Forever Evil Aftermath #1: Batman vs Bane Review

Homecoming.

As I’ve said in my reviews, Arkham War was an interesting premise of Bane fighting the Gotham Rogues and yet Tomasi managed to leave us with a jumbled mess that in no way highlighted anything good about Gotham or its people.

You can go into this issue as a new reader (and really, that may be the best way to read this book) and only one or two elements may throw you off. The rest is fairly straightforward and expected.

For me, Tomasi’s handling of the Batvillains has been suspect. The Two-Face arc was the first time he handled a mainstream Bat villain that wasn’t a tie-in. So, the Arkham War atrocity was maybe retrospectively expected. He’s still finding his feet.

Scott Eaton on the other hand has been slightly in-between. Sometimes his art looks very good while at other it comes off rushed.

SPOILERS FOLLOW………………..

Bane has won Gotham. He has beaten the Arkham crew and made Scarecrow an ironic spectacle as his trophy (hanging him from the rafters like an actual scarecrow) with the help of the Talons, the hitmen of the Court of Owls.

If you’ve read the Owls saga in the early issues of New 52 Batman, there’s not much to explain about the Talons. They were kept frozen before being taken by the Arkham crew and Bane in turns before they turned to Bane finally.

This takes place after Forever Evil #, but there are no spoilers here other than ‘the Crime Syndicate has been defeated’, and the sun is back out.

We get the expected montage – Alfred and Titus (Bat-dog) see someone returning to the Batcave and Scarecrow is cut down, screaming ‘He’s back!’

And after the Owls story ended, the Talons have fallen into disposable villain category. Where once a single Talon tortured and beat up Batman for multiple issues, here he takes down no less than 6-7 easily. So much for amazing reflexes when about to be frozen, right?

Most of the issue through is made up of Bane breaking up a mercenary supply crew (in more than one way) and then a very on-the-nose 'life lessons' interaction with a boy who has an ailing mother. It is the best part though, and Tomasi does seem to have an inkling of what makes Bane tick (which makes most of Arkham War ridiculous).

The Batmobile reappears as the main Talon, Cobb is captured rather easily and the spectators cheer (aren’t they supposed to be frightened or something? ‘Shrug’ Not when your friendly neighborhood Batman is here!)

This is followed by one of the most harrowing sights ever – Bane pumping Venom into him through tanks. It’s so outrageously bad I can’t do it justice in words. Through he now pumps the Venom into himself permanently it seems. No going back to normal, he's permanently in a Venomified state.

Well, Batman arrives and they fight (and no matter what Bane says, Bruce didn’t use any of his ‘toys’. The grappling line is hardly used in offensive here). Bruce basically beats up Bane in one of the worst drawn fights filled with bad one-liners and cupid statues.

Anyway, Batman wins and then we see Bruce and Gordon at the reopening of Arkham Asylum with Bane in the slammer. There are some clichéd words of Gotham’s survival and that’s it.

SPOILERS END……………….

This was a chance for Tomasi to redeem this story but realistically, it was never going to happen. For new readers, this will come off as predictable and a more than a little rushed.

For me and others who have been following Arkham War, this was the final nail on the coffin. Through fairly, 20 pages were never going to allow Tomasi to properly deal with the aftermath.

So, I give it 3.5 out of 10.

+Bane gets some good moments

-Some very erratic artwork and ridiculously bad imagery
-Talons reduced to henchmen level
-All of the supporting characters being blind-sided
-A predictable story overall – return->fight