Some thoughts about Batman: Reptilian #3

Does Batman care about what happens to his enemies?

A strange creature is horribly killing most of Gotham City's biggest criminals and now he's hunting the worst of all of them, is up to Batman to at least pretend he wants to save them.

Yes, yes, missed the last issue and all of that and quite frankly I regret it because this might as well be one of the most interesting Batbooks today, not without flaws but interesting nonetheless.

I quickly read last chapter to get a glimpse about where the story and general direction of the book is going and as I said before, this is clearly handled by someone who is not really emanored with the concepts of superheroes nor their world. This is not necessarily a bad thing since Garth Ennis is still one of the best writers in the industry despite of his well-known hate for the superhero genre and this is pretty evident here since the mystery surrounding this particularly dark world continues to be compelling and especially because of the unique take on Batman that the writer is developing who is far from the classic and noble vigilante (and even the paronoid and jerky portrayals he had at times), instead we have a Dark Knight who doesn't hold any concern for his rogues gallery and he couldn't care less if they get brutally murdered, Ennis' Batman is an extremely cruel and even cynical person which might seem a bit out of character but is still a quite intriguing interpretation.

I think that at times Ennis might be influenced a bit too much by his own work on The Punisher because of Bruce's actions but at the same time, he knows the limits the character has because of his history and it works so much better because of it. I also appreciate Ennis' perfectly crafted conversations between Bruce and Alfred in which the writer puts Bruce's use of his wealth to test with Alfred constantly questioning if he has done enough or if he has done it because of other people's interests. Is the kind of complex political commentary that I expect from such an intelligent author like Ennis (and something far away from such simplistic commentaries like Tom Taylor's usual "rich people sucks!" stuff). This is all helped because of Ennis' natural, elegant and snappy dialogue, is a joy to read the back and forth between Bruce and Aflred.

The mystery progresses at a nice pace with memorable scenes in every page and speaking of memorable, the Joker is present in this issue but don't expect Ennis to take the Clown Prince of Crime seriously and, speaking s someone who has been tired of Scott Snyder's and James Tynion IV's recent work on the character, this is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Liam Sharp continues to evolve as an artist by depicting every character in an almost supernatural way. Lord knows that this Batman can be pretty terrifying at times.

Great read, hope things continue this way.