Blood Honor
Mmm... Even worse than the last cover. Batwing's squished into a forced close perspective, hogging as much of the image as possible. And he visually clashes with the knife. I keep seeing it as a katana or a longsword, but it's a knife. I mean, ok, the bloodsplatter on the knife looks cool, but that's about the only good thing about this cover. What a mess.
And it clashes with the interior art, which is.... oh for... just read my other Batwing reviews. Simple lines, complex colors, cinematic panel layouts. Gorgeous. Africa. Mood. etc.
Ok, this issue opens with a scene that justifies a lot of the backstory. This bit of backstory wouldn't be as powerful without the previous issue's worth. The 'monster' General Keita was still more honorable than criminals David sees today. That's a pretty haunting idea if you've seen the soul searing smile of Keita. But most importantly, we see how that affected David into taking his current mantle. And the pacing in the transitions from flashback to present are much better, much more intense.
Hmmm... Massacre's possible identity is riding a thin line between painfully obvious cliche, and pretty awesome misdirected from cliche. I sincerely hope its the latter.
Well, now we've finally reached the beginning again. For some reason I thought we'd done that back in #3? I can't remember. This issue was still a little slow, but much better than the last two. We actually GOT developments on the idea of The Kingdom, and the overall scope of the former superhero team has now been defined. It makes things feel a little more solid now. But then it also leads into....
The ending. If you've seen the cover for the next issue, this isn't a spoiler. This issue ends with Batwing and co. ready to go to Gotham. Really? It's just.... too soon. And I can't decide if A: Winick intended this from the start, B: Editorial pushed this to help sell more or C: It was created to help ease Batwing into Night of the Owls. Either way.... eh.
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
I mean, this issue felt a lot better than the past two, and moved a lot further, but not enough. I skimmed some of the issue because it spent a few too many pages retreading ground from the first issue. And Massacre's identity hasn't yet been proven to be cliche or not. And the ending is just.... eh. Could be interesting?
