Batman Beneath: Batwing #29 Review

So I haven’t written about Batwing for a while. Even though it has remained on my pull list, I had kinda tuned out of Batwing for a while. It survived my first cut of books from the initial New 52, unlike real stinkers like Hawk & Dove and The Savage Hawkman, and it never really got bad, but the whole former child soldier of African warlords angle never clicked all that well with me. Not because it was badly executed, but because it always reminded me of Joshua Dysart’s The Unknown Soldier, and that was a comparison that, when it comes to harrowing drama, a book about a guy in a Bat suit was going to lose.

Since writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti took the book over, those issues have vanished. We’ve got a different guy in the Batwing suit, a Batwing suit that is basically the Batman Beyond suit, and we’re back in Gotham City, giving us a little distance from the whole Batman Incorporated conceit that almost forced the international feel. And what we wind up with is a version of Batman Beyond, with a young, brash guy being mentored by Batman in the most dangerous city in the world. And that works for me; I don’t have an original Bruce Timm Batman Beyond sketch and the Batman Beyond Black And White statue on my mantle because I don’t like that kind of story.

And in Batwing #29, Gray and Palmiotti put together a mix of tones that is a little weird, but generally pretty fun. There is urban horror and real terrible stakes to what’s happening to Luke Fox and his family, horror befitting a modern Batman family comic. And yet it is tempered with big, silly comic book-y ideas, like an unknown underground city beneath Gotham, populated with homeless geeks in Egyptian costumes and giant monsters. It’s a weird mix, but it generally worked for me, and I found it really pretty entertaining.

Provided I turned some parts of my brain off.

Quitters Are Losers – Review Of Deathstroke #8

So, Deathstroke #8 is the farewell book from writer Kyle Higgins and penciler Eduardo Pansica and ties up Higgins “Deathstroke’s Whole Family Has More Daddy Issues Than George W. Bush” story line. We’ve watched as Deathstroke fought the good fight against the ravages of time on his physical skill set and reputation, nearly succumbed to vengeful parents with giant bank accounts and hearts full of hate, who want only to balance the scales of justice after Slade’s offed their kids, and dealt with his own angry son, for whom he could never be the father the kid needed. Even in this final book, Slade comes to terms with his own issues with his father. Despite all the super powered goodness and big action, the stories have all been grounded in real human problems that anyone who is getting a little older can relate to and that’s what made these books work for me. I’m sorry to see Higgins leave the series.

As we’ve reported before, Rob Liefeld will be taking over the series starting with issue 9. All that stuff with Slade Wilson struggling with familial relationships and his own mortality? Yeah, whatever. Liefeld is going to shoot Deathstroke into space to fight Lobo. Enough of your whining, Slade! We’ve got fucking space villains to crush, dude!

I like to believe that Higgins has left us a clue as to how Slade feels about this in the parting shots from issue 8:

Seriously, man. Liefeld's going to make me fight Lobo. Press the fucking button.

But, enough of my anti-Liefeld ranting. How do I feel about the rest of issue 8? With spoilers, after the jump.