Batman Annual 2016 - "Good Boy"

[laughing_tree]

"You use that 75-year history to make it awesome. That’s not a weakness of this character, the fact that everything’s been done before. That’s a strength. You can build upon all of that. I can have a scene with Kite Man—a one-page scene in issue #6—and it’s so much fun and wonderful because Kite Man’s a character from thirty years ago that fans remember fondly. You take that history and you make it work for you." -- Tom King

September 23rd:

Comments

[nightauditguy]

I'm betting Bruce even has plans in the event Santa goes bad

[icon_uk]

He has reason to, there is a Gotham villain who dresses as Santa Claus and uses the name. He's a telepath who really CAN tell who has been bad or good, and kills anyone he thinks has been bad.

He's basically the Futurama robot Santa...

[janegray]

I can't believe you knew that and didn't see fit to share it with us before! As penance, you should totally post some scans :P

[zapbiffpow]

The Robot Santa reference sold me on this. Had to slog through several appearances, but I found it!

Man, does Santa have a history in the DC universe.

[janegray]

[glprime]

Glorious.

[icon_uk]

Would it spoil it if I mentioned that that's not Bruce, but Hugo Strange in one of his more... extreme moments?

[remial]

What rot, sir! Why you're the very model of sanity. Oh by the way, I pressed your tights and put away your exploding gas balls. -- Alfred, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

[beeyo]

10 thumbs up, 19 stars out of 2 for the Ace bit.

On the other hand, I couldn't follow the Chris Sims/Neal Adams story for shit. Maybe mentally Batman Odyssey has trained my brain to just skip over everything Neal Adams writes nowadays.

If so, that's my problem. If someone can explain to me what the hell was happening in that part of the book I'd appreciate it very much

[beyondthefringe]

There wasn't a Sims/Adams story in this Batman Annual, at least not that I saw.

Maybe you hallucinated it.
Which is entirely likely. :)

[beeyo]

If I couldn't look at it with my own eyes, I'd believed I hallucinate it too. It was the third story, right after the Scott Snyder "Silent Night" story. The one with Harley Quinn?

The one that read like a fever dream?

[beeyo]

"I would believe I had hallucinated it too"

Holy balls autocorrect, stop trying to prove the cray-cray point

[beyondthefringe]

Paul Dini wrote that one. You can tell because he used Harley Quinn. :)
But okay yeah, that was Adams' artwork. No wonder you had trouble.

[beeyo]

...it occurs to me suddenly what you did there. There is a red palm-shaped spot on my forehead right now

[icon_uk]

Bruce going all gooey over a dog to the point of "yesh you do, yesh you do" is adorable!

Though would he ever be gauche enough to raise the topic of Alfred (apparently) not getting him a present?

[tsunamiwombat]

I don't think so, really. I feel like it's out of character and just for the joke.

[janegray]

It's possible his sense of humor is SO bad, he genuinely thought he was just telling a silly joke and nobody could possibly think he remotely meant it. Which, yeah, it's still gauche of course, but having unintentionally terrible social skills and a super awkward sense of humor is not really OOC for Bruce imo.

[lego_joker]

Remember that time on BTAS he joked about firing Alfred for breaking a priceless vase (under the influence of Joker gas)?

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Man, is it just me, or does Bruce look REALLY young on that last page?

[icon_uk]

Nope not just you, I was actually surprised to see the Robin costume in a case, I thought this might be early in his career. Or that that was actually Dick in the last scans.

[zapbiffpow]

"I though Ace might like it. For maybe Halloween. Or something."

That line is real sweet, after all those previous pages of giving-up-oning-ness. Also, although I think King may have dropped the ball on making Kite Man an Arkhamite, I love Batman's reaction to him. Just...just "Kite Man."