BATMAN ETERNAL Megathread 25-28

[CBR News]

With riots breaking out all over Gotham City, can Batman stop the march toward martial law?


Full preview here.

[RobinFan4880]

SPOILERS:

This was a good read, very enjoyable. I like the interplay between Jason and Tim. I love Julia, I hope she gets to stick around for a long time. Hush is pretty bad ass thus far. Bard is a total tool. Harper is proving herself to be totally awesome.

[TheNewFiftyForum]

I really enjoyed the art in #25, very Klaus Janson-ish. The story wasn't bad either, with some nice interaction between Tim Drake and Jason Todd and a decent amount of progress to the overall plot. I'm excited for the promised "History of Hush" in #26, although positioning him so clearly as the big bad this early in the game does suggests that there are more twists, and possibly evil masterminds, to come.

[K. Jones]

Decent piece-moving issue - getting all the players unified here, except, well, Batwing. I'm eager to see how the group interaction plays out now that Hush is revealed. We could use a little exposition, and the next issue promise of "Hush History" should suffice, as well as telling us what's in continuity and what's being left out or ignored for simplicity.

Jason/Babs feels a little forced, but also a little circumstantial, like something we shouldn't feel bad about that won't really work for long, since she's soft-rebooting in her own title soon anyway. He didn't know her that long before dying, and the first time he encountered her post-resurrection was back in Night of the Owls and his first words were "Nice legs". Plus Tim/Harper isn't even a thing really. (Although I'd prefer it to his dating any Teen Titan teammates).

But Jay's line about Alfred and talking about girls was pretty right on.

[Claude]

Good issue. Tim and Jason work nicely together, and their mutual slight detachment from Barbara seems very "real". Hush still seems to be Tommy Elliot - or, at least, Batman assumes he is - so previous stories probably still in broadstrokes continuity... Yeah, very happy with this. Who was on scripting again?

Although, again, the idea that Tim would be thinking "since Joker" rather than "since Dick died" is just nonsense, but part of the buying-in you have to make in enjoying this kind of story. Similarly, the "when does Robin Rises happen?" question, given that the meeting in the Batcave there is "the first time" a meeting of the Bat Family has taken place since Death Of The Family, and yet we have such a meeting here.

[K. Jones]

Good issue. Tim and Jason work nicely together, and their mutual slight detachment from Barbara seems very "real". Hush still seems to be Tommy Elliot - or, at least, Batman assumes he is - so previous stories probably still in broadstrokes continuity... Yeah, very happy with this. Who was on scripting again?

Although, again, the idea that Tim would be thinking "since Joker" rather than "since Dick died" is just nonsense, but part of the buying-in you have to make in enjoying this kind of story. Similarly, the "when does Robin Rises happen?" question, given that the meeting in the Batcave there is "the first time" a meeting of the Bat Family has taken place since Death Of The Family, and yet we have such a meeting here.

I posited that Robin Rises happens "LAST OF ALL" in Batman timeline, even after the very end of Eternal just by way of my compulsive list-writing. So far in Eternal Babs is still in her Jim Lee costume, and she's still in it during Rises. Which means that Eternal (despite being a huge, expansive weekly of 50+ issues) takes place shortly after Forever Evil and before The Hunt for Robin (which features the post-Evil Luthor JLA), in a relatively short span of time. Big story, short time. And still more deftly managed than a debacle like Blackest Night (1 night = 10 months of stories) or even Forever Evil (a couple days told in half a year).

I suspect Endgame will reference Batman pissing off all the Leaguers in Robin Rises, as well as his contingency plans for the JLA that have been referenced since Trinity War got started up.

I don't think we'll get any "post-Robin Rises" stories until that story wraps this Christmas.

[Claude]

I posited that Robin Rises happens "LAST OF ALL" in Batman timeline, even after the very end of Eternal just by way of my compulsive list-writing. So far in Eternal Babs is still in her Jim Lee costume, and she's still in it during Rises. Which means that Eternal (despite being a huge, expansive weekly of 50+ issues) takes place shortly after Forever Evil and before The Hunt for Robin (which features the post-Evil Luthor JLA), in a relatively short span of time. Big story, short time. And still more deftly managed than a debacle like Blackest Night (1 night = 10 months of stories) or even Forever Evil (a couple days told in half a year).

I suspect Endgame will reference Batman pissing off all the Leaguers in Robin Rises, as well as his contingency plans for the JLA that have been referenced since Trinity War got started up.

I don't think we'll get any "post-Robin Rises" stories until that story wraps this Christmas.

Certainly possible. But my point was more that to believe that, you have to essentially ignore that Robin Rises is meant to be the first time all these characters have been in a room together - whereas this issue has them all meeting up.

Unless they were counting Alfred, of course, which would be a little strange given the context.

[Dzetoun]

Certainly possible. But my point was more that to believe that, you have to essentially ignore that Robin Rises is meant to be the first time all these characters have been in a room together - whereas this issue has them all meeting up.

Unless they were counting Alfred, of course, which would be a little strange given the context.

Sigh. The continuity of the BatVerse is in near meltdown. We have about three different versions of Babs at the moment, a Robin Rises that seems to directly contradict Eternal, and a Grayson that really doesn't even seem to exist for most of the BatVerse, much less the DCU. And that's without even including the Justice League. As Badou would say, it's getting hard to believe that anything carries much weight, except maybe for the stuff Snyder writes.

[Rakiduam]

Batman: Eternal, where the only ones that remember the deads are the villains, while the "family" just replaces them. There's no weight at all

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

Jason and Tim interactions were the only good thing on issue 25, I'm not feeling the way Julia and Harper are being pushed as members of the bat family, the teases of a relationship between Barbara and Jason/Harper and Tim, even if are meant to lack any long term relevance (I hope) makes me cringe since it comes from nowhere (plus the whole shilling of Barbara a few issues back was TERRIBLE). The Hush plotline is just a rehash and mix of Knightfall/Batman RIP and the original Hush storyline with a far less credible mastermind.

[Black_Adam]

Jason having a thing for Barbara is cute, if they do end up getting together I would love to see the reaction of Dick. "I'm dead for 5 minutes and this is what happens?!" I thoroughly enjoyed the back and forth with him and Tim. Though Hush wanting to make Bruce's life a living hell is kinda getting old news, I still think there is another player behind the scenes possibly working with him or he is working for them.

[InformationGeek]

Batman: Eternal, where the only ones that remember the deads are the villains, while the "family" just replaces them. There's no weight at all

...what the heck are you talking about?!

[napolid]

Batman: Eternal, where the only ones that remember the deads are the villains, while the "family" just replaces them. There's no weight at all

What do you expect them to start crying every issue that Nightwing is dead.

[Rakiduam]

What do you expect them to start crying every issue that Nightwing is dead.

I wasn't thinking in Nightwing, I was thinking in Damian. The whole "we haven't worked together since The Joker" was annoying when between then and now Leviathan's night happened.

To be honest I don't expect anything of them and still is disappointment every time I grab a issue of this, it's too referent to Snyde's work when Batman's world is bigger than his 3 arcs

[vitamin]

There was so much tension between Tommy and Brucie, even if the former was just a hologram.

History if Hush can't come soon enough.

P.S. Guera was fantastic all around. His Batmobile was sleek and elegant.
Another issue with his art is a treat. Yum.