Mikel Janin's art gets drowned by bad plotting. Alfred's death has zero emotional impact because it happened two months ago and even before it happens we know it won't stick because of Doomsday Clock and the upcoming Crisis. Alfred deserves better. Murdering characters is Tom Kings "thing". But as with every storytelling tool it must be used sparingly or else it ends up being a joke. How many characters has Tom killed in the past 12 months? See the problem here? I'm a fan of Kings earliest work. This is just rushed garbage. He knows it. He's smart enough to understand how ridiculous it is to make Batman try to break a brick wall when there are windows he can escape. Yes. It is symbolic. But it's also bad, very bad.
This is the equivalent of killing a cute puppy to get an emotional response from readers. The art is the true power of the book. Mikel Janin and Jordie Bellaire are the true stars of this issue. Their art is solid 10. Unfortunately I can't cancel my Batman subscription but I have cancelled Batman/Catwoman. I hope King reads this and understands that I want to support him, he is a great writer but he needs to plot things better. And he definitely needs a better editor. Batman feels like a book with no editor. more