Ballistic
Credits:
Doug Moench (writer), Jim Balent (penciler), Frank McLaughlin (inker),
Willie Schubert (letterer), Adrienne Roy (colorist)
Summary:
The Malevolent Maniaxe burn down the warehouse, forcing Batman and
Ballistic to rescue the unconscious smugglers while they escape. Batman
and Ballistic then travel to a nightclub owned by Raf Luxor, another
figure from Abattoir’s past. They run into the Maniaxe again, and
during the melee, Luxor is killed. Batman forces one of the Maniaxe to
reveal who placed the hit, which leads to Batman and Ballistic
confronting Henry Etchison’s lawyer. Batman takes a list of Henry
Etchison’s properties from the lawyer, while Ballistic collects the
bounty and decides to leave Gotham. The lawyer is left for the police
as Batman continues to hunt the Abattoir.
Total N00B: I can only assume that Raf Luxor played a role in the previous Abattoir storyline.
Review:
Thankfully, this moronic digression with Ballistic and the Maniaxe is
over. Even though there’s a lot of running around, the plot’s barely
advanced as the same characters just end up confronting each other under
the same conditions, followed by more pointless fight scenes.
Ballistic exits the story when he simply steals the blood money without
completing the job, contributing absolutely nothing to the plot. If
this was supposed to be the showcase that decided whether or not
Ballistic got his own series, he didn’t fare any better than Joe Average
or whatever the last loser’s name was. Moench does virtually nothing
to make the character likeable or even slightly interesting. As a
straight man for Batman’s cruel, dismissive one-liners, he’s good for
one solid joke throughout the entire storyline. Having accomplished
that, he needs to be returned to Extreme Studios. And, ugh, there’s
more of the Malevolent Maniaxe to tolerate this issue. Painfully
unfunny and just flagrant page filler, I pray that no one revives them
before this event is over.
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