Comics! Batwing #8

Batwing #8

Written by Judd Winick
Pencils by Dustin Nguyen

The Solicitation
Batwing vs. Massacre! The culmination of Massacre's rampage and destruction of Africa's first team of heroes, The Kingdom! The battle between Batwing and Massacre crashes Gotham City as Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Nightwing join the fight in a massive, action-packed rumble you won't want to miss! And the shocking identity of Massacre is revealed at last!

Preview

The Comic
Overall, I'm going to say that it was a much better conclusion and I am surprised that I am enjoying this comic as much as I am.

We pick up from the previous issue with Nightwing and Robin fighting the Steelback armor. They get some advice on how to take out the armor and they do.

Meanwhile we have Batwing confront Massacre to get him to stop with the crusade. Batwing exposes Massacre as General Keita, but we all know its not him, as I said a few issues back. It's Isaac, Batwing's long lost brother.

The Steelback armor blows up, and Massacare is separated from Batwing in the fall out. We then see that it is Josiah Kone, the man who originally help to bring the Kingdom together, who is the mastermind behind training Massacre and killing the Kingdom.

Batwing then gets the chance to either let Josiah fall to his death, or be turned in for his crimes. There is a two panel beat before Batman steps in and says that there will be no more killing tonight. I do honestly believe that if Batman had not come in, Batwing would have killed him.

Overall, the story does have some predictable elements to it. We could easily see the mystery of who the mastermind was behind everything, and we knew who Massacre really was. So we, the readers, are obviously better detectives than Batwing. But that's ok, he isn't meant to be a super intelligent person, he has more military type of knowledge and is perfect for going into battle. So he has areas to learn and expand his knowledge, which is a good thing.

I'm now genuinely intrigued as to where we will go now that his origin story is complete. On to the next!

The Art
At first I thought that only Oliver could be the artist for this book, but Nguyen has proven to be the better one. Something about his style fits perfectly well with the scripts that Winick has for Batwing. I enjoyed the art tremendously for this issue.

The Cover
Trying to fit a little too much into this cover, including some Batwing butt. Its an odd angle to have everything at as well. It's what you get when you have a bunch of characters that you want to throw into a cover.

Once again, the coloring on the book is different from the picture shown. Weird.

Grades
Words: 7/10
Pictures: 8/10
Recommend: Satisfying. Definitely worth it.
Buy Next Issue: Night of the Owls crossover. Let's do this!

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