Batman Eternal could not have been named any batter for a series that is coming on a weekly basis. This kind of thing is both a blessing and a curse for the book. On the one hand, you get to see a continuing story like you would your favorite television show. Every week you get something fresh, while being left with a cliffhanger ending. On the other hand, unlike TV, you have to shell out every week for this book and because of the rapid fire nature of it all the it risks suffering from the artist/writers workload.
Batman Eternal #45 picks up where we last left off at Gotham International Airport, an airport that no doubt sees a lot of outgoing flights. Gotham City probably isn’t running on a tourist based economy. I have the feeling that most people that fly into Gotham are on some sort of watchlist somewhere.
Javi Fernandez is on art duties with this one and he impresses from page one. The opening fight scene with Batman and our dastardly incorporeal ne’er-do-well’s is handled very well . It’s a striking few pages that really sold me on the rest of the book, of which does not disappoint on the art front.
Things move fast as we once again jump back and forth between members of the Bat Clan, all of whom are currently engaged with their own problems, yet connected through a common enemy. It’s always fun seeing Batman (or anyone associated) punching ghosts in the face. While it feels like something out of the 60’s version of the character, the team do a great job of making not feel cheesy in the slightest.
Batman Eternal #45 is a great change of pace from last week where we saw Batman not do much of anything. The supernatural elements force our heroes to keep on their toes and require them to play outside of their comfort zones, something that is always welcome. And while this is a Batman book, the shifting of focus onto Batwing and Bluebird let these characters, that may not been well known to readers, explore and show a little growth.
What really manages to keep this book down is the plot development. I am pretty new to this series and it already feels like it’s dragging, which is strange because the books moves, just not with regards to the story. I lay the blame partially on the format that DC has placed by making it a weekly adventure, and while it has a number of cool beats, it still feels like more filler than anything.
If this were a monthly book and things were dragging this long there would be a lot of people dropping this book because of the pacing. It really feels like they are trying to fill up a story over the span of a month with four issues, as opposed to giving us one book a month that moves the plot forward.
I think it comes down to what we expect as comic readers as a whole. We are used to this month-to-month style where the pace of books moves fast and furious. This weekly format allows the team to slow things down, but that might be the books undoing. Instead of paying $3 bucks for a ton of story and development, we have to pick up 4 issues to get the same content.
Batman Eternal #45 isn’t a terrible book, but it feels like more of the same. I for one want to see this story get moving at a brisker pace because there are a lot of good things they have in play here. I hope next week things get better because that cliffhanger ending gives us the impression it will.
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