REVIEW: Welcome Back, Bruce in ‘Batman #50′
Batman #50 is the penultimate Dark Knight issue by writer Scott Snyder and artists Greg Capullo with Yannick Paquette, and the conclusion of the Superheavy story arc. It contains lots of action-packed pages. It is extra-sized. The Batman team certainly delivers it as what a Batman story should be – EPIC. Scott Snyder wraps up nicely the entire Superheavy […]
Batman #50 is the penultimate Dark Knight issue by writer Scott Snyder and artists Greg Capullo with Yannick Paquette, and the conclusion of the Superheavy story arc. It contains lots of action-packed pages. It is extra-sized. The Batman team certainly delivers it as what a Batman story should be – EPIC.
Scott Snyder wraps up nicely the entire Superheavy arc, revealing how the main antagonist sprang up, and the formal return of Bruce Wayne as the one and true Dark Knight of Gotham City. Naturally, Snyder is not selfish to have Bruce all the glory since he emphasizes of distributing credit to supporting casts since from the start of his Batman run. Snyder gives Gordon, despite massive injuries received since the last two chapters, the glory of finishing the monster itself. As well as for Duke Thomas, Alfred and other sub characters are intricately connected to give this issue worth reading.
Greg Capullo does not let us down as gives us a new costume for the Dark Knight that is sleek, functional, gorgeous, and basically a homage of the his former yellow insignia without being so annoying to view. Capullo does not end there. He presents in this issue his greatest Batman art so far. He delivers great sequential paneling and continues to expand his visual narrative tropes way beyond Snyder’s scripts. Yanick Paquette does his part right as he draws the epilogue. His art style is way different from Capullo’s. However, it is understandably hard for Greg to do all the artwork alone.
Batman #50 is not quite perfect. There are some to consider. This issue is overly fast paced. There are some panels that are staggering. Moreover, how does Batman defeat the ‘Joker’ Mecha Bat suit? When and how does Batman get on to his own giant bat-robot/”Bat-Jaeger”? And, there is this blow by Daryl Guiterrez on Duke Thomas that seems so awkward.
Nonetheless, Batman #50 simply explodes for the most part in writing and art. Scott Snyder eloquently delivers his penultimate Batman issue to the level of poetry in sequential narration, while Greg Capullo brings his usual A-game in sequential illustration and visual creativity. The creative team actually makes up the relative lackluster feel of the Superheavy arc with this by hyping the ante to its crescendo level. Yes, the next one is the swan song of both Greg and Scott, at least, this issue is among one of the BEST Bat-issues ever!