Broken Frontier

Intergang closes in on the Batwoman while a number of other heroes confront their inner demons in dramatic ways.

On the next lap of their journey, Batman and Robin reach Nanda Parbat to undergo a spiritual cleansing. In this, they are not alone for Wonder Woman has found her way to the hidden city as well, seeking the wisdom of Rama Kushna and closure on the darkness of recent events. Back in the states, Bruno Mannheim also turns to the solace of religion, though in a much more perverse vein, as he and his disciples reach a startling conclusion about the "twice-named daughter of Cain" they seek. Animal Man too has a brush with the spiritual and unexplained as those wacky yellow meta-beings remove him from the timestream to show him a vision of the future. All this plus a brief check-in with Steel and Natasha and with Doc Magnus making monsters again…

This issue had the distinct feel of shuffling the players around the board in preparation for the final arc. Other than a climactic change for a pair of Bat-folks, the story is lighter on plot development and heavier on emotional exploration. That said, for the most part, the various quick-cutting character moments work well and we’re left pondering the mysteries along with the heroes. The Animal Man scene is particularly intriguing as elements of the dialogue and Buddy’s vision can be left open to interpretation. In typical post-modern Morrison fashion (if indeed Grant is still writing these segments), there is more at work here than there seems. The search for enlightenment that permeates the issue is slightly less effective in the Wonder Woman scene. I can certainly see where the writers are coming from with the perfect, goddess-like Diana finding wisdom in suffering. However, to say she had never known pain or regret until the Infinite Crisis seems odd for a character that lost a mother, sister, and boyfriend in rapid succession a few years back.

Giuseppe Camuncoli returns to the art duties and brings with him the same slightly angular stylization he contributed to his previous entry to the series. It’s not quite as jarring as it was in his other issue, though a few characters look distractingly similar to each other at times. Still, on the whole, it’s a strong showing by Camuncoli. As in the scripting, the artistic tricks in Animal Man’s pages play around with the meta-text elements that seem to follow him around (note that Buddy is the only character in the issue to break through the panel grid). On the backup, Karl Kerschl has a fun and cartoonishly unconventional take on "The Origin of the Teen Titans." It’s a bit of a misleading title though, as the story only gives us the origin of the current version of the Teen Titans.

Week Forty-Seven is a slower issue perhaps but one with the promise of major happenings to come.