Mr. Freeze and Mad Hatter are retrieving the Talons from the incoming Man-Bats. Freeze notices that they are one Talon short, but they continue on anyway. We then see Croc, as he has seemingly saved Scarecrow from Bane, and is taking him inside Wayne Tower. Scarecrow offers Killer Croc Wayne Tower, as he has plans to run the city elsewhere. Croc declines at first, but soon accepts Crane's offer.
We then catch up to a fight amongst the villains going on in the streets as Bane captures Ogilvy, and turns him over to the Penguin, keeping his promise. After interrogating the Penguin over where the Talons are, he reveals to Bane that Croc will be at the Wayne Tower. Cobblepot tells him that "Bane is no Batman", because they don't fear him.
Bane then goes to his base of operations, which is Blackgate Penitentiary, and begins to forge and build his own bat-gear. He then attacks Croc, and his crew, at the top of Wayne Tower. Croc actually believes for a moment that Bane is Batman. Here is when they have their battle, and Bane comes out on top. As he looks out the window, he says that his crews next move will be to take the Talons.
This issue was ok, but not great, in my opinion. The hype surrounding this one, was the epic battle to be between Bane and Croc. While this battle did take place for about a fourth of the book, it seemed to go by very quickly. For this, I blame the artist for not dragging this huge moment that they have built up to. Tomasi left room for Eaton to do what he wanted because he put no dialog in the fight scene at all. But instead, Eaton did larger panels and splash pages. For an epic, brutal fight, I'd rather he do many, smaller panels and make it feel like it's a true battle. Not a quick beat-down.
Bane taking Batman's role does make sense. He's just a little more brutal in how he goes about it. His homemade batsuit, especially the cowl, reminds me of Frank Miller's Batman. His bigger, and the cowl has a resemblance of the armored batsuit when he battles Superman. It seems as though we will be seeing this new look Bane for the remainder of this series, and that is an interesting way to go.
Forever Evil: Arkham War #3:
Reviewed by Corbin Pool
