All Star Western: Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Moritat, Gabriel Bautista, Rob Leigh, Ladronn

I couldn’t help, this whole issue, going, “And here’s the Night of the Ow—, oh nope. Okay, and HERE’S the Night of the Ow—, oh guess not. Alright, here we go—OH COME ON!!” Spoiler alert, there’s really no involvement of the Court of Owls at all. Just when you think you’re gonna see some Court or Talon craziness, you don’t.

I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing, but it’s kind of misleading. Like drawing a certain character as the main focus on your cover, and then not featuring them inside at all (I’m looking at YOU, Batman: The Dark Knight). The Talon does appear here and does her deed— wait a minute…did I just say “her?!”

Yes, that’s right, folks. See, Palmiotti and Gray are not your typical writers. They like to take concepts and turn them over, see what happens. I like their bravery, and I admire their desire to be different. However, the whole Night of the Owls setup was that these Talons are boys from Haly’s Circus, and we’re never shown that there could have been a girl acrobat they brought in. They were supposed to be all male.

That much I felt was weird, but, again, I admire the writers for designing something different than the rest of the crossover issues. BUT, and here’s the MAIN issue I had with this:

It kind of comes off as uncooperative on their part, in terms of the “rules” of the crossover and the involvement of this title. It almost feels like All Star Western was forced into the Night of the Owls, and Palmiotti and Gray didn’t want to be included…so, in protest, they not only designed a Talon that didn’t fit the bill, but they also barely included her in the story, and didn’t even mention the Court of Owls AT ALL in the whole issue.

It feels like they were saying, “This is OUR story, and that’s what we’re going to write.”

So the story of the August 7 kind of wraps up here, but we’re given something else as Tallulah Black, a would-be assassin, comes to wreck the days of a prominent Wayne and his friends as they talk about buying up Gotham land.

Kind of convenient that they’d be talking about buying land when Tallulah wants to kill them because they took her family’s land.

The art is fantastic in this issue. I think I’ve become a little jaded by his style in the last couple issues, but this one just reinvigorated my whole attitude, its appeal. I can’t say exactly what it is that makes me like it so much more, but I think it’s how clean everything looks. Lines look solid, colors are sharp. Faces are extraordinary and unique. That’s the Moritat style I fell in love with at the beginning of the series. Sadly, there aren’t very many wide, open scenes full of action like there were back then, but hopefully we’ll see more of those. Moritat’s incredibly gifted there.

All Star Western #9, the verdict: While it was a fun issue, and I liked how little Nighthawk and Cinnamon are involved, it felt like a bit of a middle finger to Snyder and DC and the whole Night of the Owls crossover. Now, here’s where I’m realizing that it’s impossible to simultaneously release murderous Talons on Gotham both in the present time and back-in-time, as that’d be ludicrous. That was my original worry with this issue. But when they actually introduced the Talon, it really did feel like just a single hit the Court put out, and I dug that. I was hoping there’d be more of an effort put up by Hex. But then, it’s probably best the Talon disappeared to maintain the Court’s mystery and effectiveness. So…I guess I liked the issue then. Made perfect sense. Except for a girl Talon.

(Photo Source: iFanBoy)