Batman #102

[cyberghostface]

"This is a character who I've been excited about for a really long time. He's definitely going to show up as an adversary to Bruce, but he is not necessarily a villain per se. He is someone that Bruce has known since he was a young man traveling around the world training to become Batman. And now, basically Bruce's rival from when he was 15 years old has come back to Gotham City because he doesn't think Bruce is doing a very good job." -- James Tynion IV

Comments

[reveen]

Mohawk Kid: "You didn't kill the Joker, so I'm gonna do what must be done!"

This Ninja: "You didn't kill/jail this child who's mad at you for not killing the Joker, so I'm gonna do what must be done!"

What is this Matryoshka doll of people who think they can out-Batman Batman? Is this going to keep escalating as he keeps beating these people? Is this Bruce's life now? Just a Sisyphean struggle against an endless conga line of yahoos who think they can vigilante better than him?

[janegray]

So... he thinks the kid is a menace who has to be stopped because he kills criminals... and for that he attempts to kill the kid?

"Killing criminals is wrong, that's why I kill criminal-killers!"

Is he confused or just trolling?

[janegray]

On second thought, a lot of people who voted to kill Jason Todd did so because he may have pushed that serial rapist off the balcony, so the ~logic~ that "killing is wrong, that's why I want him killed" is nothing new.

[donnblake]

The heightened combat of superhero comics makes this difficult to parse. Like, he's swinging a sword at the kid's head, which definitely feels like he's trying to kill him. And Ghost-Maker certainly sounds like a roundabout way of describing a killer.

But what he actually suggests Bruce should have done is to have "locked him away or incapacitated him," which does actually suggest a potentially third alternative to the "kill the bad guy or dump them in the revolving door of the Gotham criminal justice/healthcare system.

I'm holding out hope that that's the case, because "Why doesn't Batman just kill the Punisher," is, as you suggest, a fairly ludicrous line of criticism.

[reveen]

I mean, I can see the logic for "Why doesn't Batman just kill the Punisher". Because most criminals kill for selfish ends, not out of some dogmatic crusade that demands that they just keep killing people. If you're a superhero who sees the lives of criminals as equal in human worth and value as anyone else, someone like the Punisher would look like a terroristic maniac who needs to be stopped no differently than the Green Goblin.

But that's the Punisher, who's killed substantially more people than 9/11. This is just some kid who went on a brief killing spree. Coming after him with dual-wielding swords sounds like total overkill.

[janegray]

Except that Batman would never kill the Green Goblin.

[dan_ingram]

In fairness, he catches Clownhunter when he's getting ready to build an explosive to take out Harley. Not like Clownhunter was planning a precision strike against a criminal.

That, and this seems to be more a game between Bruce and this guy, than any actual concern for justice

[janegray]

But Clownhunter has killed a ton of Joker's henchmen.

[dan_ingram]

So? The Punisher doesn't accept collaterial damage, why should this guy be any different?

[janegray]

Sorry, I'm a little confused, I don't understand what we are talking about.

I thought you were saying that Clownhunter is not really a killer because Batman stopped him before he could kill Harley, and I replied that he may have failed to kill Harley but he did succeed in killing a bunch of other people.

[dan_ingram]

Ah, okay.

Yeah, Clownhunter is totally a killer, but in his defense he only killed in defense of others, at a time when civil authorities weren't doing jack (ugh, that was stupid).

Ghost-Maker is attacking Clowny now, because Clowny intends to build a bomb and blow up Harley. He objects to the potential damage to civilians more than killing Harley.

[beoweasel]

Ehh, I remember a line that Mephisto once told Castle after the latter had died awhile back:

"How many innocent people have you killed, Frank? I'll give you a hint, it's more than ten, less than a hundred."

[dan_ingram]

If there's any character who should logically have left a trail of innocent bodies behind him, it's Punisher.

But lets be honest, they'd never put a single body on him these days. His bullets magically on;y ever hit bad guys

[reveen]

This new guy just gives me straight up Shonen anime rival vibes. Like, he's literally talking shit about how Batman's training is weak and is trying to specifically kick his ass to usurp him instead of just going vigilante in the first place.

[alicemacher]

I love superhero comics as much as the next geek, but it's stories like this, with their increasingly recursive patterns of deadly violence, which show the limitations of the "deal with evil by punching it really hard" approach on which the genre is built.

That's why stories like Gaiman's early Black Orchid miniseries, or (for the most part) Moore's Promethea, in which superheroes resolve conflicts without violence, are still a breath of fresh air to me.

[magicrubbish]

Oh great ! Another wannabe usurper. Just what Gotham and Batman comics need. It's never been done before. Which is why we're super excited !
Oh wait..

[shakalooloo]

So, someone from Batman's training days who thinks that he's ot doing a good enough job defending Gotham, by being too soft on criminals.

How is this new character's motivation any different from the League of Assassins?

[dan_ingram]

Or the first Nobody, or Damien?

I like Batman okay, but damn is it tiring to see so damn many plots about how the Walking Civil Rights 1% percenter is just so damn soft...

[beyondthefringe]

So Ghost-Maker is someone who trained alongside Bruce in the early "wander the world" phase, where they apparently both shared and competed for masters.

And he knows who Batman is and always has.
And has been doing his own thing for the past however many years which is why we've never heard of him.
And they actually had a "Gotham is Bruce's city" agreement in place.

I didn't realize there was any more room for this sort of continuity implant into Batman's past. o.0

[jlbarnett]

that's cause there isn't

[reveen]

And if you're going to make a "Trained With Batman" Bag out of whole cloth to pull characters out of you'd think they'd use that to make more interesting characters than just this Hush/Red Hood mishmash crap?

[jlbarnett]

ugh, another one of those.

No more personal, no more connections, no more history, I want some just business

[thediiem]

So is Ghost-Maker just a vigilante version of Hush but working from the other end of Bruce's childhood? And seconded on the shounen rival vibes. This guy, independent of the trauna and promise that drives Bruce to the superhuman lengths of effort it requires to be Batman, decided to become ersatz-Batman all on his own and manages to out-train Bruce and move between trainers faster despite implying he doesn't have Bruce's money resources?

[icon_uk]

Ah, so this is Bruce's version of Shrike, the not terribly effective attempt to retcon in a kid to be the parallel but opposite of Dick Grayson, and who went and trained with the League of Assassins whilst Dick trained with Batman.

It might have worked, but it has the same issue as this does, introducing someone new as "an old friend from the past who was very important to me but I've never actually mentioned before", a la most of Jessica Fletcher's old friends, or even Tommy Elliott is bad enough, but we also have seen zero interaction with in the many years since that first meeting and now so they have no contextual history for us.

[thanekos]

You've got to assume at least one of past-Bruce and past-Ghost-Maker's common prospective-or-actual mentors was like " I'm not dealing with this shit. You get Tuesdays, he gets Thursdays. Bye. "

[hot_pie]

YAWN

[lordultimus]

Well, I like his costume, at least.

Hey, maybe THAT'S the real reason he's trying to kill Clownhunter!

"Gotham deserves a hero with far better fashion sense than you!"

[shakalooloo]

"Your problem, Bruce, is that you didn't wear a big enough cape."

[mastermahan]

"You've got to stop living in the fashion past, and start living in the fashion present. Tights are out, Bruce - hammer pants are in!"

[themajesticmoose]

"All murder is bad so I will murder this murderer to stop him doing more murder"

I can see the Ghost Maker has really thought his motivation through here >.>