Batman: Eternal #16

Ray Fawkes and Dustin Nguyen continue to wow Bat fans with the second issue in a row featuring a bunch of "new" dynamic duos. Read Full Review

Batman Eternal #16 is a worthy entry into the grand epic being weaved by the entire Bat-team and this issue is enough of a departure from the style and tone of recent issues, in both writing and art, to help the book remain fresh and exciting. Read Full Review

Ray Fawkes gives readers the second part of his Spectre/Batwing-centric issues. While this issue isn't as terrifying as the last entry, it's still quite effective storytelling that is aided in large part to the efforts of Dustin Nguyen. Read Full Review

With the crime in Gotham being swapped for spirits this issue presents to us a big player within the Batman Eternal story-line, as Harpers involvement grows even deeper, and Bard continues on his mission for justice. Read Full Review

Great issue, very creepy, great art, and nice progression all give… Read Full Review

This was a solid issue as usual. You get your dose of action here and there and supernatural experiences. You have the revival of Deacon Blackfire from Batman's villains archive make his New 52 debut in BATMAN ETERNAL, which is always awesome! We have Sergi and Maxwell make a return. You have great artwork by Nguyen and a solid script from Fawkes. I have my one big negative and one gripe, however, I believe that it will not throw off most readers. I recommend this issue. Read Full Review

Now, the other plot line that appears in this issue is the Tim and Harper go to Tokyo show. I've made it clear that I really don't like the direction that this is going in, but that changes with this issue. Kind of. I still really think that the Tim/Harper dynamic is a complete waste of a potentially awesome pairing. The dialogue between the two comes off as being a bit stale, and it ends up being rather disinteresting. The reason, however, that I say that there's improvement in this issue is because of the where the actual plot is going. The two have to fight off some sort of mechanical tentacles (After all, they are in Japan…), which provides a pretty cool action sequence. However, an important change comes in the arrival of a new character, who we've only seen once before, at least in The New 52. His one appearance made him seem like a great character, at least to me, and so now I'm a little bit more excited about what this has to offer. Read Full Review

Batman: Eternal continues to be an entertaining read but there's times that I feel it's focusing too much on the future than the present. Still comes recommended. Read Full Review

Batman Eternal's overall quality has picked up considerably after ditching that stupid GCPD storyline. That thing was like a stone in my shoe, grinding into my foot with each passing step. With that gone, and with a better understanding of what this series will be about (random insanity), the comic is just better. It's still not a must-read, but it's not so bad anymore. Read Full Review

The key to these weekly issues has been the pacing and Fawkes doesn't nail it down here. While the supernatural elements dominate most of his script, his little check-ins with Lt. Bard and Red Robin are too short to really be impactful. Read Full Review

I'm still not sold on this as an ongoing, and will keep getting it only when they have someone I'm interested in, like Corrigan and Steph. Read Full Review

Batman Eternal #16 was a bit of a disappointment.  Last week, Ray Fawkes gave the reader some creepy goodness, but this week we get mostly filler.  Dustin Nguyen's art is to blame as well and the issue has Joker's Daughter which is always a minus for me. Read Full Review

I'm not a fan of this issue. It's a struggle for me when I'm not getting Batman in my Batman comics. Here's to hoping next week's makes a little more sense as well. Read Full Review

As sad as it is for me to say this, I found that this was askippable chapter. I felt like this issue wasprimarily filler and boiled down to the essentials could easily have been told in a couple of pages, not 20. Read Full Review

Al B. Harper

Jul 27, 2014

While the art was decent this issue, like last, focused mainly on the story threads which aren't that interesting. Dialogue was absolutely, especially Batwing and Vicki Vale.