The Court of Owls

[arbre_rieur]

Bruce and Alfred discuss the architect Alan Wayne, Bruce's ancestor.





Batman ruminates on the superstition-born tradition of skipping the number 13 when numbering floors in a building. Some architects even constructed a dummy floor in-between the floors labeled 12 and 14, to contain 13's bad luck.

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

Man, Snyder's definitely setting up a great society of villains for Batman--even their normal members look creepy in their owl masks. Very Eyes Wide Shut.

[shadowpsykie]

I have to say, these are a very creepy group, I liked then before, but yeah... Really creepy

[outlawpoet]

complicated. But definitely cool. I want some Owl masks like that.

[mrstatham]

I think it helps that barn owls, whilst really, really beautiful, do have rather alien features for a bird, somehow. They are really, really creepy, and like a bat, it's an easily translatable idea for a mask - In fact, it's less complicated than Bruce's Batman design.

[jlroberson]

I'm surprised no one ever hit on the fact that owls are predators upon bats.

[mrstatham]

Maybe that's part of the gag in calling his alternate earth counterpart Owlman, although I doubt it.

That's really clever of Snyder though, frankly.

[mrstatham]

Wow. Capullo's really knocking this out of the park. I think I like him more than any other artist working on the 'main' Batman book in recent memory. He's got a nice, semi-cartoonist's style - his Batman almost reminds me of the BTAS version of Batman in some sequences - And it's far, far better than some of his work at Image, IMO, which was beautiful, but overly glossy and heavily inked. This is still dark, and still creepy, but it's a lot more coherent, less 90's and less giant splash pages and double-spreads, but still skilled.

[filthysize]

Seriously, he's been really surprising me with this book. I was never a fan of his Spawn stuff, but this is great stuff. The composition and layout are especially impressive. LOVE the panel of Bruce and Alfred seen through the cowl.

[kenn_el]

It reminds me of his early Quasar period, which I loved! His Bruce is awfully cute.

[mrosa]

The Court of Owls is certainly a cool name for a new group of villains. And the designs look creepy so far, and that's good.

[grazzt]

As long as they aren't run by the Grand Duke of Owls.

[eyz]

I really dig this book :P

We didn't need any reboot just to get this.. (why couldn't they simply call it something like "One Year Later - AGAIN" instead of the "New 52"...)

[kenn_el]

There's hardly any reboot in the Batbooks. DC had too many failing titles, and a company-wide restart was a smarter way to sell things than selectively rebooting segments, which hardly ever works out.I have my issues (the Kents, for one), but I cannot fault them for taking the gamble.

[eyz]

Say that to Red Robin, Catwoman, the Birds of Prey, Batgirl, Azrael and Jason Todd :P

Anyways, I do understand it, the reasons, from a publishing/company perspective.. but it still annoys me nonetheless..

[eyz]

Anyone expecting Owlman and the Crime Syndicate reimagined in there? XD

[espanolbot]

I have to say that really Snyder is definately my favourite current writer in that Batman comics, maybe even moreso than Morrison and Dini. :)

His books kind of bring back the flavour of the Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker runs, which since their defection to Marvel the books have been kind of lacking.

This isn't to say that Dini and Morrison aren't good, Dini is awesome at building the backstory of both Gotham and characters like Bruce's parents while Morrison is good at BIG plots (albeit with a somewhat simplistic slant when it comes to his villains, eg Dr Hurt's "I'm evil 'cause I'm evil! Blarg!"), Snyder just kind of seems to anchor it more in the era of comics that I started in when I began reading comics proper.

The late Nineties/early 2000s era. A simpler time, before Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis and Geoff Johns spoilt Batman for everyone.

[misterk]

1990-2002: The Glory Days

2003-Now: The era of the Man-Child and acid trips gone horribly wrong (i.e. Morrison)

After looking at these scans and the rave reviews on Snyder on Detective, I might consider buying the title and Nightwing*


*I'll still scan pages and put blue over the dreadful O'Donnell red on the new outfit. It's more comfortable that way.

[wizardru]

Oh look, kids. It's Batman BEING BATMAN.

Nice to see.

[jlroberson]

Well, he was in BATMAN INC too. This book actually reminds me more of that one than any other. And that's not a bad thing.

[korilian]

Now that is just cool! Secret lairs on hidden floors? Secrets going back more than a century? Creepy owl people? I'm sold!

[sunaya]

And those of us living in high-rise apartments are thinking, "They could be anywhere. They could be hiding under the floorboards RIGHT NOW."

[filthysize]

Ah, the Steven Moffat system of scaring the shit out of people.

Statues move when you're not looking.
Not every shadow will eat you, but any shadow could.
Every time you go into a room and you forget why, you probably just saw a scary alien and don't remember it.

[theredhood]

I want to say it was featured in one of the manga posted here but the Japanese have one about that creeping feeling sometimes that you see someone in the room when you're alone, in the corner of your eye.

We never look, of course - but if you did, you'd see something staring back.

[kamino_neko]

Fuan no Tane had several stories with basically that idea.

[icon_uk]

Neatly summarised as - "Today we're answering a cry for help from the scariest place in the universe. A child's bedroom."

[bradygirl_12]

Hmm, wonder if Owlman of the Crime Syndicate has this family background, too.

[biod]

Gah, beat me to it!

[tsunamiwombat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8el_P4yvfc

I'll just leave this here because it is pertinant to this discussion.

[biod]

. . .
I know what I'm going to do today.

[jlroberson]

I am loving what Snyder is doing here and in SWAMP THING so much.

The latter is really an achievement. I am not merciful to those who do wrong by Alec.

Also

[jlroberson]

Randomly, a different look at owls.