If you liked how “Batman: The Dark Knight” #6 ended (with Bane gloating about how smart he is as he threw a big rock at Batman) then you’re going to love issue #7 which starts off with Bane gloating about how smart he is as he throws a big rock at Batman. The cover sells this issue as “The Final Battle with BANE” and how could it possibly disappoint with this much throwing of large rocks?
All sarcasm aside, it’s business as usual for “Batman: The Dark Knight” and if you’ve been reading the series so far and have been loving it then you won’t be disappointed. It’s the typical cameo-filled slug fest where story doesn’t matter and the pictures are pretty. Well, except for Bane who I think looks the worst I’ve ever seen him. It’s just an awful design based off of the one from the Arkham video games which are great, but they’re a terrible depiction of Bane. The way Jenkins and Finch write the character isn’t any better. This is especially true when the big scary twist of the previous installment was that Bane would grow smarter thanks to a new venom formula (I’m pretty sure pre-New52 venom was supposed to do that anyway…not that Bane needs to be smarter, the guy’s supposed to be highly intelligent) yet he still does nothing but throw a rock and then a few poorly timed punches during a lighthouse brawl. It doesn’t take a genius to pull off those feats and even Bane describes himself as nothing more than a big tank by the end of the issue.
But my biggest gripe with “Batman: The Dark Knight” has to be that Batman doesn’t beat anybody. Ever. I’m thinking back and I don’t think Batman has ever legitimately defeated anyone that wasn’t a henchman. One-Face (AKA Two-Face) passed out, Clay-Face passed out, Deathstroke chopped the Batplane in half then vanished, Scarecrow spooked Batman and then vanished, White Rabbit always gets away even when Superman and the Flash show up, Superman slapped Batman back to earth even when high on venom…am I leaving anybody out? He’s not much of a hero if he doesn’t actually, ya know, succeed at anything. And throughout all of those fights Batman was always calling the Justice League for help! Even here in issue #7 the victory against Bane does not come from Batman alone. This Batman doesn’t do anything but stumble from one rogue to another and luckily someone with super powers shows up to bail him out or the enemy faints before they can deliver a death-blow.
If you want learn the secret behind the villain The White Rabbit (shout out to reader TC by the way who called it 2 months ago!) and want some well drawn popcorn action that can be read and forgotten in 5 minutes then issue #7 is for you. If you’re looking for something deeper then I can’t really recommend this book. I think that this and “Detective Comics” are easily the weakest Bat-titles because nothing that happens in them seems to matter. Of all the Bat-titles “Nightwing” and “Batman” are the ONLY ones that have any influence on the world of Gotham. None of the adventures found in the other titles have a great deal of impact on the characters within or the broader DC Universe. “Batman: The Dark Knight” however, is the only one that seems to demand that nobody take it seriously.
SCORE: 3/10
