Batman: Curse of the White Knight #7 Review

Writer: Sean Murphy
Art Team: Sean Murphy, Matt Hollingsworth, AndWorld Design
DC Comics
Release Date: February 25, 2020
Cover Price: $4.99

The Batmobile's Last Stand

Batman: Curse of the White Knight continues into the penultimate issue this month inching closer to the finale. While I enjoyed the issue last month I also noted that I wasn't sure how much was ground was left to cover here, and with two issues to go still, I was curious what was left to address and how the creative team would go about doing this.  Well, it seems we have our answer this month, so let's get right into this and discuss Curse of White Knight.



I'm going to cut right to the chase here and label this issue 'the loose ends' issue because that's all it pretty much does here while setting up the inevitable finale. However, let's start by highlighting the positives, where I would actually say my favorite part might be the first couple pages of the issue, which is a flashback, where Alfred comforts a young Bruce after his parent's death, promising to teach him how to sword fight with the family rapier.

After that though there's just not much new going on here. First, we re-visit Bruce and Harley as they talk through the next step of the plan. The main takeaway here is Bruce is set on revealing his identity, which has been set up for a while now, so it's not really much of a surprise at this point.

Then it's on briefly to see what Azriel is up too, which is out of medicine, but that's also really about it.  My main issue here with Azriel, since he's taken the turn to Bat-Azriel, is I feel he's been criminally underused so far in the series. I know its not true but he feels almost non-existent and only working in the background.  Definitely not used to the level Joker was in the previous series as the big bad.  We just keep being told, or see the aftermath of what he's done, and rarely get to visit what he's doing first hand.

From there, its more of Batman dealing with his identity reveal for most of the rest of the issue.  We start with him addressing his closet allies Nightwing, Duke, and Batgirl before directly broadcasting to Gotham.  Finally, it's off to get the last remaining Batmobile where he's headed off to chase Azriel as we all head off to the finale.

Overall, the art remains fantastic and consistent throughout the series, however I think this story is really starting to feel like six issues was the sweet spot to tell it, and eight feels entirely too long. Even with the extended length poor Azriel doesnt really get the shine he deserves as the big bad who forces Bruce to reveal his identity to Gotham. I still look forward to the finale here but I wouldn't say this issue really did much to ramp up that excitment.

6.8/10