Batman Battle For The Cowl #3 (OF 3)

Battle for the Cowl clearly wasn’t an organic storyline born out of a creator’s long-held love of the Batman Family of characters.  It was a transitional story “farmed out” by DC comics, intended to move an entire product line from it’s longtime status quo into a new status quo.  When I look at this mini-series from the standpoint of a creative work of fiction, it leaves a bit to be desired; the plot is a bit jumbled at points (but easy enough to follow overall), and many of the minor storylines are left noticeably incomplete.  But taken for what it was meant to be, Tony Daniel succeeds at setting up the new status quo, and kicking off storylines and mysteries that the numerous Bat-books will spend the next 6-months + developing and completing.  So in terms of his assignment, I’d say mission accomplished.

In the final issue, the fight between Jason and Dick reads well and is visually easy to follow.  I enjoyed that fight sequence, but found the rest of the story to be pretty bland.  Daniel’s art throughout the series was at moments very good, but in general I felt it was simply serviceable.  The art in issue #3 was typically not the best of the series, but I don’t have anything bad to say about it.  As for the writing, I feel that there were several (missed) opportunities to build dramatic tension for the story threads being left for future Bat-books, but these moments came across rather flat and didn’t leave me feeling excited to see them concluded, which I assume was a part of Daniel’s job as the "shill" for A New Era of Batman.

As for the “big change” - the emergence of Dick (I assume) as the new Batman - the crowning moment that plays out in the final two pages read so flat to me that what should have been a crescendo felt more like a "WTF" moment, and that’s surely not a good thing.

Overall, a very average piece of comic book story telling – which would be fine for an average issue of a monthly series, but it feels pretty disappointing when served up as the launching pad "event" for a new era of more than a half dozen titles.