Batman #63 (2019) - "Knightmares, Part 3: Smoke and Mirrors"

[laughing_tree]

Knightmares. Epic arc scraping at the soul of Batman. -- Tom King

Comments

[superboyprime]

I don't get what the point of Constantine's weird mom dream is supposed to be.

[lucean]

As many issues I have with King's run, the nonchalance of that final discussion is actually pretty brilliant.

[captainbellman]

...King really really likes the DC work of Alan Moore, doesn't he.

[thanekos]

A little less than he likes Knightfall.

[joetuss]

Ok, I've had enough. Can someone direct me to some Batman stories where his psychosis, or his soul is NOT being broken down? Seriously...anything featuring Batman, and family just plain old kicking ass would be great ?

[janegray]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.

[joetuss]

Lately it seems like every writer is channelling Hugo Strange. I just want to see Batman solve some crimes, and mash some mob bosses for a while.

[servant_iskandar]

Seconded.
The Batfamily excels at kicking ass, and being a -kickass family- at that, too.

While I've loved Tom's work on Vision and elsewhere, I'm starting to believe he's weaponized Batman and others (poor, poor Booster...) as an outlet for his personal issues.
The recurring theme of marriage can't just be a coincidence, and the less said about Sanctuary and therapy (my sister is a psychologist, so I might be slightly biased here), the better.

Also, I'm glad Bane is back to mastermind status, he was built for that role, but breaking the Bat's back did really end that well for him the first time around, didn't it?...

[starwolf_oakley]

After Bane breaks Batman's back, and then AzBats beats him up, what is there left for Bane to do? And most of the reason for Bane wanting to beat Batman was "Bane had nigthmares about bats as a child."

Plus, Knightfall had "Bane confronted Batman when Bruce was so tired he could hardly stand up." Mixed with "Why do I want to do this? Shut up, I just do."

[lego_joker]

As far as "Weird Batman" goes Peter Milligan has always been my gold standard... I'll see if I can post a couple of his stories 'round here sometime...

[katefan]

I found Grant Morrison's Bat God to be a little over the top in that Batman had an answer for everything, a back up plan for any and all situations.

Seeing how King writes Batman makes me really miss Morrison's old days.

[lucean]

I think, for me, my central problem with King's Batman is that I don't understand how he can be that fearsome force as he continues to make him so ineffectual and refusing to give him moments of shine.

I get some of the complaints about the BatGod, although I do think the term is far too easily thrown around and ignores certain aspects, but at least there you can understand why that character would be in the Justice League and a member of Trinity. Whoever King is writing is just kind of a loser with King for some reason feeling the need to hit us over the head with that fact constantly.

[katefan]

Excellent points.

[servant_iskandar]

I concur, Lucean put it quite well and succinctly.
There has to be a middle ground between extremes of "Batman can do everything and anything and you can't hope to beat him" and "Batman should get kicked around at every turn, because ", because both modes are at their core parody or flanderization.
Which has a place if you're actually going for parody or metafiction as a cornerstone of your work: it's what makes Leo Ortolani's 'Rat-man' or Adam Warren's 'Empowered' work so well, by comparison, but then again both are much more than that. It also helps that both Deboroh and Emp are loveable losers in their own ways, so we can actually feel empathy for them - even at their stupidest (and with Rat-man, that happens often enough).

But... here? It's not-so-good if not outright terrible writing. Where's the empathy? Indignity after indignity keeps piling up (...man, Oswald and 'Penny'...) I cannot honestly see a catharsis coming, and part of it feels as if King's been tracing the worst parts of Morrison's run - how long till we get Zur-En-Arrh again, or Bruce digging himself out after being buried alive?...

[katefan]

This too was well said.

[wizardru]

Personally I miss Dick as Batman and Damian as his Robin. This constant emotional flagellation stuff is getting tiresome to me.

[katefan]

You and me both. I thought the idea of two Batmen was brilliant, with one devoted to protecting Gotham and the other going on Justice League/worldwide adventures. Dick becoming Batman was a natural progression of his character after his Bludhaven years. The New 52 debacle destroyed a fantastic concept by backpedaling on Dick's character development.

[obsidianwolf]

My biggest problem with these stories is that they are ultimately pointless. Batman because of what he is (a massively popular corporate asset) will always reset to status quo so no matter how well a story exploring how broken he is may be (and this is not one of those stories) it will never stick.

Stuff like this belongs in fanfic or in non canon what if imprints not the main book. Where it is ultimately pointless and just feels like yet another cycle of misery that will be glossed over later.

I mean like lucean said this Batman doesn't fit his place in the DC universe. A story like this might work in a out of continuity story where he was just a street level vigilante in a corrupt city but in the wider dc universe it just detracts from the character.

[thanekos]

You're assuming modern writers particularly expect their work to stick.

This is work-for-hire with long-ongoing intellectual properties. Someone comes on, they do what they want as much as they can, and they leave when they have and/or want to - with their work in trade, the occasional royalty check in the future, and some parenthetical credits for the next time they get mentioned in a press release.

There's no reason they should have any consideration for the character's place in the shared universe/overall myth beyond what they already have. Any standard like that is the same arbitrary " this is how I think things should work ", just enshrined as general belief.

Given a choice between that kind of standard, typically upheld by fandom, and their own, it's honestly better that they pursue the latter - sure, it's just as likely to reiterate clichés for the concept they're working on, but there's usually something new and interesting in there that there isn't in the former's tendencies to satisfy its proponents only in terms of things that they already know.

[jlbarnett]

that's an insult to fans and other writers, because then they either have to ignore what you wrote or spend part of the time fixing what you broke

[obsidianwolf]

Oh they know and accept that the bulk of their work isn't going to stick but you can clearly see many modern writers shooting for something to stick. A Modern classic story line, an epic event or even just a reinvention of one or two characters that becomes the new normal for them.

And sorry but I disagree on not considering a characters place in the wider universe. When dealing with a shared universe being aware of how characters fit into it is iportant. And even if writers think you can ignore it sooner or later they can't because working for the big two means that sooner or later their comic is going to get dragged into a wider universe event and if you not aware of how they fit into the wider universe it is going to derail or destroy your in progress story.

Frankly I don't actually see that much innovation in these the writers don't care storylines. Everything Tom King is doing in his run has been done before in fact it is in many ways more of a retread IMO than just standard vigilante fare. Because he is clearly aiming to tell stories in the vain of the big story lines that he personally liked. It is far more fanboyish and author projecting to me than say Marv Wolfman's run on Batman.

[sarahnewlin]

Flirtwithbruceflirtwithbruceflirtwithbruce......oh damnit John.