WARNING! Potential spoilers ahead for Batman: Dark Age #6Batman: Dark Ageis coming to a close, and the seminal miniseries is going out by making an old DC villain one of the Dark Knight’s greatest nemeses. RetellingBatman’s origins as if he were aging in real time throughout the latter half of the 20th century,Batman: Dark Ageis alternate continuity storytelling at its finest, as the creative team has found a unique way to retell Bruce Wayne’s life story from beginning to end.
Coming from the creative team of Mike Russel, Mike Allred, Laura Allred and Dave Sharpe, the preview forBatman: Dark Age#6 opens with Wayne Enterprises in flames. The party responsible is none other thanPariah, one of the chief charactersof the classic DC crossoverCrisis on Infinite Earths.
Pariah successfully tears down Wayne Enterprises in this concluding issue, but Bruce Wayne isn’t down and out just yet. As the last page shows, Pariah’s slash-and-burn approach to taking down Wayne Enterprises allows Bruce Wayne to buy it back “on the cheap.”
Pariah is the Ultimate Foe in Batman: Dark Age
Pariah has been lurking in the background ofBatman: Dark Agesince the beginning, taking control of Wayne Enterprises and making the board of directors very happy with his ruthless business tactics. All the while,Pariah has been talking about a coming “crisis” that will end everything,prophesying doom and gloom while the Wayne board grows richer and richer. Now, it appears the “crisis” he previously foretold is finally coming home to roost, as Pariah burns the company to the ground while escaping with a literal gold parachute.
“Batman: Dark Agehas already established itself as one of the great interpretations of the Dark Knight”
It appears that theDark Ageworld will be playing out its own version ofCrisis on Infinite Earthsas the story moves into the 1980’s. Considering readers have already seen sequences set in the present day of an old Bruce Wayne in a retirement home, it’s safe to assume the Dark Knight will survive whatever apocalypse this version of the DCU will face in the eighties, but there’s no telling what he could lose along the way.Pariah could very well be a greater foe for Batman than even Ra’s al Ghul or the Joker, so it will be fascinating to see how (or if) the Caped Crusader defeats him.
Batman: Dark Age Ends with its Very Own “Crisis”
However it all shakes out,Batman: Dark Agehas already established itself as one of the great interpretations of the Dark Knight. Readers will have to wait until reading this final issue before delivering their ultimate verdict, but the five issues released thus far have been a captivating reinvention of the classic Bat-mythos, taking full advantage of the out-of-continuity nature of the concept to deliver a Batman story for the ages, Similar to their earlier work onSuperman: Space Age, Mark Russell and Mike Allred continue to find interesting ways to interpret classic DC lore withBatman: Dark Age.
Batman: Dark Age#6is available 11/13 from DC Comics
Batman
One of DC’s most iconic heroes, Batman is the vigilante superhero persona of billionaire Bruce Wayne. Forged by tragedy with the death of his parents, Bruce dedicated his life to becoming the world’s leading martial artist, detective, and tactician. Recruiting an entire family of allies and sidekicks, Bruce wages war on evil as the dark knight of his hometown, Gotham City.
