BATMAN ETERNAL #52

If you enjoy getting some new every week then I'm sure you loved Batman Eternal. It was a weekly book that just ended its year-long run. But with this quick fix came problems. There was never going to be one writer or artist. There was always going to be strands you didn't enjoy. And it was never going to be even half as good as Snyder and Capullo's current Batman run, which is awesome. I read all fifty-two issues. This means it wasn't awful. While a lot of it was crap, the main storyline was a good one. Police Commissioner Jim Gordon was framed and imprisoned. A new, evil, anti-Batman guy took over. An unknown menace, who turned out to be Bruce Wayne's brother, Lincoln March, orchestrated complete chaos in Gotham. The rest was hit-or-miss. Hush showed up. Batman's butler, Alfred, had a daughter that showed up. Some villains broke out of Blackgate. There was a weird supernatural story below the sewers that baffled me. In this finale we got a showdown between Batman and his brother (and this last issue, at $3.99 for 38 pages, is a steal). The art in this series was all over the map but at least we got a cool Jae Lee cover for this issue. The writing was also sub par, thanks mostly to the fact that only the B-team was involved. For what it was, though, it was high-entertainment week to week. It never got truly dull. Some of the storylines moved to other books (Arkham set-up shop at Wayne Manor, Catwoman took over as the mafia boss). You probably had to love Batman to enjoy this, but, really, who doesn't? Issue #52 *** The whole series **1/2 (out of ****)