To be perfectly honest, the first part of this story by Tony Daniel was a little bit hard to follow. But, I guess, he had to be that way. If he had given us any more information it wouldn't have been to hard to figure out what was going on. Anyways, this issue . . everything comes together. Although, I have to say, when we find out that the Riddler had been given a very diluted dose of Joker venom . . I kind of figured that somehow he was behind all of this. As it turns out, after Batman confronts Firefly in his Arkham cell . . there was a group, several years ago, that this Blackspell magician had set up. He had some kind of idea to skim millions of dollars from the various crime organizations in Gotham. Monies that they wouldn't even notice were missing. Anyways, Firefly and the Riddler were part of this group. And they were successful. For a while. Until Riddler went through his bout of amnesia and switched over to the side of angels. When that happened, Edward started digging into the mystery that was Blackspell. That's when Blackspell decided to call it quits. He dissolved the group and took off with the money. Now, for some reason, he's decided to come back and take out the rest of the group. But we find out that this whole scheme . . the entire thing, group and all, was actually the Riddler's idea. For some reason he decided to have Blackspell be his front-man. And he assumed the role of an active participant. Which I assume is why Blackspell got spooked and pulled up stakes when the reformed Eddie started investigating him. He probably didn't know if that was all part of the Riddler's plan, or if Eddie's amnesia was for real. But rather than face the wrath of those they had ripped off, he left. But as we've seen from the previous issues here, as well as
Streets of Gotham, Eddie seems to be getting his memory back. So he faked his own attack to throw off Batman, and then systematically destroyed anything or anyone that could connect things to him. Then, before Batman could put it all together and come after him, Eddie recovered from his venom attack and made his escape. As well as pulling $10 million out of one of Blackspell's dummy accounts.
Now he's in the wind. Waiting to cause trouble for Batman again, sometime in the future. I thought it was a pretty cool story. I'm glad it all came together this issue, as the previous ones were a bit of an . . enigma. Pun intended. Guillem March did a great job with the art. As always. Now . . now we're on to issue #700. I can't wait to see what they have in store for us. Here's a tease of the cover. It should be great.
To be perfectly honest, the first part of this story by Tony Daniel was a little bit hard to follow. But, I guess, he had to be that way. If he had given us any more information it wouldn't have been to hard to figure out what was going on. Anyways, this issue . . everything comes together. Although, I have to say, when we find out that the Riddler had been given a very diluted dose of Joker venom . . I kind of figured that somehow he was behind all of this. As it turns out, after Batman confronts Firefly in his Arkham cell . . there was a group, several years ago, that this Blackspell magician had set up. He had some kind of idea to skim millions of dollars from the various crime organizations in Gotham. Monies that they wouldn't even notice were missing. Anyways, Firefly and the Riddler were part of this group. And they were successful. For a while. Until Riddler went through his bout of amnesia and switched over to the side of angels. When that happened, Edward started digging into the mystery that was Blackspell. That's when Blackspell decided to call it quits. He dissolved the group and took off with the money. Now, for some reason, he's decided to come back and take out the rest of the group. But we find out that this whole scheme . . the entire thing, group and all, was actually the Riddler's idea. For some reason he decided to have Blackspell be his front-man. And he assumed the role of an active participant. Which I assume is why Blackspell got spooked and pulled up stakes when the reformed Eddie started investigating him. He probably didn't know if that was all part of the Riddler's plan, or if Eddie's amnesia was for real. But rather than face the wrath of those they had ripped off, he left. But as we've seen from the previous issues here, as well as Streets of Gotham, Eddie seems to be getting his memory back. So he faked his own attack to throw off Batman, and then systematically destroyed anything or anyone that could connect things to him. Then, before Batman could put it all together and come after him, Eddie recovered from his venom attack and made his escape. As well as pulling $10 million out of one of Blackspell's dummy accounts. 
Now he's in the wind. Waiting to cause trouble for Batman again, sometime in the future. I thought it was a pretty cool story. I'm glad it all came together this issue, as the previous ones were a bit of an . . enigma. Pun intended. Guillem March did a great job with the art. As always. Now . . now we're on to issue #700. I can't wait to see what they have in store for us. Here's a tease of the cover. It should be great.
I'm very glad that Riddler will be going back to his rightful place as the smartest Batman Villain, and not some private eye.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I bet we're going to find out that this was all a ruse, of some sort. Maybe the Riddler did something to himself so that he could gain the Batman's confidence. But I'm betting this whole thing has some nefarious scheme behind it.
ReplyDelete