All-Star Batman #7 - DC Comics

ALL-STAR BATMAN No. 7, April 2017

In many ways it is hard to comprehend that Issue Seven of “All-Star Batman” was the seventh best-selling comic book in February 2017 by shifting an incredible 77,096 copies, as Scott Snyder’s plot for this particular instalment of “Ends Of The Earth” is painfully thin in places. True, the twenty-two page periodical does contain a rather enjoyable team-up between the titular character and Poison Ivy, by pitting the ‘odd couple’ up against a kill squad of quantum stealth suit-wearing armed assassins. But this momentary madness doesn’t last anywhere near long enough, and is rather disappointingly brought to an all-too swift end by the Dark Knight easily punching all their assailants’ lights out; “Pamela… Stay behind me!” 

To be honest though, this publication’s problems start before the first panel has even finished, by depicting the Caped Crusader grimly strolling across the heated landscape of Death Valley on the Nevada Border. Such a predicament seems a million miles away from this series’ previous edition, which ended on a chillingly cold cliff-hanger in Alaska, and gives no clue whatsoever as to how Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego escaped the freezing ‘cryogenic-coffin’ he had been sharing with Mister Freeze, or the self-inflicted microbial virus his body carried, or the imminent airborne missile strike for that matter either.?

Instead, Snyder’s writing presents a desperate Batman tracking the eco-terrorist down to her annual ‘research hideaway’ in the hope that, despite his habitual lying to her as to whether an infected fourteen-year old girl is alive or dead, she will be able to provide an antidote to “an ancient bacteria” which “Freeze let loose.” Such a blatant disregard as to what has immediately occurred before is so antagonistically jarring, that it arguably creates a real barrier between the bibliophile and the ensuing storyline straight from the outset, and must surely have also had many readers reaching back in their comic book collection to check whether they had erroneously missed an issue or something. 

Equally as off-putting is Tula Lotay’s “pencils, inks and colors”, which whilst perfectly competent enough to visualise the New Yorker’s narrative, disappointingly fails to bring any of the cast vividly to life. Indeed, the English illustrator’s dubious decision to provide the Dark Knight with a green neon bat-suit, Poison Ivy with tree-funk eye make-up and luminescent vegetation vines, as well as combat troopers with vision-blurring invisibility kits, soon become just the beginning of this magazine’s artistic woes.

The regular cover art of "ALL-STAR BATMAN" No. 7 by Tula Lotay