[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Art: Yanick Paquette
Colors: Nathan Fairbairn
Letters: Josh Reed
Summary
Robison Goode gets some Kryptonite from her connections in the Secret Mafia. She takes it back to the Daily Planet and unknowingly put Clark to the ground…or does she know what she’s doing? In way too many pages Clark is on the floor of the Planet
When she leaves the planet she gets mugged by Batman, and he takes the Kryptonite. And it’s hilarious! She can’t believe she’s been assaulted by Batman. It’s a great Bat-moment, though. Bendis clearly understands Batman and his methods and attitude. Clark has since recovered and thanks Bruce for the Kryptonite klip job.
The issue ends with Lex Luthor showing up at Lois’s hotel room.
Positives
It’s somewhat unfortunate, but the best part of this issue is Batman’s 5 page guest appearance. Batman is so completely an unadulteratedly Batman, it’s beautiful, even humorous. Yanick Paquette does a nice job on the art, especially in some of the facial expressions and makes us not miss regular artist Patrick Geason.
Everything else seems like a big yawn.
Negatives
Unfortunately, Clark’s confrontation with Lois at the end of last issue seems to be mostly forgotten outside of Clark mentioning the meeting to Jimmy. This is absolutely the most interesting aspect of Bendis’ run so far and it is stuck in the background. This is the plot element that needs to be explored. Even if it means being disappointed sooner if things don’t go well for the Super-couple.
It didn’t really require 1/2 the issue to prove that Goode was up to something, we learned that surprise last issue. It seems like this sequence could’ve been told more effectively. If we hadn’t seen her make the deal for the Kryptonite, it would’ve been much more effective to see Batman snatch it off of her as well as being clever and interesting story telling.
Verdict
This issue really feels like it has bogged down. There is certainly a better way in which some of the surprises could’ve been revealed, and as such, this issue feels like nothing happened. To top it off, the best part featured Batman. Which isn’t bad for a Batman comic…. The story only moves forward in the last two pages when Lex shows up, and that’s very minimal movement.
