Comics

Batman #11 by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo

The epic Court of Owls storyline comes to a close with a stonking big fight and a debrief-ish chat between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson.

It's a pretty exciting finale, but the downside comes in a number of plot threads left dangling. I suppose that's the nature of serialised never-ending comics -- the Court are a great villain, but to create a truly memorable, enduring enemy in this medium, they have to be able to resurface and pose a threat again and again. That's what Snyder leaves us with here: a collection of possible answers, but none of them definite, so they can always be returned to. Not wholly satisfying, then.

The final part of backup strip The Fall of the House of Wayne (written by Snyder & James Tynion IV, drawn by Rafael Albuquerque) is also a kind of epilogue to the main story. I didn't get as much out of it as I did last issue's, again because it's deliberately inconclusive.

"Great but not perfect," might be the best summary of this ending. It'd be a great story to see on film, actually, because it's atmospheric and exciting, playing on all of Batman's various strengths as a franchise, but an adaptation would surely have the cojones to round it off, to make it a self-contained experience. It would be better for it.