The World Is........ Just Enough
Written By: Chuck Dixon
Art By: Graham Nolan, Gregory Wright, Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 5, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Oh, this has been a topsy turvy run so far and that's crazy because this is only the third issue of the book. See, in the first issue we were just thrown into a Bane story, which just left me confused as to where we were in the continuity since we just got out of a Bane story in the Batman series and by the end of it I really wasn't sure where this maxi-series would fit in the timeline of events. Once we got to the second issue though......... even though Batman has his current costume on, it really came off to me that we were just continuing where Dixon and Graham left off with the Bane character back in the 90's and I could leave all my continuity OCD behind me because it was just a story for the sake of being a story that didn't have to fall into any tidy timelines........ Which maybe that's the reason that I found myself really enjoying the second issue to this run so much, not to mention it was just a bunch of fun that continued the story and brought Batman and Bane together as unexpected allies. Let's jump into this issue and see where that alliance leads us as the Caped Crusader and the title character escape Damocles' prison and search for whoever is actually in charge behind the curtain. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with our heroes........... Well, Batman and Bane suiting up and Bane getting himself a nice dose of venom into his system so that he can go and find Damocles and get his retribution, while Batman goes off and finds the master behind all of this that he's calling Dionysus. It's a pretty cool and quick scene, where we see Damocles calling in to his troops to find and kill Bane and Batman, but by the time that the troops need to go back and report in, they're already knocked out by Batman or brutally killed by Bane. Yeah, it's odd that Batman's allowing Bane to just go around and break and shoot people on his way to Damocles, which Dionysus actually brings up when Batman confronts him, but it's going down and I guess we just have to remember that this is a Bane book and not a Batman book because for whatever reason, Batman's not acting like himself in this issue at all.
Bane finally makes his way to Damocles and where it initially looks like we're just going to have a repeat of Damocles kicking Bane's ass like we saw at the end of the first issue, Bane finally find his opening and just totally wrecks Damocles............ breaking him as he puts it. While that's all going on, Batman is making his way out of Dionysus' snow covered mountain complex, by prepping a helicopter to take the cyborg mealworm man to justice, but Bane isn't about that. Now that he's broken Damocles, he wants his master as well and is willing to go through Batman to get him. While the two tussle though, Dionysus uses jets on the bottom of his wheel chair contraption to escape, which Bane won't stand for and dives out of the complex's opening to get him........ which crazy enough, could mean the death of both of them.
In the end, Batman continues to not act like himself because even though Bane and Dionysus survive the fall, we see Batman flying off in the helicopter away from them, while Dionysus tries to save his life by offering Bane the world through his organization. Well apparently, this peaks Bane's interest and we see the beginning of why this series is called Bane: Conquest.
That's it for this issue of Bane: Conquest and where I thought that the last issue was perfectly balanced with its story progression, fun dialog and action scenes, this issue felt like it lacked most of that because it was a really simple fast moving story that just quickly got rid of all the enemies we were facing previously to get Bane to use Dionysus as a tool to get us to the beginning of what this series is actually about. With that too, it really made Batman feel off and out of place in this issue because he was just willing to let Bane kill whoever he wanted before bailing on the whole thing. The art in this issue continues to be top notch and something that I look forward to each month, but this issue was just down for the fun that I had previously and I can only hope that it returns now that Bane knows what he wants to do from here on out.
Bits and Pieces:
While this isn't a Batman story, Batman might have been the biggest problem that I had in this issue because the character just felt off. Yeah, maybe it's a ploy for something down the line that our hero is just letting play out, but here he just didn't feel right and the rest of the story just felt lackluster from where we left off previously. The art continues to be awesome and I'm still invested in this story, but right now it seems that we're just on a roller coaster ride, where the story just keeps making my interest go up and down.
6/10
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