Really? What was good about it? What did we learn? What actually happened? How was this good?

You act like every other comic you learn something. You’re only attacking this comic because of Tom king

Nope. It’s because it was another useless issue and people are saying it’s a 10/10. That means it’s a perfect book with no problems or issues and that is definitely not the case. How much time has passed since Bruce’s back was broken? He was thrown over the back of a horse right after so that’s not healing right and yet he carried a body off into the desert and buried it before getting into a huge fight with Thomas. Who we still don’t know how he’s even here. This was far from perfect.

Thomas Wayne performed surgery and fixed Bruce's spine, he was full of drugs to dull the pain. They were 100 miles outside of the nain pit, walking. Walking 100 miles with no stops would take a little over two days, they took stops and slept, so it would take much longer to get there for them. I have had surgery before and it took 2 days and a lot of heavy pain killers to feel 100%.

I had back surgery last month. It takes a lot damn longer than 2 days to recover.

You're reading this series as if it's meant to be realistic. It's not. It's a poem.

That is some pretentious shit.

Well, apparently with spine surgery, patients are able to get up and move after only a couple of hours and recovery time depends on their age and physical health. Batman is like 35 or something and peak condition.

Getting up and moving probably doesn't also account for all the things Batman does.

Getting thrown across the back of a horse isn’t going to help with recovery and he damn sure wouldn’t be up for carrying a body around the desert and then getting into a fight with a highly skilled combatant. It’s the details that make a story. This isn’t poetry, it’s a comic book.

You can take some liberties with stuff like this in comics, but Batman is supposed to be a human being, yet he's able to do superhuman things regularly in this run.

Just telling you that you're judging an orange for not being an tomato. As long as you think about it as a bad tomato, you'll have the same complaints and frustrations. This comic book doesn't aspire to be realistic.

So what? It can do whatever it wants and we have to accept it because "it's a poem." That's a free pass to disregard things the writer sets up but then doesn't feel like doing anything with.

Not saying he doesn't need to deal with what he's set up. Saying it's not meant to be taken so literally. Every piece of art should be judged according to the rules it's being made with, which are not necessarily the rules one is accustomed to. King has said his run on Batman is "experimental" and it is. He's not trying to make anyone believe this stuff could literally happen but people complain he couldn't have taken out so many guards in I Am Bane or that his back couldn't heal so quickly.

It's a little funny to me that I have to argue for an unrealistic take on a *comic book* but it's true that King's Batman isn't like any mainstream superhero book. If people don't like that, that's fine. I'm only saying it's not trying to be good at what some say it's bad at.

I think there are certain rules to characters that you really shouldn't break. Batman being superhuman, beyond the standard comic book logic, is breaking one of the rules of Batman. I think the word experimental is being misused here.

@YourGreenMuse... King's said he's going to somehow answer whatever he's set up. That's a lot to believe as there are so many dangling threads but it's premature to judge him for not doing it before his run is over.

I just don't believe him. He's dropped plot threads more than a few times across all the things he's written. And if I can't judge this run or this story until it's all out, then it shouldn't be a four year run. Regardless of Batman's superhumanity, there's plenty of things I dislike about this run.

Batman is the peak human being, not just a regular human being, and we can probably assume Thomas Wayne is a peak surgeon given his family fortune added with the fact he is the Batman of that universe. If you still don't think Batman of all people can come back this quickly.... well have fun I suppose. It isn't like there is evidence of him constantly recovering from near fatal wounds in a night because of his medicine and Alfred.

Also Batman is totally the kind of guy to ignore pain, considering all of the training he has had. So like it is pointless to even think he can't do this, but let's say he still is in immense pain, he would bite the bullet and fight back anyway.

It's not just a pain thing. He's done things that just aren't possible.

"That just aren't possible?" In a comic book? Someone get me my fainting salts.

If only there had been a huge storyline already done where Batman’s back was broken and it took him a year to recover. Oh wait, it’s the one that Tom King has done a shitty job trying to emulate. Knightfall showed a more realistic take on this issue. It’s funny that guys who handwave Kings faults about how Batman does the shit he does in this run are the ones who were so tired of the BatGod. This is worse than that. How many times has he had his bake broken in this run?

This is shitty storytelling plain and simple.

@ Batman Jones Kings Batman is a poem? A piece of art? Please don’t insult real poets& artists. Kings writing is fanfiction made canon at best. And it’s ridiculous to excuse Kings bad writing with this is fiction. Even fiction has to follow some logic. Fact is, if you break a bone ( in this case the back) you aren’t able to move or even worse carrying heavy objects with you. Batman is a human, so no he can’t. It’s just crappy writing.

Arguments to defend Kings writing are getting more ridiculous every day.

It isn't even just his back in Knightfall. Batman was burntout after fighting practically every villain right before being brutally beaten and broken both literally and symbolically by Bane. He was only gone 6 months and a lot of that was rehabilitation because he wasn't active anymore after having Azrael replace him.

He required rehabilitation because his back was broken. That’s not something you just recover from after a couple of days. This isn’t even up for debate, the things he’s been doing are a medical impossibility. Especially since he’s had it broken at LEAST twice in this run alone. It’s poor writing. On a side note, I do like how we pick a review every week and blow it up with discussion. .

It was his back in Knightfall. Alfred even said back then, that he might not be able to walk again. You don’t recover from that just in a few days. Being exhausted was only what lead to his defeat, but it wasn’t the reason for taking a break for six months. It’s just bad writing from King.

The idea of it not having to be realistic goes against everything Tom King and his fans have pushed about this run...it's the "human Batman" not the Bat God, that is until it has to be and then we are supposed to go with the opposite

We always allow for some heightened abilities in comics, I won't deny that. But it becomes absurd when Batman can unbreak his own back or plan his own death via a Poison Ivy controlled Superman, and subsequent revival via Harley Quinn (someone who shouldn't be able to do that).

@DC Stuff Batman has always been human, but the absolute best man he can be. He is always the smartest and most prepared man in the room. That's why Tom King is ruining Batman, right? He was sad because his chance at a happy wedding fell through. He should have prepped for the fallout or manned up. Batman is so tough and high-T, and is being ruined by showing emotion. What's that? Batman manned up? I changed my mind! Batman is supposed to be a total wimp and Tom King is getting him all wrong.

Roasting aside though, I view every writer's Batman as their own take on Batman. Like sure they are all canon to one another, but each writer has their own spin on the character. Grant Morrison Batman is not going to be the same as Paul Dini, Dini isn't the same as Snyder, Snyder isn't the same as Tom King, King isn't the same as Frank Miller, etc. It is much easier to enjoy comics in general when you realize no writer will ever write a character *exactly* as another one did. Batman is 80+years

@ YourGreenMuse Totally agree with you. @Lapin King doesn’t have any logic in his stories, which is full of plotholes. And there are stories where Bruce is showing feelings, but they didn’t portray him out of character. So many things in Kings Batman run are just absurd.

Can we establish once and for all, just what the hell does it mean "being out of character"? For me, it kinda seems like a really silly thing to point out. It's like Br'er Lapin said. Every writer has a different take on the character. I would add to that, that every reader has a different take on the character. Hm, so maybe that's what it means, "being out of character". Writer's take doesn't align with yours.

Hear hear

Behavior that goes against decades of characterization. Pretty much all of Kings. It’s like he’s never read a Batman comic. He learned a few facts and then went from there. That seems to be how he writes every character in his stories. Learn a couple of things and then just write whatever whether it is in line with the characters history and established behavior or not.

King apparently doesn't choose his characters. Editorial does. He writes a story and they fill in who it's about.

DC gave him Batman though. He knew he was writing Batman. As far as I know the only time what you said has ever happened is Heroes in Crisis.

And Mister Miracle.

I think they asked him to do that one too.

No when he came to DC they asked him, what character he wanted to write& he said „I don’t know“ ( says already a lot), then they gave him Mr. Miracle, the same happened with HIC. He had a story in mind, editors suggested the characters. He is doing no research at all. He might read one story, then he forces his ideas on the characters. Because it’s too hard to read some comics. But that’s not only King: Morrison, Johns, Castellucci all don’t do enough research either. It’s overall just a lack of

quality at DC since years. There are too many wannabe Alan Moore writers these days.

I don't know how Vision came about, but I do know that his idea for that story went against Vision's character. And that in order to justify it, another writer (I think it was Mark Waid) wrote a small story in Avengers #0 to explain the change in Vision's character.

So I wouldn't be surprised if it came about like HiC and Mister Miracle did.

As much as I hate to say so since I am a DC fan and a Tom King fan. Based on all the interviews I have read, I think he had zero plan to apply at DC. He tried at Marvel and didn't even consider DC. His talk about where he was and what inspired him were podcasts about some of his favourite writers at Marvel at the time, the big early 2000s' Marvel writers. He said that is where he learned a lot. He made his way into DC through meeting someone at a comic convention after publishing his first

book. Karen Berger then took notice at Vertigo and his success there and with future stories like Vision, Grayson, and Omega Men got DC's attention. I think that is how he landed Batman. I don't think he was necessarily a major Batman fan before he landed the gig, but I do think he likes Batman as much as a casual fan might. I personally think that is okay. There are a lot of instances of writers being assigned books of characters they have no idea about, and I don't think that is true of Tom

and Batman, but this has often lead to the writer not being limited and redefining characters. So I don't necessarily agree that every writer should be an expert on the character. Tom King just had the impossible task of pleasing every kind of Batman fan and not stepping on anyone's toes.

But good writers do research.

Im also not a Flash fan, don’t know much about him except the standard things, but if I was a writer at DC I would read as many comics about him as possible& find out what makes him a special character for people. What Im also always asking myself, why would a CSI agent suddenly write comics? He’s not a writer that’s the point& he clearly doesn’t know much about DC characters. His dialogue is also often unreadable, what proves my point of him being not a writer.

First of all, he was a CIA agent. Second, I don't think he's a great writer, but he is a writer. He even manages to write good things. I just think he's a very limited writer. He has his niche, and can't really expand from that, it seems.

He said in an interview that he didn't want to be the kind of dad that was always away because of his job in the CIA, and his wife is a Lawyer, so she is always busy too. He always wanted to write comics specifically, he got into them from his mom sending him care packages while he was overseas (comics are a very common form of entertainment for soldiers too) so he decided to quit the CIA and be the father he wanted for himself, and chase his dream while doing it.

Also I think it is funny that Darkseid said CSI, because that is what Flash is. I think he may have just made a typo.

Did I really write CSI? I meant CIA, sorry 😂 I‘ve never read a great story by King. Only mediocre at best ( I’ve read Batman, Mr Miracle, HIC, Grayson) & lately his stories were pretty bad. If he wants to be a writer he should do more research about the characters he’s writing, but this proves yet again, that not everyone can be one.

I will say that Sheriff of Babylon was good. That was a comic that played to his strengths because it was about a subject he was familiar with. I just don’t think superheroes are his thing. He wants to write dark psychological stories but he doesn’t seem to know how to do it with superheroes because he doesn’t take the time to understand the characters.

Haven’t read that one. I think you can write dark psychological stories about DC characters, but for that he needs to do more research about the characters.

You can but he has not done a good job of it.

I haven't listened to this podcast in a while but I'm pretty sure it shows what a deep love of DC King has always had. http://wordballoon.blogspot.com/2018/07/tom-king-q-batman-is-heart-broken.html

I get why some/many would hate his Batman but someone Mr. Miracle was "mediocre at best?" I don't think we're ever going to agree about anything, Darkseid24. And that's okay.

I think Mister Miracle might be my favourite book of the last maybe decade... personally. Also, thanks for the podcast, I needed something to listen to.

I do think Mister Miracle is overrated, simply because Tom King has already written that type of story before Mister Miracle. Like I said earlier, he has his niche. He hasn't really evolved as a writer. And I'm kind of over the type of stories he writes. I had my first exposure to it with Vision, I liked Vision a lot, and then I wanted something new. But I got more of the same instead.

I don't think they are anything alike. The only thing they have in common is they are literary.

@ Batman Jones surely we can, but I’ve read every New Gods story& that’s why I think Mister Miracle is bad. King did a bad job with portraying the characters & he turned Darkseid into a joke once again. Not to mention the dumb finale& god awful dialogue.

They're both hammering home on that depressing feeling. They're both about trying to be and have a family, no matter the consequences.

Vision is about trying to be human and live a normal life in the suburbs, Mister Miracle is Silent Hill but with positives.

There is a Mister Miracle that is close to Vision, but it wasn't written by Tom King. Check out Volume 3 of Mister Miracle. Where Scott and Barda move into the suburbs and do their best to fit in and be normal.

Err volume 2, 3 was the one where Mister Miracle becomes Highfather and is pretty much not worth reading.

Vision is not about being human. Vision had mastered being human pretty soon after being created. Vision is about Vision trying to have a family in the suburbs and how that goes horribly wrong to the point that that family gets ripped to shreds through murder and suicide, and the Avengers come. Yet Vision is willing to give up everything to have that family.

According to Tom King himself, Vision built his own family in order to feel more human.

Like a cat sitting at the table. He didn't actually say this part.

Well, that's where the Mark Waid fix comes in.

Other than Selina dumping him, what other terrible thing from his past happened on a rooftop?

Nightwing got shot in the head atop a rooftop, Bruce lost control on some thug on a rooftop, a nightmare had him start on a rooftop and the chase led him further and further down (✳symbolism✴), and recently he couldn't make heads or tails of reality on a rooftop and socked Tim Drake in the face. This all happened on a rooftop.

I don't think I said rooftop quite enough.

Oh... and also if you think I am making this up and some crazy fan. There is literally an arc that establishes it called Rooftops. And a scene in the reality scrambled issue where Jim Gordon literally says "You don't belong here! Get off my ROOF!" A lot of people claim Tom King is a hack, and that is fine, but nobody should ever say he doesn't have depth.

Bruce losing control and the dream are reaching. He frequently works on rooftops so neither of those are terrible or even unexpected. Gordon telling him to get off his roof and the Rooftops storyline aren’t really life altering terrible events either.

Like most King fans, you assign depth where none exists.

It's a recurring enough element that I'd say it's probably purposefully done.

It’s Batman. Most of his time is spent on rooftops.

Nightwing getting shot didn’t devestate Bruce that much though. He’s crying more over Catwoman than over Dick.

Didn't he Christopher Nolan KGBeast over it?

I’ve never heard that phrase. I like it.

Yes, but since then you never heard anything about it anymore& all he’s doing is whining over Catwoman.

If you don't care, then why even bother with that first paragraph?

I love trolling

More seriously, i just wanted to say that i think people are distorted on the book because of who wrote it ( me included )

Agreed. Glad Tomasi gives us a good story again.

We need more Gothic style Batman

@Darkseid24 - ABSOLUTELY!!! i cannot tell you how bummed that last arc had me. i mean it wasn't terrible. but it definitely wasn't the standard i'd come to expect after that first arc. @Linkush - i agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY!! i absolutely love this style of Batman story. the almost Horror looking style of art, the long Bat-ears, the flowing (almost sentient) cape, the gargoyle sculptures. i almost feel like picking up an extra set of Detective 1006 & 1007 just because.

Definitely. I'm just happy they chose to go with this kind of style, It seems like we barley get this kind of style anymore (or am I missing?) so it's really awesome seeing this. Really enjoying it

@Linkush - you're 100% right in saying that. the last we've gotten a Batman story even remotely similar, was the Kelley Jones 'KINGS of FEAR'. ...and that one was a LONG time coming. i couldn't even tell you how long it's been before that that one. ...at any rate, i'm thrilled to have gotten this story, i really hope we get more like it in the near future.

Kings of Fear- good times. Now I have to wait ages until I get another Scarecrow Story it seems. Agree about the art. It was cool indeed.

Don’t remind me of Harper. She was awful. Duke is ok in Batman& the Outsiders, but I don’t need his character.

yeah she was awful. Snyder was pushing so hard for that annoying pain in the butt to be the next Robin. but so many people hated her. ...so he then gave us Duke. that bland wooden character. what was that other lame character he made? ...Talon? that series got canned pretty early in it's run. never to be heard from again.