Laid back and relationships? We are to believe Batman has found out Alfred is dead and Damian kidnapped, but then we get a therapy issue?

"The only thing that can defeat Bane is coming here, to this beach. I was hurt. I'm training. With your help. I'm getting better. I'm going to be better. That's all that matters." they are there for a reason. Also, Bruce and Selina's relationship is a key aspect in King's run, so yes I'm happy that King took the time to give us an issue that focuses on them. This is supposed to be an interlude. It's supposed to be a break from all the action from last issues.

^^This! And even though it's an interlude, it's still crucial to the overall story. It answers the thesis to King's entire run: can Bruce be happy and still be Batman?

Bruce HAS been happy before. And this idiotic interlude is only important because King is forcing it to be. It still makes zero sense. Why did those guys even know what could beat Bane? Nothing makes sense.

Yes everything was perfect except for Jean. I hope she gets a broader role later.

We have to wait and see what happens, I am with you, hope she gets a broader role later.

Agreed.

I gave very good reasons in my own review, why it is so bad& why it only deserves 1 star. I also don’t always give King such a low rating, only if he deserves it. So stop acting like these problems with his run wouldnt exist& that fans are just senselessly hating on him. I could say the same about people giving him a 10 every time without giving any reasons& ignoring every problem.

I agree with the 10 part. But a 1 overall? lol theres a lot more than just Tom King in the comic, there's art, there's ink, there's color, etc... A 1 would imply every single thing is bad about this comic

Yes the art is great, but I mostly concentrate on the story & character portrayal. The nicest art doesnt help much, if the story is just badly written& characters are out of character. I wouldnt know anything good about this issue& if I could I gave it 0 points. I defended King in the past, but there is nothing I can defend about his writing anymore. He constantly creates new problems without solving the old ones ( like awful dialogue).

to each their own i guess. i know theres a lot that goes into each and every book, so i cant rlly get how this would get a 3 or below. The frank miller superman is a series that id give a 3 rn, art and story are both bad. but agree to disagree i guess

But what is good about it? There are so many plotholes, bad dialogue, inconsistent storyrelling, characters are out of character, I really don’t know how it could get a mediocre or good rating. At least the dialogue isnt so bad in Millers Superman, but if you like Kings Comics go ahead.

i said it was average lol like a lot in the original review. I never said it was good. Average is a C in normal grades. everything in the issue was pretty set up, except for the twist which i said was a little sudden, but it could possibly be a scarecrow fear toxin situation, so who knows. This arc definitely isn't as bad as his knightmares arc which was pretty bad, that i would give a 5 or below. Frank Millers superman just doesnt hit any of the right notes for me at all.

Oh, Knightmares was unbearable, I want to forget that filth. This, though... only few more issues to go, breath in, breath out, calm down... With all seriousness, though, did DC announce who's going to take over the series after King is finally out?

Nah, it starts in January, and solicitations for January don't come out until october/november at least. So maybe next month we'll get an announcement as a lead in, or we will get one at nycc

i will just say this- Tom King didn't get fired off Batman before his 100th issue just for the hell of it. there are a lot of damn good reasons. the guy had no business ever writing Batman. DiDio is a moron for sticking King on their biggest seller.

Idk if that's true lol his first 30 issues were pretty good

You can’t solve everything with Scarecrow’s fear gas lol But yes it could be. Honestly I think this is even worse than the Knightmare arc. At last nobody was killed/ wounded there. His first issues were mediocre to me, it turned really bad during Knightmare, then to total trash during the desert & City of Bane storyline. I hope there will be a better writer.

the first 30 issues are wildly overrated. didn't Batman get his throat slashed by a crackhead in issue 15? and he was crying like a Baby in issue #1. Nightwing, Red Hood and Damian all got hung by their necks in the bat-cave, but weren't dead. no. this run was never good.

I'm a sucker for his 3 first arcs, honestly. I liked them, they've set up some solid plot elements. Too bad it was now all wasted, practically. Think of a J.J. Abrams movie - starts out great, you have million questions, and then it ends and it sucks, because Abrams wrote the questions, but never bothered to answer half of them.

if i were to compare Tom King to a film maker, i'd say he's Zack Snyder meets Michael Bay meets Joel Schumacher. ...when Batman was crying as he was about to crash that airplane in issue 1, you just KNOW he had rubber nipples on his bat-suit!!! ...he was probably squeezing them while he was crying.

@Nihlist which is why I'm saying the run is just average, not like the worst shit I've ever read, it's just hit and miss.

@ myconius Nah that is an insult for them. Michael Bay‘s Texas Chainsaw Massacre was great, I love BvS& Watchmen by Snyder& Schumacher did Phantom of The Opera & I love that movie as well. I think Kings Penguin story wasnt that bad (apart from Penguin having sex with an animal)

BvS was good?...

i enjoyed the hell out of BvS.

I think King's run is one of the worst I've ever read. I think it is FAR below average. He's been paired with great artists but that's literally the only thing he's had going for him. I tried to like this run. I really did but issue one was terrible and it just never got better. He just kept writing terrible dialogue and missing or dropping plots left and right. I can't stand how inept and constantly depressed Batman has become. It is ridiculous.

Hell, he's had his back broken multiple times in this run and it NEVER has any sort of affect outside of the issue. In Knightfall he took about a year to recover. Here, he's good in the next panel. King is the, IMO, worst and most overrated writer at DC.

I wouldn't have a problem with him being depressed, personally. I have a problem with him not seeming to have any emotions but anger whatsoever, though. He's become a one dimensional cliche. Notice how Bruce Wayne almost doesn't exist in his comics, and Batman is always grumpy, rarely speaks anything, and there's no chemistry between him and any other character. Not the villains, not the allies, not his family and loved ones. This run feels so emotionless these days.

BvS sucks.

Also, Tom King is leaving Batman early to have more time to work on DC movies. Which shows how invested he is in this sprawling epic of his.

@YourGreenMuse finally someone who says BvS sucks lol felt like i was living on bizarro world for a second

What does him leaving Batman and going to movies have to do with this “sprawling epic” you speak of? He’s a shitty comic writer. Maybe he’ll do better at comics. Especially since he won’t be writing that alone. It still has nothing to do with them pulling him early. He wouldn’t or couldn’t align his story with what DC wanted so they pulled him. Pretty simple.

I mean mister miracle, vision, Omega men,and sherriff are all really well done. Grayson was good. Ppl seem to only remember heroes in crisis and Batman here lol... Of course I know ppl will respond rn with all of these are overrated. But you know there's something called opinions, and that's just one I have and I'm sure most people have cuz they're both highly rated on this site and on most sites.

Omega Men was complete shit. I tried Grayson but just couldn't get into it. Mister Miracle was just stupid. I never tried Vision but Sherriff was okay. Sherriff played to his strengths. It was a subject he actually understood and characters that he created. He does a really bad job of writing characters with previously established histories. He's just not a good writer. IMO

Tom King was "let go" after a reportedly good meeting with WB and AT&T. He wasn't let go. He's still going to get to tell his vision. Tom King pursued the movies and took a Batman/Catwoman miniseries to finish out his run to keep from overworking himself. I was saying that that shows how much he cares about his Batman run, that he accepts a truncated version in a B-title because he can make more money writing a movie. This was wholly his decision.

He got Batman/Catwoman because they threw him a bone. It was most definitely not “wholly his decision “. That’s a stupid statement to even make.

People liking Mister Miracle mostly has to do with the fact, that not many people have read The New Gods. If you have read all New Gods Comics you realize how awful Kings story was. He wrote Darkseid as a total idiot& The end made zero sense. How can people defend that? Kings dialogue is the worse I have ever read in a Comic.It sounds like a 4 year old has written it.

@Talon1load Tom King tells a different story in his interviews.

Lol. I’m sure he does.

So much misinformation. The only people who believe Tom King is fired are the ones who want to. It was revealed by several people at DC that something big is happening in 2021 (Jim Lee, Tom King, Bendis, Williamson have all mentioned it) and Tom says his Batman run was supposed to sync up with that at issue 100, but it was getting there too quickly. So DC and Tom had a mutual agreement to give him a monthly title since it would sync things up more and also give Tom more time with his movie work.

He got the mini because DC hopes Tom King Batman fans will follow them there and they also hope to sell just as many Batman comics as the bi-weekly format. So there are two monthly titles.

Sales dropped and more people criticized King, so DC pulled the plug. He got extra series with Bats and Catwoman afterwards, because it won't be risky to them. Its sales won't be comparable to regular series, otherwords Detective Comics would be a top seller every month. It's a safe choice for DC.

That was the speculation aka misinformation that spread from Comicsgate and other YouTubers who want that to be the case, but I am using interviews and not speculation. DC also would have known sales would pick up after City of Bane (and they have so far, #77 had a second printing before it even hit shelves)

There was an unconfirmed rumour that Bob Harras hates Tom King's run though. He is the top of the pecking order at DC if I understand their job titles correctly, which I don't since Dan and Jim seem to do his job for him.

if Tom King wanted to pursue a movie career you'd think that would have been announced BEFORE him getting let go from Batman. ...the Batman/Catwoman mini-series would have been announced simultaneously when it was said he was leaving the Batman title. ...he was fired due to dropping sales. DC comics is downsizing. they know they can't have this idiot writing what should be their best selling title anymore. they screwed up royally. now they have to fix the problem.

It is true they are downsizing, someone anonymous said to be surprised which contracts will expire the next time they run up. That pretty much to me sounds like it must be Tom King, Brian Bendis, or Scott Snyder.

I want King to be fired, but he wasn’t really fired. However I think DC might have realized that many hate his Batman run. A Catwoman/ Batman mini series doesn’t get so much attention like the Batman title. I wish a good writer takes over. Not someone worse than King.

Yeah, lots of people get pulled from the top title because they are doing a good job. Happens all the time. Completely logical.

@Darkseid24- I'm curious to see who you think would be a good writer to take over Batman. I personally have gotten so sick and tired of King, I'd be happy to see anyone take over.

Talon1load - exactly!

I don't think DC actually cares about the quality of the work. That's why they gave Bendis the Superman titles. Or why they drove Rucka away from Wonder Woman.

Nah, I'd like to believe they'll keep Snyder. His post New-52 Batman work has been really celebrated, and he's been consistently good. From Justice League, through Dark Nights Metal, to Last Knight on Earth, he seems to be doing great. I wonder, who could take over King, though... Him? Morrison? Murphy? Very maybe Priest?

I would like a Christopher Priest run on Batman, but like Tom King, I don't think his writing is for everyone. I think people would turn on his run pretty quickly.

Snyder has said he is done with Batman after Last Knight on Earth, but pretty sure there is already another Batman project of his that was previewed lol. I would like Tom Taylor or Jeff Lemire maybe. I don't even know what a Jeff Lemire Batman would be... but he killed it with Green Arrow starting with #17 of New 52.

@Br'er Lapin- A Jeff Lemire Batman would be awesome, especially if Sorrentino illustrates some issues. Tom Taylor certainly proved himself with that annual as well. I agree, Priest is not for everyone, myself included. I've tried reading his work, his style just doesn't click with me. I don't know about Snyder, he's more hit or miss for me, Morrison's always great, I'd love to see him return to the title. I think Murphy works best with out-of-continuity titles.

Tom Taylor would be my number 1 vote but I believe he already said he wasn't the next guy.

I only don't want Tom Taylor on the title because he's doing great stuff with Spider-Man atm and I'd rather not have that be cut short for Batman.

I do love his Spider-Man. I completely agree with you there. I would love for him to get a chance at Batman at some point though.

He would nail it, definitely.

I didn't think of Taylor or Lemire, but yeah, these would be great choices.

@Ohhaimark Doug Moench would be my first Choice, but I doubt DC brings him back, so Manning would be great or Tom Taylor ( but only if he doesnt kill anyone this time). Hopefully not Johns or Morrison.

i'd love to read more Morrison Batman. but he said after GL that he's done with Monthly comics. he'll probably stick with Graphic Novel format books like Arkham Asylum II that's supposed to come out one of these decades.

I think I'm going to miss reading these reviews when King's run is over. I was about to post something to the effect that it's impressive that so many people feel so passionately about the character that an average/flawed run can inspire such a strong negative reaction. But you pretty much said it for me.

@Kreniigh i think it's insane lol, similar to how people lost their minds over the last jedi. If it isn't amazing its awful, it's like a middle ground doesn't exist for popular properties

Neither Last Jedi nor King’s are middle ground though.

It's literally a matter of opinion. That's yours and you can think that, so it's ok, but don't say it like it's a fact lol

Get off your high horse. Did I say it was a fact? Any statement that I make, where I don’t clearly state something is a fact is by default my opinion.

that's pretty hysterical that you would compare Tom King's Batman to the Last Jedi. very very interesting. so does this mean that we'll see Batman milking a sea cow?

I meant figuratively about the reaction to it, not the plot. I'll try to be more specific and detailed, so you can understand next time I comment.

i meant it's interesting that you mention both subject matter. goes a long way in showing that you have very "unique" tastes in entertainment.

and i stand by my statement about Tom King having Bruce milking a sea cow. though with King, Bruce will probably end up milking Naked Bane.

Unique? I just like what I like. I've liked Star Wars for a long time and I've liked comics for a long time too. I imagine most of us on the site are like that too.

that's nice.