Batman: Fortress #4 – Gary Whitta, Writer; Darick Robertson, Artist; Diego Rodriguez, Colorist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: This out-of-continuity sci-fi thriller has been a little too on-the-nose with its politics at times, but its slightly edgier take on the DCU is surprisingly engaging. Last issue we saw that Lex Luthor is still President here, and Batman has been forced to call on him for a heist of the Fortress of Solitude as a desperate last way to turn the lights back on. This snarky showman version of Luthor is hilarious, and he and Batman make a surprisingly compelling team. But things go from bad to worse at the Arctic. First, the Fortress has been taken by Superman… somewhere, likely to prevent exactly this. Then the aliens hunting Superman show up, and they seem… surprisingly reasonable, wanting to engage with Batman and getting closer to explaining why they’re actually here. So naturally, Luthor tries to have his bodyguards shoot them, and the entire mission goes up in smoke.
With Luthor turning out to be a dead end as an ally, Batman turns to a different unlikely source—the squirrel Green Lantern D’ayl. Ch’p and D’ayl, get it? As best I can tell, this is an original character, not the second squirrel GL B’dg—and he’s basically Rocket Raccoon. A snarky thief of a rodent-based superhero who is always up for a heist. That doesn’t mean he isn’t fun, and he becomes an amusing companion as Batman seeks out help from a secret sanctum in the wilderness where Detective Chimp runs a self-sustaining camp and bar. This segment gets into some surprisingly adult territory, as well as allowing Whitta to deliver a “Humans suck” speech about climate change and other issues, but even if it is a little heavy-handed, I was won over by just how offbeat this team Batman is assembling is. With two issues left, there is so much story left to explore in this slightly off-kilter vision of the DCU.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
