With the team together, it’s time to execute the plan!
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom King
Art: Mikel Janin
Colors: June Chung
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
“I am Suicide” part two! Batman now has his team, but are they ready for the most dangerous mission of their lives? As the Dark Knight prepares his squad to infiltrate Santa Prisca, he may find that it’s up to him alone to face Bane.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the current arc moving into its second installment the opening of it reminded me exactly why I enjoyed the first part so much. Watching as Batman puts his team together with the kind of confidence that he has is a treat, especially since it’s such an oddball group as you’d expect. The concept of him taking on his own Suicide Squad kind of team has its own fun considering his general distaste over the years with what Waller does but it goes in its own direction here. This issue also makes out very well by having Mikel Janin on board once again as he delivers some really strong action moments. There were some real moments of beauty in the previous issue and seeing him go all out with it here as the book is essentially all action means it’s just a delight.
That said, this issue was something of a challenge on two fronts. The first is that it really is all action as we get Batman heading into Santa Prisca in the batplane and essentially working a front door approach to getting to Bane. While you know he’s a master strategist and that this is all part of the plan, there’s such a disconnect from how it’s being executed that it’s pretty jarring. Yes, the action is great as we see him dealing with the attack from the air, the thugs on the ground, and dealing with this reduced Bane in person. And that’s before coping with readjusting his own back after being tossed down into the dungeon. But it’s combined with him being so simplistic and repetitive in dialogue about what he wants, which I assume has a point to it, that you become numb to it as it progresses. It’s technically executed beautifully but it lacks enough character as you question repeatedly whether it’s actually Bruce under the cowl.
The other front that was a challenge was in the narration itself. While we get Batman as the focal point for 95% of the book here, there’s a handwritten narration throughout that’s from Selina’s point of view. While we knew she was being brought on board at the end of the previous issue, getting a reflection on her life and her earliest connection to the man under the mask with Batman is interesting. But it distracts so much from the flow of the book that you wish it was given two or three pages to itself with some contextual imagery instead of over the course of the book as a whole. I don’t know how much it rewrites her past (it’s obviously not what I remember in the post-Crisis years and certainly not from my knowledge of the 70’s Catwoman), but it certainly feels like it makes her a darker and more violent person than I recall and that in turn makes her feel a bit less accessible as a reader.
In Summary:
With the way King structures his works, there’s a long game at play here so even though I’m left frustrated by certain parts of it I know enough to look at it as a whole. I like the two main ideas here but the blending falls short and the visual execution of the handwritten letter made for some eyestrain at times. Mikel Janin is the real winner with this book as the hand to hand fight sequences are fantastic, the mental anguish we see at times strong, and the overall panel design and flow of them simply made it a treat to read – and made me wish that there was a way to remove layers in the digital books already so I could see how it looks without all the dialogue.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 2nd, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
