Scott Snyder pulls out all the stops in his new Batman book, All Star Batman. I am an enthusiastic fan of Scott Snyder (Batman, Witches) and Greg Capullo’s (Spawn, Batman) as a creative team. Their 4 year run of the Batman title is some of the best story telling I have ever read.
Unlike most of the new 52 characters at DC Batman did not change much after Flashpoint. Scott continued to build on an already rich Batman mythos giving us the court owls, death of the family, year zero, the Death of Batman, Gordon as Batman, and finally the rebirth of Bruce Wayne and Batman. While Tom King (The Vision), and David Finch (Detective Comics) are doing quite well on the Rebirth Batman story and taking it to a new and different level, I find myself missing Scott Snyder’s interpretation and stories of the Batman. Well, that is until today.
Scott has shifted his story writing into another gear as he puts Batman in one of his most grueling trials of his life. I will attempt a review as spoiler free as possible. If you read the solicitation for this book in the previews then you know this is Batman on a road trip with one of his former allies gone bad. He is trying to help this person face who he is and also the evil in his life and hopefully put an end to the direction he is going once and for all. What is incredible here is Batman makes some unexpected enemies and the quest also involves many of the usual adversaries in a action filled Batman story.
The person who Batman is helping has done something that drives everyone involved to want Batman to fail. This causes some surprising and unexpected enemies to come out of the wood work forcing Batman to go dark and leading us down the road of the unknown. The story is riveting and full of exciting action as only a Snyder Batman story can give. The best thing about this story is not a separate reality like Frank Miller’s run, (Sin City, Dark Knight Returns), is it is based in the current DC universe.
Because it is in the current DCU Scott Snyder writes a back-up adventure that is with the new Batman protégé. It is just as crazy and exciting as the main story. I am looking forward to the development of this character and we will see how he will add to the Batman mythos. I cannot say more without giving away his story other than look for all the colors of the rainbow in its rich, lush and deadly powers.
Thanks for reading,
Travis.