Written by Judd Winick
Pencils: Dustin Nguyen
Inks: Derek Fridolfs
The Solicitation
Batwing comes to Gotham City! Batwing and Batman race back to the city hoping to stop the killer Massacre from assassinating the last two members of Africa's lost super-team, The Kingdom! Meanwhile, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Robin are already on the ground leading the search. Plus: The dark past of the Kingdom is revealed!
Preview
The Story
Don't let that cover fool you, this is a story about the history of the Kingdom and what they did that caused the team to split, and for Massacre to get his motivation to kill them all.
We get two more Kingdom deaths and then the setup for the final battle next issue. At least, you would think it is the final battle. I can't think of where else this story could go, but who knows.
Basically the Kingdom set up a revolution that was set up for the last battle. The Kingdom wanted the people to fight it, in part because they were out of energy and symbolically it would be better for the people to win. They learned of some back door dealings between the other two fronts of the war, and there was going to be a slaughter. The Kingdom made a deal to help one person out, and that was a decision that split the team and cause 50,000 people to be slaughtered to their death.
There are some finer details there, but you'll just have to read the issue to see it. The art helps tremendously with telling this story, and I will get to that later.
We also have the Bat-team guest star in this issue as they search for a couple more Kingdom members. I find it funny, but I think this is the first time I have seen Batgirl in front of a computer in the new 52 and that was kinda her thing there. Nice. Nightwing and Damian get some face time together that reminds you of the old Batman and Robin comic when Dick was Batman. Nice character touches there.
We get the cliffhanger ending, and the set up for the finale at the end. Loves it.
The Art
I was really surprised by the guest artist, but I think it was totally worth it. Nguyen's style fit perfectly and seemed much more natural than Oliver's take. In fact, I would thing that there would be no way for Oliver to be able to show and convey as much information in this comic as Nguyen does. Nguyen has that nice feel to him that seems like a much cleaner version of Chriscross who has previously filled in on the comic.
Most importantly, Nguyen's take on Batwing. It is not comical at all. It looks serious and in certain panels looks very imposing. Very well done.
The Cover
I have a couple of issues with the cover. I don't like that it looks as if Batwing gets relegated to a background character in his own book. He should be prominent on the cover, not Batman. All the other characters fit in perfectly with the cover. I don't like the fact that this story is more about the Kingdom that the Bat-cast, especially considering that Batwing and Batman are in a bat-plane all issue and not near Gotham.
Nothing about this cover looks bad. Everything is in the same color that doesn't jar the reader and is something that could be worthy of the start of some huge poster of the Bat-family. The only one missing is Red Robin, but he definitely is not needed in this issue or on this cover. Good work all around.
Grades
Words: 8/10 - this was the payoff issue for the Kingdom's setup. I would say that it works pretty well. And I have to give kudos to anyone who uses Batgirl as a guest star and puts her in front of a computer. That's miles above what she has done in her own comic.
Pictures: 8/10 - very well done. Can this be the regular series artist?
Recommend: Yes. If you are a casual Bat-fan reader and haven't been following Batwing, this is a decent jumping on point. I would saw that you may be ticked off that the Bat-cast isn't featured much, but the story of the Kingdom should be entertaining for ya.
Buy Next Issue: Let's see the conclusion!
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