Batman Eternal #44

By Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Ray Fawkes, Kyle Higgins, Tim Seeley, ACO, Romulo Fajardo Jr.

“Penny-Two, I need a fugitive target: Professor Achilles Milo, a pharmacist out of Arkham.”

The city continues to unravel in issue #44 of Batman Eternal. Achilles Milo, a seemingly mild-mannered man, seems to be in a bit of trouble with Gotham’s protector (that’s Batman) as this issue he tries to take flight (on a plane) and get out of Gotham before he’s caught.

Scripting this week’s issue is Ray Fawkes. Fawkes tends to take Gotham down dark paths when he comes in for scripting, and this week is no different as he spends his time giving Milo a lot of attention. A scene showing off some of the craziness Milo is capable of has him releasing a toxic gas into an airport during his attempt to escape. The effects having everyone, but himself, hallucinating and speaking jibberish, cops included – one even tries to call for backup but ends up losing focus.

On the art side of this week is artist ACO along with colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr., and together they make the scene described above look amazing. One of the panels has the cop calling for backup seeing someone quite disturbing due to the effects of the toxic gas. As Batman makes his entrance onto the scene the cop sees the vigilante as a monster of a creature, creating an entertaining panel ripe with colors by Fajardo and details by ACO. The panel shows the twisted hands of the cop in his fantasy as Batman looks like a rampaging gargoyle ready to tear apart everything in sight, the whole panel filled with the smoke in a sort of rotation, giving the effect of spinning as if we’re looking through the cop’s eyes.

This week took us down a dark path, but it’s Gotham so that’s expected – is it ever daytime in Gotham? Wonder what happens during the day…