Here’s the thing about this issue:

I absolutely loved it, but for some reason I found myself questioning it. This is an origin issue for Talia Al Ghul, the mastermind of Leviathan in what has to be considered the worst thing an ex-girlfriend could do after a relationship. It has been a long time actually since we’ve seen Talia in any capacity so it is nice to see an issue dedicated to her. Except…

Considering we only now have ten issues before this run is over, an entire issue with virtually no plot development seems a bit weird at this stage. I know Morrison didn’t reveal Talia till the end of the first volume, but I feel like we need to get the ball rolling on this story. What’s here though is pretty good though. Morrison brings some new, I assume, developments into Talia’s life. Some of it absurd (of course Ra’s found his first wife at a Hippie Concert) while other times he adds some new dimension to classic stories.

What I’m not iffy on is the incredible art by Chris Burnham. This is like revelation to me, because he is really hitting his stride with this series. The pacing he puts into his layouts are fantastic (such as the joke of Talia getting everything by just pointing at things). But he also adds so much detail into each of his panels. Drawing horses must be a pain in the ass but yet he can draw four of them in a tiny panel with no difficulty. Some people still prefer Frank Quitely over to Burnham and I can understand that….But when you see pages like this I gotta wonder: Why would anyone want to wait for Quitely when Burnham can do this at a much faster rate?

This is a bit of a head scratcher for me. On one hand what’s here is great! We got a nice, newish origin for Talia Al Ghul and Chris Burnham’s art is spectacular once again. But we got such little time for this story to finish that having a whole issue of this seems a bit silly. Especially since we’ve seen in the past that Morrison rushing to the finish line is not a good thing. But I’m going to try and stay positive for the time being. This is a good issue and it looks like this war Talia is bringing to Bruce is going to get juicy.