Rain Beredo

Predator: Life and Death isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel, here. (A group of trigger-happy, battle-hardened military types touching down on a far-off planet, totally unprepared for the alien predators they’ll find lurking there? You’d be forgive if you feel like you’ve seen this movie once or twice or six times.) But I’m encouraged by the total competence with which this creative team checks all the boxes of a good Predator adventure. And with three issues left in this arc–and with sixteen parts left in Dark Horse’s new Xenoverse story cycle–there’s plenty of time left to stop checking boxes and do something outside the box.

Working off a story from Scott Snyder and James Tynion, Tim Seeley turns in a script for Batman and Robin Eternal #3 that is simultaneously full of bouncy Bat- (or Robin) banter with some choice douchiness from Red Hood and scenes both past and present featuring the dark psychological effects of the Scarecrow’s fear toxin. This is somehow connected to the “mysterious” Mother, which our heroes are no closer to finding her identity. But there is still plenty of conflict as Dick Grayson’s Spyral colleague Poppy Ashemoore goes off the reservation, and threat level of the series increases when an important supporting character is put in the crosshairs of Mother and her creepy operatives.