Comments on: Batman #698 – Review

By: SoldierHawk

SoldierHawk — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:55:35 +0000

I agree this first part felt…half baked, I guess? None of the panels really gelled for me, and it felt much more random than it should have.

Frankly though, I’m just excited to see Riddler again. I’d rather see him leaving riddles and traps for Batman than “helping” him, frankly, but just having him in the book is nice. He’s always been my favorite of Batman’s rogues.

By: DS Arsenault

DS Arsenault — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:15:41 +0000

The Dark Knight homage was *very* cool and packed some emotional punch in terms of Dick becoming Batman. DSA

By: Matches Malone

Matches Malone — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:42:10 +0000

I did, and if it made you stop long enough to comment on it, I’m guessing that you’re right in your criticism. I’m pretty sure Tony Daniels has done one shot stories in the past…. Of course, I could be wrong.

In any case, taking on this 3 part story to build to what will certainly be the big reveal in #700 may be too much story for him to handle in simply the three issues he’s been given to tell it. Although, as I said before, I’m willing to reserve judgement until this story arc ends….

By: dfstell

dfstell — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:57:28 +0000

Who caught the Dark Knight Returns panel as Dick was chasing the guy in the hat? Cool!

Seriously, I thought this issue was confusing. I like Daniel’s basic stories, but he just can’t figure out the pacing. I think he’d better off learning how to write one-shot stories first and then move on to stuff like this. I just end a lot of his issues going, “Huh? What the heck was that?”

By: Matches Malone

Matches Malone — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:18:44 +0000

I believe it goes to why Dick didn’t realize who it was he saw at the end of the issue, and his slowness on the uptake to deal with Nigma…. On a 3 part story, the setups in act one may not payoff until act two, which is next issue.

By: DS Arsenault

DS Arsenault — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:07:43 +0000

Hey Matches! I’m not sure I follow you. If the toxins from the last issue are going to play some important point in the plot of this arc, then I suppose that the dream sequence could work, but there was nothing else in this issue that led me to believe that the toxins were anything other than an excuse for Dick to have some weird dreams. I’m glad you enjoyed the issue though. We’ll see what Tony Daniel has for us next!

DSA

By: Matches Malone

Matches Malone — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:20:18 +0000

Well, I was going to post a blog entry incorporating this stuff, however, riddle me this… Does Commissioner Gordon positively know that there’s a different man under the mask? I believe that’s why we have the first two and a half pages that you don’t like. Furthermore, for those of us that did NOT read #697, doesn’t it make more sense to show rather than tell what the toxin’s effects are? Especially for those of us that again, didn’t read the previous issue? What about first time readers of Batman? This is their first story. Do you give the same criticisms? I don’t think this is weak at all, however, the weakness I see is that it wasn’t quite clear to me what the ending was, until I gave it a second read. And this is again, still the opening act of a three act play….

By: DS Arsenault

DS Arsenault — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:57:21 +0000

Hey Matches! You bet that issue #700 is bound to be something that DC will put some effort into and I’m looking forward to it. But when creating a story with impact, it’s only as strong as it’s weakest link, so this set up should have had just as much care as issue #700. We’ll see.

DSA

By: Matches Malone

Matches Malone — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:39:31 +0000

I have to mostly disagree with what you didn’t like, simply because I think he’s setting up a payoff in part three.