Batman #32 preview

[WontonGirl]

Other times Bruce was willingly to cross his no kill rule and had to be stopped, the first image was in his second year as Batman, just as in WJR

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And don't forget in HUSH he was going to kill the Joker and Gordon stopped him.

These heroes are not perfect. I just saw Wonder Woman this weekend because I got the Blu-ray and I see even she killed the wrong guy. Dude wasn't even Ares. SHE was convinced it was Ares and Steve tried to tell her, "maybe he's not Ares" but she went ahead with what she thought.

Same with Bruce. The worse thing Bruce feels he can do is cross that line and kill a rogue or innocent, whatever. Now Selina knows for herself from his lips that is his line and that is his ultimate heartbreak. She knows his deepest fear from his mouth.

All of these heroes have fears.

[Soubhagya]

Holy crap this was terrible. Tom King doesn't seem to give two shits about these characters. Everything felt forced and out of character. The whole "bat, cat" thing is really annoying. So according to King, Batman really is a killer at heart? Wow, how completely different from the rest of the characterization of Batman over the last few decades. Is title has been **** since King got on it and it is actually getting worse. I've held out hoping it would get better but I just can't anymore. I'm dropping this ****. Maybe I'll pick it back up after he's gone.

Batman is not a killer in heart. He simply could have been one if not for the Joker. The thing that Riddler did was really ghastly. He basically admitted that he killed Kiteman's son and waged this war simply to have fun. This game of Batman and his rogue's gallery amused him. It really pushed Batman over the edge. Out of anger Batman made a deliberate decision to kill Riddler. He never does this. He never will. But this was something pretty early in his career when he got carried away. He was saved by Joker. Had he killed Riddler he would have been the same as the villains he fights.

Joker laughed because he knew he saved Batman. Batman was effectively defeated. Maybe he laughed because he thought that one day he may finally win. Batman can kill after all.

Thus, Batman owes his life to the Joker. Had he killed Riddler that day, he would have destroyed everything about Batman.

He is not a killer at heart by any stretch. So many times in the following years he came close to killing someone but kept to his moral code. He could have killed countless times later. He is someone who could have been a killer early in his career. His career would have been ended had it not been for the Killer Clown.

[Godlike13]

Other times Bruce was willingly to cross his no kill rule and had to be stopped, the first image was in his second year as Batman, just as in WJR

And don't forget in HUSH he was going to kill the Joker and Gordon stopped him.

These heroes are not perfect. I just saw Wonder Woman this weekend because I got the Blu-ray and I see even she killed the wrong guy. Dude wasn't even Ares. SHE was convinced it was Ares and Steve tried to tell her, "maybe he's not Ares" but she went ahead with what she thought.

Same with Bruce. The worse thing Bruce feels he can do is cross that line and kill a rogue or innocent, whatever. Now Selina knows for herself from his lips that is his line and that is his ultimate heartbreak. She knows his deepest fear from his mouth.

All of these heroes have fears.

And of course Infinite Crisis.

[David Walton]

I really, really loved the big reveal. It was actually a surprise and it added a troubling moment to Batman's history that doesn't paint him in a bad light. It was wrong for him to attempt to kill the Riddler but you can totally understand why he reached that point.

And I appreciate the point King is trying to make. We don't get to choose the forces that shape us but we can make the best of them and move on.

[Aioros22]

Art overly posed and the dialogue...is something.

Not sure how to feel about the Riddler killing a child and create KiteMan so he could be defeated and be fun for the Joker to laugh. Where`s the style? The panance? Whatta Criminal mastermind.

[David Walton]

Art overly posed and the dialogue...is something.

Not sure how to feel about the Riddler killing a child and create KiteMan so he could be defeated and be fun for the Joker to laugh. Where`s the style? The panance? Whatta Criminal mastermind.

It's not about 'the style' in this particular instance, but cracking the Joker's melancholy like a riddle. The one unsolved riddle, as far as Nigma's concerned. He's bored.

I would like to see Batman best the Riddler on a purely intellectual level in a King story set in the present day. Batman got thoroughly played by Nigma in this story (which is understandable, given that it's year two) but it'd be nice to get an old fashioned story where Riddler just can't believe that Batman can take anything he throws at him.

[Frontier]

If nothing else, Batman, Joker, and Riddler beating the living tar out of each other was a pretty awesome fight sequence .

[protege]

This bothers me because it means that on same level, bruce is now beholden to the joker for preventing him from Killing the riddler. And the joker got his mojo back, becoming more of a psychpath than ever. I’m wondering how this affects batman’s dealings with them going forward.

[Jinjonator]

So I haven't read the rest of King's run on this, I just hopped on board with the beginning of Jokes and Riddles, and man... I did not like it at all. There was no reason it had to be an 8 issue long arc. So little actually happened, most of it was off-screen, and Batman was incredibly passive. Not to mention the incredible amount of filler (the 2 double spreads in a row for 2 tiny lines of dialogue in the first issue was one of the most incredible wastes of space I've ever seen; at least until this issue, which opened with page after page of nothing happening, literally). Even the "twist" didn't make this worth it to me. (Doesn't help that it was basically the same, except more meaningless, as that episode of Arrow this past season, where they spend the whole episode building up to some deep dark secret Olly didn't dare admit, only for it to turn out to be something incredibly trite and boring; the whole "person who tries to be good is actually kinda imperfect sometimes" thing isn't really shocking anymore, if it ever was)

[Wolfsbane]

I loved this arc. And I love King. I've enjoyed every single issue of his run. I'm so happy with the focus King is putting on Bruce and Selina. He's the only writer willing to evolve their relationship to something more than what it has been over the last 50 years.

[CryNotWolf]

I really, really loved the big reveal. It was actually a surprise and it added a troubling moment to Batman's history that doesn't paint him in a bad light. It was wrong for him to attempt to kill the Riddler but you can totally understand why he reached that point.

And I appreciate the point King is trying to make. We don't get to choose the forces that shape us but we can make the best of them and move on.

It totally put him in a bad light. He attempted to commit meditated murder. After clearly weighing his options, Bruce took a knife and attempted to shove it straight through Riddler's face. He was only stopped by the Joker who intervened, and Bruce has his murder-free record solely because of him. It beyond a shadow of a doubt proved that Bruce has a strong desire to kill that's at war with his desire to not be a killer. Not to mention it made Bruce look like he was just having a murderous revenge tantrum after being outwitted in every single capacity by Riddler, who even engineered Batman into LITERALLY WORKING FOR HIM.

It's not about 'the style' in this particular instance, but cracking the Joker's melancholy like a riddle. The one unsolved riddle, as far as Nigma's concerned. He's bored.

I would like to see Batman best the Riddler on a purely intellectual level in a King story set in the present day. Batman got thoroughly played by Nigma in this story (which is understandable, given that it's year two) but it'd be nice to get an old fashioned story where Riddler just can't believe that Batman can take anything he throws at him.

I don't buy the "Year Two" angle that people keep using as a crutch. In a vacuum? Sure. But in this story we know that Bruce had fought and developed practically his entire rogue's gallery already. We know he was hailed as the World's Great Detective, and that he was a member of the Justice League. We also know that he had already beaten Riddler and Joker so many times that they became disillusioned with the whole thing.

The whole situation was very very poorly built, IMO.

[Tazpocalapse]

I think this story arc really proved just how insane,destructive and murderous The Joker and Riddler are. Just think about how many people died because of these 2 pyschopaths? The worst part is that it was just a big game to these 2 evil bastards. As far as Batman trying to kill the Riddler i can understand it, after Riddler explained that he caused all this just to get a laugh out of the Joker i would have snapped too.

I think Bruce thought to himself that maybe it is time to put this lunatic down before he kills again. Only to be saved by the Joker. LOL. Of course the last thing the Joker wants is Batman to go to Arkham for killing the Riddler. The Joker would have no purpose then. Overall i enjoyed this story arc.

[Tuck]

Not to mention it made Bruce look like he was just having a murderous revenge tantrum after being outwitted in every single capacity by Riddler, who even engineered Batman into LITERALLY WORKING FOR HIM.

The Riddler murdered a child as part of a plan to intellectually stimulate himself. A person might almost have to be a psychopath not to consider killing him.

I get that maybe a Batman story shouldn't even create that situation for the character, but the level of casual mass murder the story already had (or frankly Batman's rogues have had in general since Flashpoint) skewed the world a long time ago.

I mean, we live in a world where WB allowed the release of an R-rated version of a Batman/Superman movie.

[CryNotWolf]

The Riddler murdered a child as part of a plan to intellectually stimulate himself. A person might almost have to be a psychopath not to consider killing him.

I get that maybe a Batman story shouldn't even create that situation for the character, but the level of casual mass murder the story already had (or frankly Batman's rogues have had in general since Flashpoint) skewed the world a long time ago.

I mean, we live in a world where WB allowed the release of an R-rated version of a Batman/Superman movie.

Plenty of Batman's villains have murdered children. The only difference in this case was the fact that it was Batman's interference that led to the kid being killed in the first place, since he was the one that forced Kite Man to get involved against his will. What this implies is that Bruce thinks its okay to murder, but will only be driven to when the perpetrator in question defeated him in some way. As if Bruce's hubris was Riddler's real victim.

Also your statement is exactly the line of thinking that leads to the idea that Bruce is morallyin the wrong for not just killing everyone who commits heinous acts.

[Tuck]

Also your statement is exactly the line of thinking that leads to the idea that Bruce is morallyin the wrong for not just killing everyone who commits heinous acts.

My views are far more nuanced than that. I'm staunchly against the death penalty. But the idea that any person is incapable of having even a flash of murderous thought is a dangerous lie.

Again, it was a choice to tell this story. And probably shouldn't be a mainstream, canon Batman story. But the story was out-of-bounds long before (and even without) Batman's stabbing attempt. The villainous war and its obscene body count has far less precedent in the books than Bruce having a weak moment.

EDIT: Oh, and the idea that not even having the fleeting thought of killing Riddler might be psychotic . . . I wasn't speaking from a utilitarian point of view of him being too dangerous to let live. I meant that not having that flash of anger might indicate a lack of empathy.