Welcome, dear readers, to another week of comics and commetary at Comics! The Blog! We kick things off, as always, by handing our awards for the Best of the Week - beginning with two Award postings, followed closely by the past week’s Best.

Do you see what I am doing here?

Because if you don’t, you’d better hold up and not read a second longer. Because this is Spoiler Talk(tm).

I did it again!

One of the long-running sore points - even if just a minor one - that I’ve had with the New 52 is that some favourite characters from the old DC Universe have been absent, and while I’ve long preached patience, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I missed Stephanie Brown a lot. Well, uh, she’s back! And in a big, if mysterious way.

What’s more, the mode of Stephanie’s debut in the New 52 is fun. One of the persistent qualms about the New 52 has been the perceived emphasis on Very Serious Stories and a lack of levity, and for all the potential trappings of the issue’s setting, a somewhat post-apocalyptic Gotham where crime and disease rule, it’s impossible to deny that Batman #28 has a smile and a wink to it. Stephanie’s reveal on the final page, Spoiler as the literal spoiler to not just the issue as an object but also the story itself, is almost audacious in its good nature. It’s a punctuation mark to a larger reminder that comics can be fun and funny.

The larger reminder, of course, is twofold. On one hand, it’s the use of a high concept by Scott Snyder and Dustin Nguyen in one of those great genre archetypes: the secret club or casino run by criminals that has to be infiltrated to find an answer, an intersection of detective work, spycraft and superheroes that works because in those multiplicities within Batman is “James Bond in a cowl.” Dustin Nguyen helps bring out this quality in part because he’s so different from Greg Capullo, the series’ regular artist and instead brings a wiry, wry energy to the book. This issue drawn by Capullo wouldn’t play as well in part because Nguyen uses soft curves and fewer lines than him; the muscular menace of Capullo‘s art wouldn’t play as well here, and Snyder (as well as his editorial team) is really smart to match his script for the artist so well.

The other half of that reminder is Harper Row, aka Bluebird, Batman’s new sidekick. Snyder and his creative compatriots have played the slow game with Harper since her introduction, which makes the abrupt time skip forward so effective; we know Harper, but we haven’t seen her become Bluebird yet, and that gap is ripe with possibilities in part due to how confident and well-realized she is in Batman #28. And what she brings to this issue, besides the shock of a new partner for the Caped Crusader, is a youthful energy and brightness that is integral to the world of Batman. And don’t get me wrong, I love the brooding Dark Knight as much as anyone else, but he works so well as part of a double team where his personality is juxtaposed with someone else’s that Harper’s inclusion here isn’t just a welcome exhalation of all the dread since Damian Wayne’s death, but a retroactive reminder about how missed he is, the ways he was different to Batman but also to Harper, and how that relationship might be different down the line. As well, because we’ve had so much time for Harper’s introduction, the abrupt jump forward to the world of Batman Eternal doesn’t seem rushed; we’ve had plenty of time to get to know her and this is just a new facet we’ll be learning about.

At first, I was worried that the temporary break from “Zero Year” might be too jarring or that it would come off as an unplanned gap to allow Capullo to catch up. Of course, the reality is that it’s not just handled really well as an important interlude in the story, but that the world of Batman Eternal is built right into the fabric of “Zero Year,” down to the first scenes. When taken together, it’s not just a satisfying single issue with a brilliant end reveal, but a worthy part of an already successful run. Snyder and Nguyen strike the perfect balance between the issue and the series overall, and for that reason they’ve earned this week’s Bryan Q. Miller Award for Excellence in Superhero Family-ing.