Batman Eternal #1 kicks off this new weekly series with a bang or rather two. The first is a flash forward to a Gotham in flames and what follows will lead us in 52 issues to that scene. Who is behind Gotham in flames? And who knows who Batman really is? What follows is a great study in duality (an important theme in Batman); new recruit to GCPD (and making his new 52 debut quite unheralded) is a young cop from Detroit named Jason Bard. In pre new 52 continuity Bard was a one time love interest of Barbara Gordon, an associate of Dinah Lance and her family, a former GCPD cop and a PI who assisted Batman once in awhile. Never a major player, he is getting great treatment here as we follow his arrival in Gotham and meets the major players in the GCPD (Maggie Sawyer, Harvey Bullock, Jim Gordon, and Forbes-who you know right away isn't any good at all). This is fouled with Batman and Gordon rescuing a group of kids from Professor Pyg and his dollotrons. These two stories come together at the end and show us why Scott Synder is the best Batman writer working today. There is a stand out scene where Bard and Gordon come face to face and there are some great striking similarities, as if Jim Gordon is looking into a mirror of his you herself, which makes me wonder if they aren't foreshadowing a re visitation of the Bard/Barbara romance. More than any other panel, that one stood out to me. Great start to what promises to be an exciting 52 weeks of reads. ( )