Justice League – Darkseid War – Batman #1

[lordultimus]

10 1/3rd out of 32 pages.








"And thanks to this chair, I'll be able to narrow my focus from the many..."

Comments

[informationgeek]

I'm pretty sure this is more than four pages.

[lordultimus]

It's a one-shot. What are the rules on them?

EDIT: Never mind, its a mini. Editing.

[an_idol_mind]

Nice little homage to that Golden Age story where Batman reveals his identity to Chill.

[reveen]

Having seen the other scans before editing. I really don't like the trend of portraying Chill as some really horrible person. Because I think it's kind of weak to write him as this hate sink for Batman to take his frustrations out of. I'm far more interested in a story where Bruce hunts down and confronts Chill and finds not a monster from his childhood, but a sad old ex-con who killed a couple of people decades ago because of desperation and a twitchy trigger finger.

[silverhammerman]

Mind elaborating on the cut content and how Chill's portrayed there?

I'm strongly agreed with you though, Joe Chill shouldn't be a monster outside of Batman's imagination. The idea of of the adult Batman having to confront and understand that disconnect is much more interesting and complex than yet another revenge story. I mean, shit, Frank Miller of all people understood that, going out of his way in TDKR to have Batman realize that Joe Chill was just a desperate crook, not a bogeyman.

[reveen]

In the cut pages, Chill is irreverent about killing the Waynes and kind of smirks of the power over life and death he had, and he also admits he killed forty people before that.

Seriously, forty people is a fucking ridiculous body count for a petty criminal.

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, 40 people is a fucking ludicrous number, that's well into serial/contract killer territory, and even within those categories it's well above the average.

But hey, who cares about nuance or logic, right?

[bruinsfan]

I suppose when you're used to writing the Joker as a murder-god whose body count rivals that of warring nations, perspective is hard to come by.

[mister_terrific]

It's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.

[junipepper]

:D

[jaybee3]

I do think someone who kills two innocent people in cold blood (and would have killed a third), twitchy trigger finger or not, is a monster, even if he never killed again. It actually makes him more of a monster than just adding to his body count, because killing the Waynes, destroying a family, destroying a child's psyche, destroying all the good they would do for Gotham and for the world, all for some small crime (which never even profited him since he didn't get the pearls) for no reason (like shooting a store clerk when you rob them of chump change) is so senseless and so petty, so...small...that it makes Joe Chill less sympathetic, not more. I actually like stories that have Chill haunted by his crime (in prison or not) for the rest of his life, not only is it a change from the multitude of Gotham super-villains who kill and don't think twice about it, but because he really should be haunted by it. In a few seconds, Joe Chill not only destroyed lives, he created Batman and everything that has come with him.

[silverhammerman]

It feels weird to see a rendering of the Joker with a more realistic face, given how the slightly elongated look has become a standard. All the more jarring given that the artist is "covering" famous panels and covers.

I will say, the idea of Batman psychologically torturing and then mindwiping Joe Chill for no reason beyond his own personal satisfaction is a pretty good way of showing the power of the Mobius Chair as potentially corrupting him.

[lordultimus]

Not to mention the scene with the wife-beater and the amazons.

Remember, these are New 52 Amazons.

[bruinsfan]

I seem to have a vague memory... didn't Batman express some small sliver of doubt at one point about forcibly wiping someone's memory being 100% ethical?

[alschroeder3]

So...we're supposed to feel sorry for...Joe Chill??
I liked Finger's solution better.

[starwolf_oakley]

Next, we feel sorry for Tony Zucco.

Really, it doesn't work. Even Batman parodies wreck it.

[deh_tommy]

In this was Bruce behaving normally, maybe not. However, this scene just shows how powerful he's become, where he can just boom into Joe Chill's cell and terrify him... purely out of spite and revenge. He wasn't going to escape any time soon, he wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong at that moment, Batman just did this for his own twisted satisfaction.

[dr_archeville]

Kotaku had an article about this today, reflecting on the other times Batman's revealed himself to Joe Chill.

[bradygirl_12]

The abuser left on Themyscira? Not one iota of sympathy for him.

I prefer Bruce discovering that Chill is some old, washed-up petty crook, too, but that doesn't change the enormity of his crime. Jittery trigger finger or not, he killed two people (I don't buy the forty) and that alone is worth him paying for it.

[jekylls_salvation]

That's funny. Because an iota of sympathy is all it takes to break a hate cycle.

[bradygirl_12]

I'll save my sympathy for the victims scum like him terrorize.

[jekylls_salvation]

Sympathy's not a fossil fuel. If you're strong enough.

[bradygirl_12]

I'm very sympathetic most of the time. I just don't have much for men who beat their wives/girlfriends and threaten to kill them.

[jekylls_salvation]

While they're doing it? Understandable. Priorities. It's after the fact that's the crux of the thing. Our reaction to the act afterwards is noteworthy. "Justice! Vengeance." Or "What caused this to happen, and how can we fix it?" Destructive, or constructive. Cyclical, or progressive. The big question is: How do you choose to react to hurt?

[beeyo]

I can't find the book right now, but wasn't Chill in Endgame? Where Joker was reenacting Thomas and Martha's murder? I honestly can't remember if he was characterized in any way other than he didn't want to be there.

[jekylls_salvation]

Oh just get to the Joker disappointment already.