After a friendly tussle with the new Batman, uh…I mean, Nightwing, in the Batcave which leaves Michael Lane, the new Azrael, unconscious, Nighwing convinces Talia to let Michael keep the suit of sorrows and both the Swords of Sin and Salvation.  Michael will continue as Azrael under the conception that the Order of Purity works for God’s Will but in reality…and hold on because this is a real shock…NOT!...the Order of Purity’s strings are pulled by none other than Ras Al Ghul.  Go figure.

Anyway, Michael hits the streets dispensing “God’s Justice” which includes dismemberment.  Come this fall, with the newly announced “new AZRAEL monthly series”, we’ll get plenty more of “God’s Justice,” which will likely include more dismemberment and, if we’re lucky, some disembowelment too!  Uh…that was a joke folks, calm down…

Admittedly, a character with basically a painted hockey mask, a magical suit of armor and two magic swords has the potential to do some serious damage, so maybe the new monthly might improve this character.  Having him running around Gotham hacking off limbs as punishment for kicking someone just might be a bit too mundane for such a character ,so he’s going to need to strike out and take on some Dan Brown kinda adventures with lots of religio-scientific-supernatural themes.  Let’s see him slice up some demons or errant angels.  Maybe he can battle some devil cult or something…just don’t leave him running around Gotham like Ragman is back to doing since SHADOWPACT went belly up.

Admittedly the sword is pretty cool...

When this new monthly starts, hopefully Frazier Irving will still be the AZRAEL artist.  While the combat boot, street fighter, hockey mask, Casey Jones (remember that one?) look for a character who’s carrying not one, but two magical swords seems a little silly, Irving captures the look interestingly and more importantly captures the magic swords pretty deftly.  The shadowy and moody atmosphere, kind of like the one in SIMON DARK, adds an air of the gothic (and no, I do not mean “goth” as in “goth scene”) to the series that helps create a bit of a mystique and dankness for this new Azrael to slice around in.

So long old friend...RIP

Overall, while not being what this Azrael fan was hoping for when DC announced that Azrael was coming back, IF, and only IF, Irving stays as the artist and they move Azrael’s adventures out of Gotham will this new Azrael have a chance at developing into a good character (its ok if he’s based there, but Gotham has enough heroes available to beat up on the average thug…who surprisingly just can’t seem to take the hint after all these years that Gotham isn’t really a great place to be a, well, thug).  Getting him out of Gotham, giving him some challenges worthy of his potential power and tweaking his outfit a bit might just make the monthly worth checking out.