Story: Chip Zdarsky

Art: Jorge Jimenez and Tomeu Morey; Leonardo Bastos Romero

$4.99, 32 pages

Publisher: DC

What It Is: The finale of “Failsafe,” the Zdarsky and Jimenez team’s inaugural arc on DC’s flagship book.

The Good: If you’ve grown tired of the Batman that has a plan for everything, this could be the run for you. It seems to be (fingers crossed) subverting and unraveling that trope just a bit, forcing Batman to improvise. This might sound insane in an issue where he literally survives a fall from the moon, but Zdarsky’s Batman leans into his human side a bit more, with good results. Most of this humanity stems from playing up his relationship with Tim Drake, every 90s kid’s favorite Robin.

The art is bombastic. It’s out-and-out city-block-leveling superhero mayhem that reads clearly and is fun as hell. Kudos to Jimenez for sticking around as they shuffled writers, almost nobody does that anymore. The art in the back-up is completely different but also perfect for that angle of the story. Batman as a character lends himself to many opposing art styles and the yin and yang of these two styles within this issue is a perfect example.

If DC feels that we must be saddled with mostly unnecessary back-up fillers—and the last decade tells us we must—then make them more like this. Short, three-parters related to the main story but not retreading the same beats or thematic concerns. It’s a difficult needle to thread, but having Zdarsky weave both main story and back-up clinches it.

The Bad: By the end of this book, Batman and Gotham City are in a horrible state. We’ve seen this exact thing before many times. Let’s hope it doesn’t last long.

For characters that shows up in half of all of DC’s output, I wish there had been a way to construct this story arc with just Bat-Family characters, sans the other members of the Justice League. When Superman shows up it feels a lot less like a Batman book. Batman (and the Robins and all the extended Bat-chums) can carry his own book. Let him.

But Jimenez does draw a fantastic Superman.

The Score: 8 out of 10 capes

Further Reading: Since the story plays off of them, either JLA: TOWER OF BABEL or BATMAN: R.I.P. will maintain the mood while waiting for the next issue