The New 52- Arkham War # 3

By Mark Rodriguez

The Crime Syndicate has announced that the Justice League is dead, leaving the world in their control, as well as the rest of the DC super villains. Without Batman, Gotham City has been divided and taken over by different criminals. Now Bane has returned to the city and wants to take it over using the Talons from the Court of Owls... but they were stolen by the Scarecrow and the Man-Bat. Let's see what happens next.

"Das Bat" opens up with the last of Langstrom's Man-Bats arriving where Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter are hiding out. Freeze is upset that one of the Talons is missing, but the creature tells them they lost one after Bane defeated Scarecrow and Langstrom. Freeze is reluctant to revive the Talons, given how dangerous they are, and how the Court of Owls was after him not so long ago. The Mad Hatter tells Freeze he should forget about any problems he has with the Owls now and focus on the war against Bane.

Meanwhile, Killer Croc has rescued the Scarecrow and took him to Wayne Tower. Scarecrows rewards him by giving him the Wayne Tower. Croc hates the world above and has built his own kingdom with the people that support him in the sewers. Scarecrow tells him times have changed and he needs him above ground, taking control along with his people in Wayne Tower.

Elsewhere the fight that started in Blackgate has now erupted into the streets as Poison Ivy kicks White Rabbit in the face.

The riot police come in and tell everyone to leave since it's curfew time... even the regular civilians. One of the normal people speak up and the riot police decide to make examples out of them. When the cop tries to punch the civilian, he turns out out to be Clayface and he soon attacks the rest of the squad. Just then, Clayface is frozen solid thanks to Emperor Penguin (where did he get a freeze gun?). Before he can gloat too much, he gets attacked by some killer plants. Poison Ivy remarks that he chose the wrong side and should have stayed with her. And then before she can also gloat too much, she gets suddenly grabbed by Bane.

Bane drops her to the ground and sets Emperor Penguin free. Before the blue villain can thank him, he gets knocked out. Bane then hands over the defeated Emperor Penguin over to the Penguin, who is is very eager to extract revenge on him. Bane then picks up the Penguin and demands to know where the Talons are. He tells them that Croc took Scarecrow to Wayne Tower and that he isn't afraid of him... in fact, none of the Arkham inmates are really are that scared of Bane since he's not much worse than Batman.

 So what does Bane do? He goes into his work shop, busts out the heavy metal and blowtorch... pulls an all-nighter and makes his own Batman costume. If the Bat is what the city fears, than so he shall become. 

At Wayne Tower, Croc gathers his men, convincing them he can lead them beyond just ruling the underground, and going beyond the bidding of Scarecrow, Freeze and the Penguin. The people cheer and call him King Croc. Just then Bat-Bane breaks in and for a moment, Croc thinks it's the real deal. As Bane and Croc fight it out, the rest of Bane's men pull guns on the people. Croc takes a bite out of Bane's shoulder, and soon gets socked in the jaw.

Croc tosses Bane to the ground. However, Bat-Bane has a huge thick metal Bat-Symbol on his chest, which he removes and uses to beat Croc bloody with it. With Croc being broken and bloody, Bat-Bane picks him up and tosses him off the top of Wayne Tower. 

Bane tells his men that Croc was their strongest. They will sleep, rest and recover... and then tear the throats out of all of Arkham's nut jobs the next day.

My Opinions-

Well, despite MAD robbing us of 6 pages worth of story... even more if you count those weird little news segments that kinda/sorta/but not really recap what's being going on in the DC universe lately (no wonder people complain that comics cost 2.99 nowadays and we don't get what we paid for)... what we got is pretty interesting. Like I said above, would have preferred to seen more of the fight scenes or other characters cameo than that little 'MAD preview' thing. Who doesn't know what MAD magazine is? They sure don't need DC's help to push subscriptions. If I wanna buy one, I will, just stay out of my comics.

We STILL haven't seen the Talons yet, so I guess they're going to be big pay-off at the end of this storyline. Even Mr. Freeze is worried these guys are gonna backfire, because just like I said last time, they really have no reason to serve Bane or anyone else. They'll just kill everybody and continue with the Night of the Owls. We have to see where this all leads, especially since Bane is now 'Batman'. Who will be able to stop him now?