Comic Book Review: Blackest Night - Batman #3 (of 3)

Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Adrian Syaf and Nei Ruffino
Lettering by John J. Hill

Plot: Blackest Night in Batman’s city comes to a close as Dick and Tim face off with their risen parents. As they relive their tragic past and are forced to fight their parents, Dick and Tim find some weaknesses within the Black Lantern Corps as well as discover some interesting facts that may help fight all of the risen heroes. With the help of Deadman and DC favorite Etrigan, Batman and Red Robin decide to inform their allies and put an end to Black Lanterns.

My Thoughts: I’m a little conflicted with the ending of this issue. I can’t seem to decide whether or not I enjoyed it or not. There are many different aspects to this issue I enjoyed, and many I thought were weak. Even with having a week to process my thoughts on this book, I’m still not sure what to think.

It’s obvious that facing ones parents is hard enough; let alone facing them as a zombie-like corpse that continually mutters guilt-tripping dialogue. Thank God Dick was there to help Tim come back to reality and do what was necessary to survive. But even with Dick having a good head on his shoulders, he became lost in the moment with his parents embracing him in their arms, swinging around on the trapeze.

Now I must have missed something, but how in the world did freezing each other allow them to escape the Black Lanterns? Each corpse hovered above both Tim and Dick as if they weren’t there. And for the life of me, after going back again and again, I can’t figure out how they knew this would work and why it worked. If someone can enlighten me, please do!

The artwork is fine, but not great. The artwork in the previous two issues truly grabbed me, but with this third and final issue, I wasn’t taken in by it.

Overall: The ending felt to dwindle away into nothingness. Yes, new things were discovered, but nothing big happened. This is where I become conflicted. But I guess the ending to this Blackest Night story has only just begun, and the climactic ending is still light years away.

3 out of 5 stars