Miller, J. Nanjan and Wes Abbott
Cover Price: $0.99
Release Date: August 24, 2016
Even though Year Five is coming to an end soon and most of us know how it's going to end, Brian Buccellato is doing his best to keep us on our toes by throwing some crazy characters into the mix and letting them run hog wild. Last issue opened with Deathstroke being coaxed out of retirement by Batman and ended with the Terminator coming face-to-face with Metamorpho. Does this chapter continue the hit parade and add even more craziness to the mix? Let's find out...
The issue begins with a little trouble at the Regime Super prison in the Arctic where Sinestro is filling in Hal Jordan on the ins and outs of prison justice. You see, someone has murdered Zsasz. There are a few guys that I know would benefit from this including Superman and Sinestro himself, but it wasn't either of them. At least, it wasn't them doing the actual slicing and dicing. Nope, this was personal!
After seeing who it was (believe me, it isn't surprising, but still brutally satisfying), we head off to the main event...Metamorpho vs Deathstroke in a Mother (Box) of a battle. It's a cool ass brawl with Deathstroke going all out and Rex going all...well, he's going all Metamorpho. There is some good action movie banter going when Deathstroke pulls a Green Arrow move and "misses" at just the right time. I still think Metamorpho is cool, but Deathstroke proves he is the ultimate badass here.
Slade then shows that he is more than just brawn as he thinks ahead, gets what he came for and then goes down in a blaze of glory. He doesn't die, but when he says he didn't expect to just stroll out, he was right. I'll give him credit, though, it took two very heavy hitters to bring him down.
We then take a trip to the Alaskan Lead Mines to visit Batman and he's there with a friend. Lex Luthor is in the house and while Batman looks a bit concerned that Deathstroke has been captured, Luthor sees what Deathstroke sent them and is grinning from ear to ear. This book is about to get really crowded!
This was a very quick read filled with some pretty big moments. Zsasz got what he deserved, Deathstroke got what Batman needed and Lex wanted and Metamorpho looked pretty cool for a couple of pages. What else could you ask for? Brian Buccellato is getting us closer to the end and at this point, each piece of the puzzle makes the light at the end of the tunnel bigger and brighter. It may be hard to raise the tension in a story that most know the end to, but Buccellato certainly is upping the cool factor.
I really like Mike S. Miller's art in this chapter until the severe change that happens when we see Batman and Lex. It's not that the art is horrible there, it was just jarring and threw me out of the issue a bit. I'm not sure what happened, but for 90% of the issue, the art was stellar.
Bits and Pieces:
Brian Buccellato gives us revenge served cold (it's in the Arctic!), a cool fight and the means to this book's end. The issue flew by in a good way and the art was mostly great. I can't say that a book with five years of comic history will ever have a good jumping on point, but if you've been reading, you should be satisfied with this chapter.
8.5/10
Book of the week!
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