Batman (The New 52!) # 7

By Mark Rodriguez

While trying to find the lair of the Court of Owls, Batman found himself trapped in their maze. Drugged, starved, dehydrated and even impaled, the Dark Knight somehow managed to pull through and defeat the Talon and escape. However, the Court reveals they have an army of Talons and the time has come to wake them ALL up.

Issue 7 starts off showing off the new DC Comics logo on the cover. It’ll take me a while to get used to it… anyways, the narrator talks about the visions people see the moments before they die. We see a young Bruce Wayne seeing the bat fly through the window, inspiring him to be Batman… and then an owl swooping down and eating it. Batman suddenly wakes up, brought back to life from flat-lining with jumper cables thanks to this mysterious girl.

At the time, we had literally no idea who the hell this was.

Despite saving his life, Bats is a jerk and tells this woman that he told her once before to ‘leave him alone’ and that he ‘meant it’. Her name is Harper. 

As the Owls wake up another of their Talons, Bats goes through the sewers and finds the secret entrance to the Bat Cave. Alfred finds him and helps him walk inside. In the Bat Cave, Bats freaks out at the sight of one of the Talons… but Alfred reveals he’s already dead. I have to say… it takes A LOT to freak out Batman this way, which further accentuates the torture he went through the last 8 days.

The Owls may have broken Batman worse than Bane ever had

 Alfred explains he found him near the hole that Bats used to escape the Court. Even though Alfred says he should rest (after all, he was IMPALED and lost a lot of blood) Bats insists they put the Owl on the table to study him. Meanwhile the Owls arm and prepare their newest Talon.

Eventually, Dick Grayson comes to check up on Bruce, who has been studying the Talon. This assassin was basically dead, but his body was specially prepared by the Owls to be revived for their service whenever they saw fit. He also found a coin embedded in his tooth in the shape of a tiny owl. This coin was made of electrum and served as a conductor, waiting for when he would be awakened. Since his cells continue to heal over and over again, he is basically still alive, but Bruce discovered that lowering his body temperature keeps him down. The reason the Talon killed the first victim (the guy that was stabbed that also had an owl coin in his tooth) was because he wasn’t necessary anymore. When Dick asks who this guys was, Bruce says his name is William Cobb, Dick’s great grandfather.

Dick gets angry since Bruce was keeping this from him, as usual. He yells that if he thinks something like his great grandfather being a criminal will surprise him, he doesn’t know him that well. Suddenly Bruce punches him in the mouth and knocks his tooth flying out.

Bruce shows him the tooth he just knocked out… with an owl coin in it. Dick Grayson was meant to be a Talon one day, to be revived from the dead whenever it was his turn to strike. He had already been observed by the Owls when he was in the circus. His parents being killed and Bruce taking him in as his ward got in the way of all of that. A scene similar to this plays out in Nightwing # 7.

Bruce now feels the city wasn’t his ally as he once thought, and that it does belong to the Owls. Dick says they are who they are, no matter what the past wanted them to do. He says the Court of Owls is just another bad guy that needs to be taken down. And he tells Bruce what we’ve been thinking all this time... that Batman messed up and underestimated these guys… and that Gotham isn’t the Owls or Bruce either. Elsewhere, the Owls have awakened all the Talons and has sent them flying all over the city to ‘Take back Gotham City’.

My Opinions

I never did like retcons, especially of the 'it was like this all along' variety. So all this time, every comic Batman ever had with the original Robin and Dick's sting with the Titans... he's had a tooth filling that will activate him as a Talon should he die. So the ENTIRE TIME we saw him running around as Robin alongside Batman, the whole time he was with the Teen Titans as Nightwing, he had the Owl filling in his tooth?? How would something like this have gotten past someone as overly prepared and super paranoid Batman? What would the Owls have done if the Joker or the Penguin have knocked his tooth out?

The Boy Wonder, with Owl tooth filling!

And of course, how did Batman know exactly which tooth to knock out, and to punch him in the perfect spot to knock it out? And the answer is not 'BECAUSE HE'S BATMAN'. It's just sloppy.

Other than that mess...and the fact that Batman is somehow just walking off, or shaking off all the torture he's been through in the last 8 days. He was still wearing the torn up Batman costume when he woke up, so it's not like Alfred stitched him up or anything during the time period Batman lost consciousness after Harper saved him. I know Batman is at the peak human condition, but even an Olympian athlete will be down for a while after being starved and all that mess.

Speaking of Harper, yeah, her story will be explained later on, but she was kinda sorta randomly thrown in here, out of nowhere. At the time I read this, I thought she was someone pre-Flashpoint and was just really confused when Batman knew her by name.

As for the story, we're about to enter 'Night of the Owls' in which the Talons attack several important figures of Gotham City and Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin, Red Hood, Catwoman and Batwing all get involved in stopping them, all in their own individual comic book issues during that particular month. It'll be epic. Despite Batman's healing powers and somehow knowing exactly which tooth Dick had the Owl filling in, the story is still being interesting, and it's going to pick up intensely as the Bat Family gets involved.