By Luke Abbott
This week, Gordon goes on trial, provoking some angry feelings inside of Barbara, also known as the Batgirl. Batman begins to see parts of his earlier self inside her, mainly the anger at the injustice of Gotham. He might have to put investigating Gordon’s trial on hold to make sure that she isn’t about to do something stupid. Meanwhile, Bard struggles to stay afloat amidst the corruption of Gotham, Gordon’s troubles appear to only just be beginning and Stephanie, after finding out her father was the Cluemaster last issue, has no idea just how deep the conspiracy goes, and how much danger she is actually in.
Injustice For All is a bit of a poor issue. I picked out two reasons for this. The main point is that there is a little too much to cover. This is a common problem with the Batman universe, as there are so many characters to cover. Having the main focus of your mystery as police corruption is fine in itself, but it means that we have to keep jumping to all of these characters. Bard needs to be checked in on, so the reader knows that he is an essential part to the narrative, but at the same time, we don’t want to forget about Gordon, who is meant to be one of the most important characters in the whole story arc. On top of that, we have Batgirl. While it actually makes sense to explore Barbara Gordon’s reaction to the whole drama, as she is the daughter of the guy being put on trial, I hope that the writers aren’t going to keep doing this with other characters. For example, do we have to cover what every ex-Robin is going through in future issues? It keeps this issue stagnant and before long I can see the actual Batman being pushed out of his own story.
The other annoying factor here is poor writing. I get the elements of the issue’s story, but the comic struggles to get from Point A to Point B. Two moments in this issue severely lost track of logic. There is a scene where Batman breaks into Falcone’s penthouse and learns his side of the story. However, he does very little in this scene. He breaks through, has an obligatory awesome Batman fight scene and then ‘chats’ with the guy who he believes is the mastermind of the whole thing. He literally accuses Falcone and then just walks off into the night, without even trying to get any answers from the supposed big bad guy of the conspiracy. While it covers up the plot hole of ‘can’t Batman just take Falcone out right now?’, it throws up so many other questions and gaps in logic that the scene fell flat. The other terrible piece of writing was when he confronts Batgirl in the Batcave. Yes, she is angry and yes, she should be watched, but she actually uncovers a pretty, big clue. It is probably going to be a red herring, because the writers want to go down the road of Barbara’s judgement being clouded, but at the same time, shouldn’t Batman at least hear her out? She pretty much has figured out something that could crack the case wide open and all he does is lecture her on her understandable anger. Batman is very unBatman-like this issue.
It’s not all bad. The Cluemaster subplot is turning into my favourite part of Batman Eternal, with another neat plot development. The cliffhanger was pretty creepy and promises a good fifth issue. And, while I have already made this point and will make it again several more times, when the next issue comes out in a week’s time, I find myself OK with a substandard story. Hopefully this is nothing but a small wobble on a pretty great story arc.
Quote of the Issue:
Leo: Cops in Blackgate… they don’t tend to last very long. And cops in Blackgate Gen-Pop? Well, they might as well skip the trial and hand you your death.
For more comic views and reviews follow Luke on Twitter at @LukeBbtt and check out his website at www.oracleoffilm.com
Posted on May 4th, 2014
Category: ORACLE OF COMICS, REVIEWS
Tags: Batgirl, Batman, Batman Eternal #4 Review, Comic Review, DC Comics, James Tynion IV, Jim Gordon, Luke Abbott, Scott Snyder