- Story by Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV
- Script by Ray Fawkes
- Consulting Writers: John Layman & Tim Seeley
- Pencils & Cover by Dustin Nguyen
- Inks by Derek Fridolfs
- Colours by John Kalisz
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This issue the ensemble nature of ‘Batman Eternal‘ is pushed even further to the forefront as a flashback story tells of a Deacon and his cult in Gotham; Corrigan and Batwing continue to struggle with demons in Arkham, Harper and Red Robin and Sergei Alexandrov in Tokyo and finally Alfred and Julia Pennyworth in Wayne Manor.
You could forgiven for asking how on earth there’s room to develop any of these four stories within a mere twenty pages and it’s true that over the last few issues where special focus has been given to Corrigan more development has been allowed but that doesn’t mean this issue is a pointless waste of the readers time.
If anything issues like #17 allow us to step back for a moment and take of where all our characters are at this one moment in time.
As it turns out some of these stories link together nicely and I feel in the grand scheme of things many of the stories will come together as the series draws to a close and mixes back in with the main ‘Batman‘ titles.
It was nice to see Alfred reappear in the series after some time away. The story with Julia has had little focus so far which leads me to believe that it will become more important as time passes by. His daughter, Julia, wouldn’t simply have been introduced to give him something to do so as to where she fits in to the ‘Eternal‘ story will be a surprise to us all.
Sadly this is the last Nguyen cover on ‘Eternal‘ for some time but he goes out in style breaking rom the two-tone covers of recent weeks to show a ghostly face I his cape as Batman falls from grace. It’s another striking image in a long run of great covers to this title.
We’re seeing some longer stories filling the pages of ‘Batman Eternal‘ in contrast to the short entries of earlier issues so I wonder if DC are considering a longer future for this companion series. It’s success and warm reception from fans is testament to the strength and consistency of both it’s artwork and it’s storytelling so perhaps a need for it to be used when the main story calls for it may be a future worth considering.
3 stars
