PROS:

-The art by Capullo, the art! I said it earlier this week but it is amazing how Capullo can do twenty pages of such beauty AND do amazing covers as well. In this issue he has so many set pieces and ‘epic’ setting to deal with. First he tours Gotham City, then see the insides of a plane’s engine, then finally we have a skyscraper collapse towards the end. Of course in all of those sequences we get a lot of detail and this must have been a pain in the ass for Jonathan Glapion to ink. But all of these pages are just gorgeous to look at and the entire art team did a wonderful job with this issue.

-Don’t wanna forget the back up and Tynion IV with Rafael Albuquerque did a great finale for Jarvis Pennyworth. Alburquerque’s painted style works really well with scenes in the burning mansion and in the dusk setting at the cemetery. More praise should go to Dave McCaig and he’s always been one of my favorite colorists. This back up by Tynion really impressed me and it makes me excited for his TALON series coming in September. Snyder is always good at finding new talent in his work and Tynion is no different.

CONS:

-Here’s the ultimate downfall with this book: It is so damn wordy. I don’t think Snyder had to write a lot of exposition to rush the book or anything. But it feels like Snyder put too much and ultimately provided no satisfaction for me. The majority of the issue is ‘Lincoln March’ proclaiming that Gotham is his and how Bruce was a terrible brother to him. The former has been written so many times in so many comics so it adds nothing for me and the latter really annoys me. We get no idea whether Lincoln IS related to Bruce and I feel like we should have gotten a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’ here. I’m sure Snyder will bring him back in the future but it feels like we didn’t need to have this type of ending in general.

-This might seem like a minor thing but the skyscraper falling seemed to be a bit in poor taste for me. I’m not a guy who is against this sort of thing (especially because of obvious, tragic history this country’s had) but it feels like a throw away thing. Sure, Snyder write’s that no one was killed and it was all just damage….But a huge building just collapsed in the middle of a city and it’s just forgotten in an instant.

CONCLUSION:

-I’m a bit torn by the issue. This is a gorgeous looking book with Capullo and his team giving more and more reason why they need to get a freakin Eisner award. But the finale of this story just isn’t what I was hoping for. That’s more my fault then Snyder’s but some of the decisions here just disappointed it. It’s a lot of a villain spouting why he’s great and that doesn’t make for a compelling villain. The back up keeps the quality going on this issue though and overall this is just a slight bump in an otherwise great first arc for this team.