Batwing World Tour
You know, I'm glad the other cover came first for introducing us to Marcus To's artwork on Batwing. The previous cover had an extremely smart and well balanced layout. This cover.... not so much. The whole image is SUPER crowded, with Batwing just eating up space, leaving his enemies to practically fight for what little remains, mucking the image up even further. Not to mention that it uses white space where using white space is a terrible idea. Everything but the white background makes this feel like a real scene, but then the empty space just makes things awkward instead of powerful. Plus... Batwing just doesn't look very good here. I think To's inker and/or colorist on this cover is using FAR thicker lines than usual for To.
The interior art carries some of these same problems. I'm not saying the art is 'bad,' I guess... I'm just used to To's art on Red Robin. Here its got a certain thickness to it in the inks or the colors that mudbles the effect a bit. I'm probably biased though, being used to To's art a specific way. Honestly its perfectly fine, it just could be better.
As for the story, there's certainly a lot of nice twists and turns. I don't think its intentional, but I like the justification for Marcus To over previous series regular Ben Oliver; as this issue is set very little in Africa. It's more of an international story that sets off from an African port. While I find a good portion of this interesting, and admire the ability to balance wide variety with a story that doesn't feel like an awkward mixed bag; it's frustrating that Batwing seems to need the rest of the Batman family for support. Batman was in the first issue, Batman was in the 5th issue, Batwing traveled to Gotham City with Batman, Robin, and Nightwing in the 6th-7th issues, he was still in Gotham for Night of the Owls in the 8th issue; and now he's got the com support of Batman and a team-up with Nightwing in this and the next issue AND THE JLI IN THE ISSUE AFTER THAT! If I wanted to see Batwing with the JLI I'D BE READING JLI. (Which I do and will until it's cancelled after #12.) But in BATWING I want to read about BATWING. Doing BATWING stuff. Developing BATWING'S supporting cast.
And speaking of Batwing, I'm stating to notice some wild inconsistencies with the character. Is he a regular cop or a world known member of the Batman Incorporated support team? Is he crushing on Vixen or his co-worker Kia? Did he fake his death? I just.... I can't follow this when DC doesn't seem to make sure his portrayal is consistent.
And while I appreciate what this series is trying to build, there are some awkward scenes. David asks Kia out for a midnight date, then the story abandons that and jumps to him fighting pirates he's been tracking. No jump forward or backwards in time noted, it just forgets that. I thought that would be elaborated on. And there's some stuff going on with Samuel Alfred Jackson, but it doesn't totally mesh with the flow. Not terrible, but not as smooth as it could be.
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
Don't get me wrong, there's a LOT of nice stuff in this issue, its just coming at a bad time. After shoving the rest of the Batman family unnecessarily into his first arc, followed by Night of the Owls where David's life became inconsistent, I read this right after JLI where he seems to have a different love interest, and two weeks ago he was DRASTICALLY different in Batman Incorporated.... between showing the Batman Family in his series and every other series using him differently.... it was hard for me to fully enjoy this issue. Add my admitted bias about To's art not being up to his standards.... It's a perfectly good issue, it just could be better. I'm being a tad bit unfair probably, but that's my final analysis.
