Nice to Look At, But Not Too Substantial
The Good: TONY DANIEL'S ARTWORK. Loooooooooooooove it.
As I said in my last review, what this comic does that I think the main 'Batman' title should, is be the easiest accessible to mainstream audiences. And this one continues to do so.
Batman's defeat of Sensei is believable this tim around, since Sensei was distracted by the revelations in the issue, and still made a ridiculously implausible escape.
Action was excellent.
I like how Riddler and Enigma tied into this loosely to set up the next story. I think Tony Daniel does a good job of this so far.
I absolutely LOVE where the Mask of the Beholder was hidden and what the clues were to lead to it.
The Bad: The cover is not that great. It's a fairly standard action scene and it's crowded. Plus the red glow just makes things look even more off.
There's too much of a jump from the end of the last issue to the beginning of this one.
I don't really like the idea of Lucius Fox being in on this whole secret society thing, even to the minor degree that he is.
The plot was a mess. The whole mix of backstabbings and secret plots and true masters and waiting over years and just UGH. And Sensei formed the secret society to hide the mask in the first place until he was ready to wield it or something? And Peacock is hundreds of years old and manipulated Sensei into creating the secret society to hide the mask so he could one day die and she could bring him back to life so he could find the mask so she could watch him fail so she could destroy the mask and get revenge on the one who destroyed her people? WHAT THE HELL? That doesn't even make sense!
The issue ends with a tease of what appears to be a female Two-Face. NOW is when I'm finally conceding to the point others have made that Tony Daniel might be going too far with the secondary versions of main Batman villains. We'll have to wait and see how this one pans out, but still, ugh.
In Conclusion: 2.5/5
The art was really the saving grace of this issue. The plot felt really rushed, as if Tony Daniel planned out a 5 issue arc, and had to cut it down to 4 issues after writing the first 3. This issue just reeks of rushing it. Especially when it comes to the big revelations. None of them make and god damned sense. All they do is create such a massive mess of stagnating terrible plot. However, the few redeeming factors include the INCREDIBLE artwork, the plausible defeat of Sensei after a bit of an unbelievable one in #705, and the tying together of the subplot with The Riddler and Enigma. If you have the past 3 issues, you might as well see how the story concludes, and what leads to the next one. But if you haven't started this arc, don't bother. The conclusion is a huge disappointment. I'm actually a big fan of Tony Daniel's writing, so this disappointment hit me pretty hard. Let's just hope he gets his act back together for the rest of his run.
