Then came Countdown, an awful work
head-written by great writer Paul Dini and a load of crappy writers intended to
set up an event it didn’t set up, kill things without mercy and push tie-ins
wherever it could. It was awful and killed the miniseries off for a while. With
the New52 came 3 new mini-series. Future’s end, Earth 2: World’s end, neither
of which I’ve read but I can’t say I’ve heard great things about, and Batman:
Eternal, intended to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Batman, which
I did a 4 issue test of in January despite the fact issue 4 came out in April
of the previous year.
Batman: Eternal was reasonably well
written and successful enough that a 26-issue second mini-series Batman and
Robin Eternal, this time celebrating the 75th anniversary of Robin.
I don’t like to give too much background as I feel a new title should provide
that anyway. But it’s best to know that during the Batman story endgame. Batman
and his long-time nemesis the Joker ‘died.’ James Gordon became a fully police
sanctioned Batman with a robotic suit as he lacks the skills Batman had. Bruce
has since returned, but with no memories of his time as Batman and lacking the
skills.
I hate the idea of Jim Gordon as Batman,
I’ll just go out and say it. I haven’t been picking up titles with him as the
focus because Jim Gordon to me is the legal centre of Batman. He’s Batman’s
ally in the police and the main difference between him and Batman is that he is
a firm believer in the law. Becoming a vigilante is backwards for his
character, and I hate the ro-bat suit. One other thing. Dick Grayson revealed
himself to Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl and the Red Hood to be alive after his
‘death’ in Forever evil and becoming a super-spy (see my 4 issue Test of
Grayson for more info)
OK, let’s take a look.
