Talon #4 – Review

By: James Tynion IV & Scott Snyder (story), Guillem March (art), Tomev Morey (colors)

The Story: Calvin and Co. deal with the Gotham Butcher using some strategic running away.

The Review: One of the downsides of optimism, even the cautious kind, is you tend to run into disappointment a lot.  Case in point: I had just started to enjoy myself on this title, especially with the new team dynamics Tynion introduced in the last issue.  And just like that, with impeccable timing, he takes a lot of the things I liked and throws them out the window.  I would be upset, but by now, it just feels like my lot in life.

I don’t want to overstate my attachment to Casey’s crew of ex-assassins, but I actually liked them—as ideas.  Taking these former killers and convicts and turning them into an Ocean’s Eleven type crew, each with his or her own quirks, had a lot of potential to transform this title into something beyond a spin-off.  Tynion would’ve been smart to explore the kinds of stories he could mine out of these characters, but instead, he cuts their one on-page adventure short before you even get the full excitement out of it.