Exclusive: BATMAN ETERNAL January 2015 Solicitations

The weekly action in BATMAN ETERNAL continues. We're approaching the end and DC has given us the lowdown on what's happening in January in issues 40-43, including the debut of "Bluebird."

BATMAN ETERNAL #40

Written by SCOTT SNYDER, JAMES TYNION IV, RAY FAWKES, KYLE HIGGINS and TIM SEELEY

Art by JUAN JOSE RYP

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

On sale JANUARY 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

It’s three-way battle for survival between Batman, The Riddler...and Mother Nature?

BATMAN ETERNAL #41

Written by SCOTT SNYDER, JAMES TYNION IV, RAY FAWKES, KYLE HIGGINS and TIM SEELEY

Art by JOE QUINONES

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

On sale JANUARY 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Nanites are tearing The Narrows apart! Can Red Robin stop them while the rest of the city burns?

BATMAN ETERNAL #42

Written by SCOTT SNYDER, JAMES TYNION IV, RAY FAWKES, KYLE HIGGINS and TIM SEELEY

Art by JOE QUINONES

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

On sale JANUARY 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

You’ve been waiting for the debut of Bluebird – and here it is, though this story may not have a happy ending!

BATMAN ETERNAL #43

Written by SCOTT SNYDER, JAMES TYNION IV, RAY FAWKES, KYLE HIGGINS and TIM SEELEY

Art by DAVID LAFUENTE

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

On sale JANUARY 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Don’t miss this special issue that loops our story all the way back to where it started in BATMAN #28 – but with a twist you won’t see coming!

Always nice to see an Ivan Reis cover, I wonder what book he's going to be working on next now that he's off Justice League.

We're almost at the end yet it feels like nothing has happened. They need to focus on hush and hyping him up, remember batman gets tied to the bat signal at the end and that doesn't seem like its gonna happen now. I know it is, but it just doesn't feel like it. They need to stop with all this random stuff with Alfred in Arkham and bane and riddler. At least bluebird meets batman though.

Robin and Bluebird in January.

I wonder when Lark will show up.

Nice art.

I got a feeling this whole Batman eternal story is going to turn into a mess.

How are we almost at the end? It's not even November and this goes at least till January.

@muyjingo: it ends in march. And it says in the op that we are nearing the end too

@jayc1324: Nothing's happened?

And I know I'm forgetting some other points.
If this were a regular monthly series, it would be in its 3rd year of publication by now and there's no way it would have covered this much ground in that time (since it would likely focus on a single storyline at a time over the course of 4-6 issues so as to better fit in a TPB).
If anything, I'd say that it feels like too much has happened in this series.

i got a feeling you are wrong.

JUAN JOSE RYP!!!

for one issue...

It runs for 60 issues and we just got issue 28, so we are not even at the half-way point.

I dropped this after they had that horrid indie artist draw one of the issues in the teens. How has the quality been? Just thinking about the scope of the series exhausts me at this point.

God, I had no idea it is going to last that long. Think I will drop this title. Most of the side stories I have no interest in. Plus, who has really been waiting for Bluebird? The Bat-family is big enough as it is.

@mrshway88: Honest question here (that will probably sound ruder than intended, so sorry): what made you think it wouldn't last this long? Pretty much all of DC's weekly series last a year, and they pretty much all consist of a bunch of parallel side-stories that eventually come together as the series climaxes.

@lagozzino: not much happened actually. Hush came back and has done little. Falcone was crap. Gordon is irrelevant now. Not much is going on

@jayc1324: I literally just listed like a dozen different plot lines. There's a difference between "Not much is going on" and "I'm not interested in what's going on" :P

@mrshway88: That's why I'm trade-waiting it. I get a concentrated 20-issue burst and then nothing for 4-5 months (or whenever the next trade comes out).

@lagozzino: I'm interested in what's going on, its just that not much has happened. It doesn't feel like it. Half of that stuff isn't important anymore. this series is meant to commemorate Batman's 75 anniversary and the story really isn't cutting it. Bluebird and stephanie brown are really the only two major things.

Glad I'm not wasting 12-15 bucks every month on this series anymore.

So Harper's brother is gonna die? That's usually how these unhappy endings go about.

@chillinvillain: If I'm remembering right, they had kinda started setting up a romantic subplot between Harper's brother and this other guy a couple months ago. Red Robin showed up to rescue Harper, her brother (Cullen), and this reporter dude, and there was some mild flirting between Cullen and reporter dude and then reporter dude declared his crush on Red Robin (a crush that CulIen shares).
Anyway, my point is it would be weird to drop that little interpersonal connection between two mostly irrelevant side characters if they weren't planning to develop it. Also killing off one of the few active* gay characters that DC has would get them a bunch of bad publicity, so I don't see them killing him off any time soon.

*yeah he's a barely used character now, but with Harper becoming Bluebird and probably sharing a book with Red Robin in the future, Cullen would undoubtedly be joining her main supporting cast and turning up in other books more often as a result.

I'm really trying to find something I like about Harper...but I just.... just can't.

Maybe she'll grow on me eventually..... like fungus

@movieartman: I'm a huge Juan Jose Ryp fan. You reading Clone?

wasn't this just a story arc? I may be mistaken.

Or maybe Harper will die.