Batman: Fear State Omega #1

All in all, while Fear State Omega isnt the most exciting issue Ive ever read, it doesnt need to be and frankly probably shouldnt be. It is a rare quiet moment in the breakneck pace that has marked Tynions run as a whole, and thus a much-needed bit of breathing space. As a cap to Tynions two years on Batman, it makes absolute sense. Read Full Review

It's a strong epilogue that leaves Joshua Williamson and Mariko Tamaki with a lot of fascinating elements to work with. Read Full Review

Joshua Williamson has some extremely big shoes to fill moving forward. Read Full Review

This was a decent, if unnecessary, epilogue to Fear State allowing Tynion to sign off and neatly place all the characters back on the shelf for incoming Batman writer Joshua Williamson. Read Full Review

There's nothing inherently wrong or bad about Batman: Fear State Omega. It acts as a real finale to the event letting readers know what the fates of so many characters are. But, beyond that, it doesn't quite feel like it does anything shocking or interesting that the finale in Batman didn't already. Whether it needed to be a one-shot instead of just another issue of Batman is the real rub. While it delivers some closure and sets up a lot to come, it doesn't deliver as memorable an ending as the “end” of the event in Batman #117. Read Full Review

While Fear State ended a couple of weeks ago, this Omega issue puts a nail in the coffin. James Tynion's time on Batman is over, and while this issue isn't a grand goodbye, it ties up things and sets up the Bat-books going forward. It may not be great or necessary, but it looks good and does what it sets out to do. Read Full Review

It's a convenient and rather tidy way to close off Tynion's run, but while it will satisfy some Batman readers in that it gives a distinct sense of closure, one can't help but walk away from the issue feeling as though it was all very superficial " a very slick way to shuffle characters around, clearing the board for the next creative team while also never really dealing with any of the issues presented over the course of the run. Read Full Review

Batman: Fear State: Omega #1 is more shuffling of characters on the Gotham chessboard and less of anything note-worthy or interesting for the Batman title. It's essentially a bland, lifeless advertisement for what's to come. Read Full Review

How will history remember his run? Most likely as one that spun its wheels for a good while before abruptly ending while still trying to hold on to some delusions of self-importance. Read Full Review

cincyfan

Dec 04, 2021

A very good epilogue that leaves Joshua Williamson and Mariko tamaki a lot of things to work with.I'm really looking forward to what they have in store. Finally, I have to say this issue will be one I will remember for Riccardo Federici's beautiful artwork.

UxasIs

Dec 06, 2021

I thought this issue tied up the event pretty well, beautiful artwork as well

daspidaboy

Nov 30, 2021

It's okay to be honest. It's not bad, its fine. Good art, and I am glad that James Tynion IV wraps up his Batman run with mostly tied up ends. This run isnt bad, its entertaining but its not great either. I would have to grade Tynion's batman run a 7 out of 10

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daspidaboy - Nov 30, 2021

I personally really enjoyed fear state. Fear State is probably my favorite event of 2021 as of right now. I think fear state is just a harmless entertaining story that has great action and dialogue

Jmowarp

Dec 01, 2021

This might be my favorite fear state book. The whole event was kind of blah for me because it seemed like Tynion could care less.

Gavan

Dec 01, 2021

Bonus .5 for Fear State finally being over

Hydro-Man

Dec 04, 2021

Tynion comes back to shut the lights off after the rush-job that was Fear State. Overall, I enjoyed his run but this storyline was deserving of most of the criticisms lobbed at it. Side note, if you didn’t think this was a satisfying Scarecrow story and want to see something worse, check out this season of Titans. The dickhead character from Mad Men plays Scarecrow, which sort of works, except that he’s not in the costume once.

Comics Code Authorities

Dec 31, 2021

This is mostly the Aftermath of Fear State. It focuses on where Tynion's useless characters go from here (Which I hope no writer even bothers to follow up on) and Batman having a boring conversation with the Scarecrow as he transports him personally to his destination. The art was pretty good, but most of this issue was just Tynion's farewell letter to himself, patting himself on the back and telling himself how brilliant he feels his new characters are. Let's hope this is finally the last of these year long stories by a writer whose primary goal is just to make a name for himself.

Merlyn

Nov 30, 2021

This rating is so high just because I like Federici's art, otherwise the story suffers from the same idiotic tropes Tynion used us to by now. For example, his Batman says he let the Unsanity Collective roam free because they aren't a threat. Sure, dude, a bunch of anarchists who brainwash people aren't a threat to anyone for sure. I can't wait to live in that ideal society of Tynion where whackos brainwash me for my own good lol. This whole issue is just Batman simping to try to show us how great Tynion's characters are, how "dangerous" and "heroic" they are. They're really not, dude, they're just boring and no one cares about them. And all that dialogue at the end between Batman and Crane makes no sense. All this time Tynion rallied on how Crane wanted to change Gotham only to make an 180 at the very end and tell us how Crane was actually afraid of change. Would you fucking make up your mind? It seemed more to me like it was a breaking of the 4th wall to complain to us readers how we don't like his creations, how we're "afraid of change". Yeah we don't , they're dumb. And change doesn't always equate with "better". Change for the sake of change a lot of times does more harm than good. Case in point, Tynion's Batman run. It was a change for sure, but it was a shitty change. Let's hope Williamson and future writers just pretends this whole stupid thing never happened. more

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Mingthemerciless - Nov 30, 2021

From what I'm seeing most of Tynions characters are being mothballed. The villain one shot this week looks like they're bringing back the rogues gallery.

Merlyn - Nov 30, 2021

Ghost-Maker is making an appearance in Urban Legends and Punchline will still be present in Future State: Gotham. I have a feeling Clownhunter won't go anywhere, either.

Mingthemerciless - Nov 30, 2021

Future State is on life support. Urban Legwnds is a lag between Tynion and Williamson. Williamson has already said the rogues make a play in Gotham while his new villian Abyss sets up the move to get batman out of Gotham. Batman Inc also has a role. I cant see Tynions characters lasting more than three months in continuity. Of course DC does have a death wish lately too.

DDJamesB

Dec 01, 2021

It brings some closure to the run. I can't say it was bad but, it's very generic and uneventful.

Screaming Enigma

Jul 29, 2023

I was a fan of this event, but this didn't hit as well as everything that came before it. While the follow-up on certain aspects of Fear State is appreciated, this did feel kind of unnecessary. Tynion writes a solid conversation between Bruce and Jonathan, but I just feel like we didn't need this. I feel like a few pages could have been added to Batman 117 to include the stuff with Miracle Molly, Amanda Waller, Peacekeeper-01, Poison Ivy, and Clownhunter. It also doesn't help that there were five different artists here. I actually did some math and figured out that it averaged out to 6 pages per artist. However, the artist who got the bulk of the 30 pages was Federici, who did 16. Duce & Hairsine did 4, while Benjamin and March did 3. I thi nk they either should have had one artist do the stuff with Bruce and Jonathan, while another does the other scenes, or they should have just had one artist throughout. Nonetheless, this set up some fairly interesting ideas for the future, but didn't add to the Fear State event as a whole all that much. more

Afre

Nov 30, 2021

Well. It's not bad. Doesn't make Fear State any better. Doesn't make Tynion's run any better. It ties his run's things up. A run that wasn't particulary good or interesting. So, could be worse I guess.

Robin

Dec 01, 2021

7/10 in general for the writing and the arc in general with the great art. if each issue of fear state was like this where batman actually addresses the problem upfront, it would have been really great but at last even this cannot save the fear state as it was filled with new characters which had to be giving context really fast so they can have weight in the actual event. Teen Titans academy and Batman last part of Tynion's run had similar problems, both had tons of new characters with a lot of potential just there way of execution was different while "Teen Titans academy" writer straight up skipped and avoided important information and scenes to put weight in the new characters and instead straight went in to the catch up line parts. and that's why the teen titans academy book is probably the worst right now. James Tynion on the other hand spend as much time as possible to develop these characters, but the thing happened is that he did it in the batman book and there were more characters; hence he had more in his plate then he could finish. which led to almost every issue after joker war and especially after "Future State" feel like setups for "Fear State" and filled with dialogue. Lastly -1 for having click bating covers, this doesn't help. As I might by a issue if I saw a character I like on the cover but after I find out he/she wasn't even in the issue at all. Next time I wouldn't buy a issue if I even had a doubt how much the character's importance stand in the issue. So they seriously need to do something about the covers, especially for the books like this which are expected to be epilogue of events happened over multiple books. more

pizzamain

Jan 29, 2022

idk what's going on

KittyNone

Dec 01, 2021

Federici's art is stunning, but otherwise this is five bucks for forty pages of the kind of epilogue comics usually do in three or four pages: a cash grab epilogue to an event that was never firing on all cylinders. For completists only.

Psycamorean

Dec 06, 2021

Yeah, what a whimper of an ending. It basically rides on whether you liked what came before, and if you didn't this is just going to seem like a masturbatory round up and that's not the most fun thing to read, if you're not in on the orgasm.

retcon_D

Dec 31, 2021

Thank God, it’s over.

Raging Rainbow

Dec 10, 2021

This is how it ends: not with a bang, but with set ups for future stories. Fear State could have been a cool, memorable story. Instead it was a disjointed mess that ultimately only served to setup things to come. And it wasn't even entertaining to read. https://youtu.be/v6Gvns4dIgY