COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXIV (Arkham War #6)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

FOREVER EVIL: ARKHAM WAR #6

What is THIS happy horsesh**?

I coulda sworn I reviewed #5. Maybe I intended to but was so disgusted by it I couldn’t bring myself to take pen to paper. That’s entirely possible. I almost couldn’t do it this time. But then I got to the last page and couldn’t not bring this warning to you quick enough.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS COMIC. 

I’m serious. This book is so gorram ridiculous I can’t even stand it. Like, ‘I want to time travel back 5 months and tell myself not to buy it’ level of bad. And considering the number of other points on my timeline I should probably go to, should the opportunity arise, that’s really saying something.

So the gist is basically The Scarecrow and all the other Arkham nutjobs busted out when the Syndicate took over and basically carved up Gotham into their own little fiefdoms. Bane, who was in Blackgate prison at the time, also escaped, but deciding he was tired of all the loonies, he chose to form his own army from the Blackgate prisoners and fight to retake Gotham for himself.

Ugh.

Along the way both factions fight over the resurrectable bodies of all these leftover Talons from the Court of Owls business , there’s a big battle between the factions in the last issue that ends with all the Arkham kids juicing themselves up with bane’s Venom that Scarecrow was able to reverse engineer from Bane’s blood, with no power or real infrastructure. OK.

So if you hoped to see muscled up versions of your favorite Batman villains including Professor Pyg (who gets sufficiently more deranged on the Venom, including a shout of ‘Head Cheese’!) or Clayface (who pretty much looks exactly the same) or Poison Ivy (yeah, really. NOT sexy), then scratch my time travel advice above and go kill Hitler or something. But if you DON’T like contrived plot devices that make little logical sense outside the realm of the story, let alone within it, then run, don’t walk, away from this series. 

The hulked out nutjobs attack bane while he’s licking his wounds from the last battle, take out some also wounded Talons, and then kidnap Bane and take him back to Arkham for the ‘FINAL BATTLE’. But Bane, ready for a fight, albeit a short one, says what we’re all thinking “You’d better kill me before the venom wears off”. Duh.

So they fight and, wait for it, THE VENOM WEARS OFF, Bane wins, and then Penguin shows up to make a deal. He brings supplies for Bane’s men and asks only to take away the beaten Arkhamites. Bane strings up Scarecrow for show and then puts on the EXACT SAME VEST & PARKA FROM THE MOVIES. What? Why? What’s the damn point? He puts on his coat, strikes a pose and what, we’re supposed to pretend this was Nolan-esque in its subtlety and storytelling? 

Yeah. No.

And there’s still one issue left.