Detective Comics #979

Tynion's run on Detective Comics is soon coming to a close, with this arc sure to play on until his grand finale. Suffice it say, if you've been enjoying the adventures of Rebirth's Bat-Family, this an issue that's not to be missed. Read Full Review

Killer robots, nanotech, psychotic teenagers and a Bat Team divided. Man, this series is comics dynamite! Bravo and a huge thanks to everyone invloved. Read Full Review

Buy, as the reader finds out just how Ulysses took control of Tim and most of the Colony soldiers. Read Full Review

This issue succeeds in paying-off a number of previously established story elements, particularly those affecting Tim Drake, while progressing the story to an unseen place that tests the characters and captivates the reader. Read Full Review

The General's evolution into the main villain of Tynion's Detective run has been fascinating and shows how much this run is rooted in the classic Chuck Dixon Robin run, both in its villains and in its characterization of Tim and Stephanie. Read Full Review

Tynion has positioned Tim as a major factor in his Detective run so it's nice to see this arc requires an all hands on deck approach to save him and take down The General. As usual, Detective Comics delivers the goods and remains one of the can't skip issues in the DC library. Read Full Review

Detective Comics is surely to go down as one of Batman's best comic book since the start of Rebirth. With James Tynion IV leaving very soon, well hope whoever takes the Detective Comics bring the same passion James Tynion IV gave us on his run. For now let go back and worry about our poor Red Robin. Hopefully they can bring him back from this crazy nightmare. Read Full Review

The stakes keep rising and the tension keeps building as the current Batman and Red Robin story races to the finish! Read Full Review

The series has been hurtling towards this point for some time but it will be interesting in the aftermath to see if Batman and his allies can ever fully recover from this event. Tynion and his creative team continue to raise the stakes on a fortnightly basis, and really help to sell us on the urgency of this particular threat and what it could mean to the DCU if our heroes fail. Read Full Review

I am excited to see where this goes, and if the schism between Batman and Batwoman will be short-lived or not. Read Full Review

Things are reaching a climax in Detective Comics, and this issue brings things together in an exciting way. Read Full Review

A good issue that builds towards the next issue. Read Full Review

Batman: Detective Comics #979 doesnt advance the story very far, but the drama between Red Robin and Ulysses keeps the overall book compelling. Briones and Kaliszs artwork is quite solid to boot, and the book earns a recommendation. Feel free to check it out. Read Full Review

It's beginning to feel like a chore to read this title, which is unfortunate because Detective Comics was reliably awesome, and now it is taking a nose-dive. Read Full Review

Detective Comics #979 was a solid chapter that pushed the "Batman Eternal" story arc forward. James Tynion has done a good job presenting Ulysses as the greatest threat Red Robin has gone up against. How Ulysses uses Red Robin, Brother Eye and OMAC together creates a lot of questions to be answered as to how things will end up when all is said and done for the Batman Family. If Detective Comics #979 is any indication than the answer may not be a good one for our favorite Gotham City superheroes. Read Full Review

This issue forced the plot along to get everyone on the same page before we get to the final battle coming up. I liked the art, but I hope we get some more story progression next issue because while crazy stuff is going down in Gotham, it's already getting kind of boring Read Full Review

I'm not really a fan of the whole “futuristic robots cause city wide peril” stories. However, if you can look past that, there are some really great interactions at play here between Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong and Tim Drake. Read Full Review

Philippe Briones, who already provided some solid if unremarkable fill-in work in the last arc, gives another good issue of appealing pencils. John Kalisz, the colorist for Javier Fernandez, provides colors for this issue as well, which gives a small but significant element of visual continuity for this arc, which is quite a nice touch. However, the overwhelming use of cold blues that give Fernandezs art a spooky feeling doesnt work quite as well with Briones more bold and cheerful linework. Well have to wait and see if next issue, solicited to be drawn by Scot Eaton, will also use Kalisz, which would be a nice touch. Read Full Review

Batman Eternal suffers from a few tired concepts, but it still wins out thanks to its characters. Read Full Review

This issue is just a bore. The art isn't bad at all but the story feels so completely unearned and rushed. I'm sure there are fans of this book but whatever identity it once had is now out the window. A creative team change is exactly what I need to get excited about Batman again. Read Full Review

SloboSOY

Apr 26, 2018

The sad part of all of this is that Tim is only struck by what he tried to do himself. I was worried for Cassandra, and I didn't like the new "Quentin quire" look for Ulysse Armstrong. I find a litte easy that batman, batwoman & the general have this soon the help of batwing & azrael. I wondered if Spoiler was drunk ? Cover - I take the variant. Beautiful & more in link. 2/2 Writing - Tynion IV keep going is amazing job of writing all these character. 3/3 Arts - Maybe the character is not perfectly draw. His style is more Brute than what we was accustomed with Detective Comics. But I liked the panel he imagined. The strength in some part of the intelligent splash page but you have to turn the comics a little to see it (Loosing grou nd in the same time than Tim). 2.5/3 Feeling - It's the kind of dark I tear between like & dislike to succeed judging it. 1/2 more

Granfalloon

Apr 26, 2018

This arc is pulling together all the threads from Tynion's run, and I'm digging it.

Keola Kent

Apr 27, 2018

I've never been a fan of villian-takes-control-of-hero's-brain-and-makes-hero-be-a-villian stories. So Ulysses is not an attraction for me here. However, I do think the writing creates a compelling image of him as a wacko sicko cray-cray insane bonkers psycho megalomaniac. Tynion has taken him to the point that I really can hear Ulysses' maniacal laugh and it's scary not silly. I was on a lengthy hiatus and not around when OMACs were a big thing. I can't say they strike me as as interesting villians, though they come across as a credible threat. I wish they would stop screaming in my ear, "Sentinal Rip-Off!" As trying-to-change-the-bad-future-turns-out-to-be-just-what-causes-the-bad-future stories go, this hasn't been bad. Assum ing (anyone going to question this?) that it all ends up resolved with Tim saved from Ulysses, it will also save him from the darkness that is Future Tim/Savior. Thus, it will turn out to be actually a trying-to-change-the-bad-future-seems-to-be-just-what-causes-the-bad-future-but-really-it-prevents-it story. Even if it has that much of a "happy" ending, though, I anticipate that Tim's relationships with Stephanie and others will never be the same, and that has potential for drama, as well as plot devices. Moving out from Tim, though, we need to remember that the title is supposed to focus on Bat Family, not just Tim. The interaction between Batman and Batwoman promises that it will be complicated in future. I don't see any indication that General Kane will ever have any positive impact on anyone. If this title does continue the Bat Family theme, although the big question remains what the situation will be with Batwing and Azrael, as well as Batwoman, it will be interesting to see how the loss of Clayface has more subtle repercussions than we've seen to date. A solid well-written, well-drawn issue that lays out an interesting path for both the Tim Drake story and the Killing Clayface story. more

Dispatchdcu

Apr 25, 2018

Welcome to the Oblivion Bar where the first round is on me and the pretzels are free! Be warned: like the pickled eggs at the bar, this issue is going to get SPOILED rotten. We left off last issue with Tim being taken over my Brother Eye and Orphan to fight off all the OMAC colony peeps. Meanwhile Batman, Kate, and her pops had there own OMAC colony peeps to fight too. Well, this issue starts in the mind of Tim. And Ulysess, or the General as he is referred to now, is showing Tim his future that he learned through Brother Eye, which seemed interesting. And I want to see that. Can I please see that Tynion? Tim tries to fight it as much as possible, but it turns out he doesn’t stand a chance against the Brother Eye Nanotech that’s raging throughout his body. Batman, Kate, and the Colonel get some help from Batwing and Azrael, who can somehow stop Brother Eye with some type of nanotech ray gun shriek. It only works temporarily and the OMAC’s all fly back to the belfry to set up shop. Turns out; Tim has been completely taken over by Ulysess and Brother Eye. He morphs into a Batman looking OMAC and we are led to believe Tim is in full control of his body and “wants” this to all happen...magically... since minutes before he didn’t want it. Yeah right! Batman sneaks off with Orphan to find Stephanie to hopefully knock some sense into Tim and it appears as though she expected this to happen all along, because who would expect your over the top, crazed, ex-boyfriend who just saw his future self try to murder his friends, to build SKYNET!!!!! Obviously, Steph would know that. Look; I’ve been digging Detective since the Bat-Drake arc started. Sure, it’s had its ups and downs and I’ve been super excited for OMAC’s and Brother Eye but I think I’m just struggling with the connective tissue between the issues, the desire of the characters, and the plot. Ulysess is smart but he’s a nobody who wears Bat clothing. He’s a smart, stalker more

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Dispatchdcu - Apr 25, 2018

He’s a smart, stalker by day and a psychopath by night. He’s smart Marky Mark from Cape Fear. How is he the villain of this story? And how does Batwing understand the future Brother Eye stuff so well and so fast? Batwing just shows up and explains everything quick and we move on.

Dispatchdcu - Apr 25, 2018

I also think we can all see where this is going. Stephanie is the only one who can break Tim away long enough for him to fight to take down Sky Net, I mean Siri, I mean Alexa, I mean Brother Eye. It’s going to be so heart warming when that happens......(sarcasm)

Dispatchdcu - Apr 25, 2018

My point: there are holes in any story. Plot points that don’t always connect through the transitive property of mathematics and reasons why we may not totally like a story. But is it really bad writing? Well, I’ll say it this way: I enjoyed reading the issue. It was exciting. I wasn’t bored. The art was ok and Infinite Crisis is one of my FAVORITE stories. So, drawing on the OMAC’s and Brother Eye are awesome!

Dispatchdcu - Apr 25, 2018

But I think our expectations of comics are that everyone sits in a room together and hashes our where character stories have been and where they are going and that doesn’t happen... probably never did. I wish it did but maybe we need to be more realistic. To me; I could understand some of the leaps the characters took to get to this point. They seemed a bit far fetched. But the story still reads well and is truly fun.

Dispatchdcu - Apr 25, 2018

I honestly recommend the read just temper some of your expectations from point A to B and you’ll be ok. If you like what you heard, love talking all types of comics, and are interested in joining a comic chat group, hit me up at dispatchdcu@gmail.com or @dispatchdcu on twitter. Catch you all later! Peace

Nihilist

Apr 25, 2018

Series seem to pick up after last couple of underwhelming issues following Clayface's death, where the team got split up. Even if Tim's arc isn't spectacularly emotional or interesting, he serves as a good pivot for what may happen in the future, most importantly a possible reunion of main characters. I'm super happy to see Stephanie back, even if her appearance was limited to just one page - that's a teaser, after all, and I can't wait to see where it's going to lead. Overall a decent issue.