Picking up immediately from the events of the last issue, Batman is at the feet of the Arkham Knight, about to face decapitation. Naturally, Batman escapes, with a little help from allies. In this issue, we learn a little bit more on how the Arkham Knight’s forces were able to overwhelm Batman, and we see Damian Wayne go on a recon excursion, only to end up face to face with the Arkham Knight.

Peter J. Tomasi and Brad Walker are working fairly well together so far, only a couple issues into this run. The pacing they convey is quite excellent. The first third of the book is dialed into the fight scene between Batman and the Arkham Knight. Tomasi and Walker do this with the use of splash pages, larger panels, and keen eye of how to arrange these panels in a way to deliver a fast pace of action. Midway, pacing slows down, with smaller panels and ramped up dialogue. Tomasi and Walker then build us out of the issue deftly by re-employing larger panels to quicken that pace.

The real hook here is that we end on another cliffhanger. I like what Tomasi is doing. Clearly, from the get go, he is aiming to keep readers coming back for more. We are teased that Damian knows who the Arkham Knight is with the end panel. Will the readers get to know immediately in the next issue? Probably not, as that would be too fast of a reveal. Or if so, I would give huge credit to Tomasi for not keeping the audience in the dark on the Arkham Knight’s identity, as it would make the story more interesting by not dragging out the trope of who they possibly are. Given that we had two cliffhangers in a row, I would highly doubt we see a third one in issue #1003. Definitely interested to see how that issue will be laid out.