Light week. Fairly nice to see.
Written by DAVID HINE
Art by SCOTT MCDANIEL & ANDY OWENS
Cover by PETER NGUYEN
"Impostors" continues here! Madness and mayhem face off against law and order for control of Gotham City, and not even the Batman is safe! With The Joker Impostor leading the charge of chaos and filling the streets of Gotham with his army of Jokerz, the ranks of the Batman Impostor's army grow thanks to regular citizens choosing sides and taking up arms. But what is Impostor Joker's ultimate goal – and what does it have to do with the real Dark Knight and Clown Prince of Crime?
I've been pretty happy with this storyline, even if it does borrow HEAVILY from story elements of both Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns mini-series, and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight movie. Still, those are probably two of the best stand-alone Batman stories ever, so, if you're gonna ape plot elements, steal from the best. I find the idea of a diluted Joker toxin becoming a designer recreational drug to be a really cool idea, and it's well used here.
Especially nice is the idea that the cops, and Batman, are in a really bad place. There's an army of "Jokerz," but they're all just normal, fairly innocent, folks who are out of their minds on this drug. Not a situation where you want to start breaking bones, or blowing people away, yet the Jokerz have no such compunction. Even more so, the Batman army running around blasting people with heavy artillery are, in fact, in control of their faculties. Now, who's the greater risk? Who poses a more terrifying view of society?
David Hine's done a great job with this story. The elements are familiar, but he's hitting all the right buttons. Well done.
Cover: MARKO DJURDJEVIC
Writer: ED BRUBAKER
Pencils: BUTCH GUICE
Inks: FILIPE DANIEL MORENO DE ANDRADE & BUTCH GUICE
It's the grand finale - the showdown between Zemo and Bucky Barnes, and even if Bucky can survive a second trip to Zemo's island his world will never be the same after what Helmut Zemo has done to it. Plus a NOMAD back-up by Sean McKeever & Filipe Andrade
I'm really hoping that this story, with Bucky/Cap confronting the son of the man who "killed" him back in the 40's, on the same ground on which it happened, is the first steps to the inevitable. The inevitable being getting Steve Rogers back into the classic Captain America uniform. It's inevitable because, well, it's Marvel...they're not going to let Captain America: The First Avenger open next Summer without comics that match.
I know a lot of people enjoy Bucky Barnes as Cap. I did, too, but with Captain America: Reborn (which was just awful) and the Siege event promising a return of Marvel's "big three" Avengers (Cap, Thor and Iron Man), now I just feel jerked around. Bucky as Cap doesn't make the "big three," I'm sorry. It's felt like a major "bait and switch," plus...why does it feel like Marvel's trying to ape DC's "legacy heroes" deal? I mean the Hulk has what? Three Kids, now? I'll let Young Avengers slide, because it was good, and most of those guys weren't directly connected to the heroes they emulated. Making yourself over out of hero-worship was actually interesting...Of course, will we ever see another Young Avengers story?
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