King Batman Run: Analysis and Enjoyment Thread

[gregpersons]

There's an interesting discussion about Bat/Cat (and how it's something of an expansion of Annual #2, which I'm thrilled about!), as well as insight into whether they are really married, and Thomas's motivation, in this podcast!

https://taylornetworkofpodcasts.com/...s-and-riddles/

Some thoughts from listening to this

—Who has the longest uninterrupted run on "Batman" as a writer? King's 85 wasn't uninterrupted, there was the Flash crossover but it had long stretches. Morrison or Moench or Snyder would be up there

—I don't know this show, I like the hosts but it's a little frustrating to not ask King more direct questions 20 minutes in. Maybe they get to that. And there's too much emphasis, even jokingly, on the negative reactions to his run without actually considering or responding to it. I guess whatever he says would be too likely to be taken out of context in the blog worlds. I think it's ridiculous, like the BatmanNews reviews especially, some of the over-the-top hate written about it. I'm curious to what degree King takes that in. Seems like he's aware but takes it in stride, which is the right approach.

—Interesting to consider "Batman" wasn't selling six figures until Hush

—I love how the discussion of what makes Batman great and talking about gadgets and comeback moments shifted to Robin being key to the relatability.

—This is long!

[millernumber1]

Some thoughts from listening to this

—Who has the longest uninterrupted run on "Batman" as a writer? King's 85 wasn't uninterrupted, there was the Flash crossover but it had long stretches. Morrison or Moench or Snyder would be up there

—I don't know this show, I like the hosts but it's a little frustrating to not ask King more direct questions 20 minutes in. Maybe they get to that. And there's too much emphasis, even jokingly, on the negative reactions to his run without actually considering or responding to it. I guess whatever he says would be too likely to be taken out of context in the blog worlds. I think it's ridiculous, like the BatmanNews reviews especially, some of the over-the-top hate written about it. I'm curious to what degree King takes that in. Seems like he's aware but takes it in stride, which is the right approach.

—Interesting to consider "Batman" wasn't selling six figures until Hush

—I love how the discussion of what makes Batman great and talking about gadgets and comeback moments shifted to Robin being key to the relatability.

—This is long!

Morrison, quite apart from the fact that he kept changing series, was constantly interrupted. Snyder had several issues of his run where he either only co-wrote it or there was like a Forever Evil or Villains Month or something issue. I think King's probably got the biggest chunks of issues. I don't know the Moench stuff well enough to say.

The show takes a bit of getting used to. I've been listening to their Tom King interviews for about 3 years now, and I really enjoy the rapport they have with him, since they're all friends IRL.

I'm not sure how much King should be expected to really deal with the over the top hate. I think he's done a good job dealing with the reasonable or even just unhappy fans on twitter. Though I know some people are really upset that he doesn't instantly agree with them and renounce his work or something.

It's funny - I actually own Hush now (thanks to the Walmart comics), but it doesn't come to my mind when I think of "things than changed Batman" - because it's such a weak story. But it did really kind of change the face of DC comics, especially since it convinced Didio of several important things - monthly comics are the heart of the industry (he says that right there in the intro to the trades), killing beloved characters is great (Harold!), making things all sexy and silly (Huntress) is the way to go, and a few other things.

If you want more gadgets, Tynion's got us covered! A new gadget every issue! (I'm actually excited - I loved the stuff he came up with in Tec).

[Inversed]

—Who has the longest uninterrupted run on "Batman" as a writer? King's 85 wasn't uninterrupted, there was the Flash crossover but it had long stretches. Morrison or Moench or Snyder would be up there

I think it depends on how you would classify the runs

For Snyder, if you were just looking at the main "Batman" book, it would be 52 issues between September 2011 to May 2016. However if you were to take all of his other follow-ups and connections (Detective Comics, All-Star Batman, Metal, The Batman Who Laughs, Last Knight On Earth, etc.) then it's November 2010 to December 2019.

In comparison for Morrison, just his "Batman" is just 25 issues between July 2006 to November 2008. But adding Batman & Robin, Return Of Bruce Wayne, and Batman Incorporated, then it's July 2006 to July 2013.

For Moench it's a bit more complicated, since he has his original Batman/Detective Comics run which was 41 issues between June 1983 to October 1986, then his core Batman run which was 80 issues from July 1992 to November 1998, and then had a couple follow-up minis between 1999 and 2001.

King is of course 85 issues between June 2016 to December 2019, and adding Bat/Cat will conclude it sometime in 2021.

So they're each contenders in various ways depending how you wanna look at them.

[gregpersons]

After finishing that pod (going to check out old episodes with more of his interviews) I decided to finally give Heroes In Crisis another chance, I'd only read the first issue, heard the mostly negative reactions and didn't bother.

It's great! Wally's motivations help to inform Flashpoint Batman's as well, the pain of having their families and histories wiped out by the multiverse crisises. It's a better companion to King's Batman run than Final Crisis was to Morrison's.

I loved Mark Waid's Wally and I thought this story was great for acknowledging the loss this character has been casually subjected to in order to push him aside in favor of propping up Barry. I loved the thing with the Robins and Batgirls comparing themselves to each other, each feeling like the odd man out except Damian, perfect.

I can see how reading Heroes in Crisis issue to issue would be annoying, it's not entirely perfect, but it reads great in trade and I feel like it's pretty underrated.

[gregpersons]

Morrison, quite apart from the fact that he kept changing series, was constantly interrupted. Snyder had several issues of his run where he either only co-wrote it or there was like a Forever Evil or Villains Month or something issue. I think King's probably got the biggest chunks of issues. I don't know the Moench stuff well enough to say.

Moench wrote the character for a long chunk but it was broken up. He was on 'Tec first, then Batman? Or vice versa. He was writing one or the other from right around Crisis up until No Man's Land. He wrote a number of pretty good Catwoman issues too, including "Heat" for the Legends of the Dark Knight anthology title.

I'm not sure how much King should be expected to really deal with the over the top hate. I think he's done a good job dealing with the reasonable or even just unhappy fans on twitter. Though I know some people are really upset that he doesn't instantly agree with them and renounce his work or something.

Absolutely. I felt like, I wanted the hosts to speak against it a bit more, in a way that he can't really as directly without being undiplomatic. But like, people have been misreading this run so badly (and Heroes in Crisis as I just discovered) and booing it so loudly, not dissimilar to the Star Wars thrashings, it's so immature and I just want someone to be like "Just because it's different from what you want it to be, doesn't mean it's poor quality."

If you want more gadgets, Tynion's got us covered! A new gadget every issue! (I'm actually excited - I loved the stuff he came up with in Tec).

Actually I dislike the gadgets, I much prefer King's approach to just the basic tools. I meant I liked how the podcast (very briefly) touched on the idea of Robin being the key to Batman's popularity and I think that's true, though they didn't get into it.

It's funny - I actually own Hush now (thanks to the Walmart comics), but it doesn't come to my mind when I think of "things than changed Batman" - because it's such a weak story. But it did really kind of change the face of DC comics, especially since it convinced Didio of several important things - monthly comics are the heart of the industry (he says that right there in the intro to the trades), killing beloved characters is great (Harold!), making things all sexy and silly (Huntress) is the way to go, and a few other things.

It took me a long time to appreciate Hush. I didn't love it when it was being released. Its popularity was a bit grating. But yeah -- it put the main "Batman" title on the map in a way that hadn't really been done except for "Knightfall." The crossovers following Knightfall tried to keep it up but it was "Hush" that led to the more concentrated high profile modern runs.

I like it as a great fun Intro To Batman and I like that it centers Catwoman in the story.

It just occurred to me that Loeb and King are actually pretty similar storytellers with how they pace their visuals, the repetition in the dialogue, emphasizing Catwoman... huh!

[Aahz]

Moench wrote the character for a long chunk but it was broken up. He was on 'Tec first, then Batman?

No he wrote both of them at the same time.Things were a little bit different at that time Batman and TEC were basically in a constant cross over during this time. A story arc would for example start in Batman issue, continue in the in the next issue of TEC, then continue in the next issue of Batman ...
They it was iirc done like this untill Batman #400, the final issue of the Post Crisis continuity.

Once they rebooted the Batman franchise they started to give TEC und Batman to different writers who would write their separate stories.

[millernumber1]

I think it depends on how you would classify the runs

For Snyder, if you were just looking at the main "Batman" book, it would be 52 issues between September 2011 to May 2016. However if you were to take all of his other follow-ups and connections (Detective Comics, All-Star Batman, Metal, The Batman Who Laughs, Last Knight On Earth, etc.) then it's November 2010 to December 2019.

In comparison for Morrison, just his "Batman" is just 25 issues between July 2006 to November 2008. But adding Batman & Robin, Return Of Bruce Wayne, and Batman Incorporated, then it's July 2006 to July 2013.

For Moench it's a bit more complicated, since he has his original Batman/Detective Comics run which was 41 issues between June 1983 to October 1986, then his core Batman run which was 80 issues from July 1992 to November 1998, and then had a couple follow-up minis between 1999 and 2001.

King is of course 85 issues between June 2016 to December 2019, and adding Bat/Cat will conclude it sometime in 2021.

So they're each contenders in various ways depending how you wanna look at them.

Except, as I said, Snyder had co-written issues in his n52 run where it was mainly written by someone else. Also, he didn't write #52 at all. There are pretty big gaps between his post-n52 series, and I don't really think Metal counts, though I understand the argument for it. I wouldn't count Heroes in Crisis for King, similarly.

If you're talking about "the period over which the writer defined Batman" - that gets even trickier - because Morrison's driving force ended when the n52 started, despite the fact that he had a full year of story left. Snyder, on the other hand, could be said to have driving at least half of Batman's energy, at least starting with Batman Who Laughs.

After finishing that pod (going to check out old episodes with more of his interviews) I decided to finally give Heroes In Crisis another chance, I'd only read the first issue, heard the mostly negative reactions and didn't bother.

It's great! Wally's motivations help to inform Flashpoint Batman's as well, the pain of having their families and histories wiped out by the multiverse crisises. It's a better companion to King's Batman run than Final Crisis was to Morrison's.

I loved Mark Waid's Wally and I thought this story was great for acknowledging the loss this character has been casually subjected to in order to push him aside in favor of propping up Barry. I loved the thing with the Robins and Batgirls comparing themselves to each other, each feeling like the odd man out except Damian, perfect.

I can see how reading Heroes in Crisis issue to issue would be annoying, it's not entirely perfect, but it reads great in trade and I feel like it's pretty underrated.

Hopefully we don't get a lot of flames based on this! I actually quite enjoy Heroes in Crisis, but at this point, given how poisonous it is to most conversation in the past year, I think King is right that major mistakes were made, mostly in picking Wally. I wish there was a way to read it without people being so angry, but after all, I still get quite heated when Batman: War Games comes up, so I completely understand why they do.

There were a few writing notes that I think King stumbled on, largely in Barbara Gordon's voice (I wrote a whole piece on it when issue #4 came out, I think), but as one of my podcast co-hosts pointed out to me, that's partly because Babs has suffered seriously from a lack of consistent voice since the n52 started.

Absolutely. I felt like, I wanted the hosts to speak against it a bit more, in a way that he can't really as directly without being undiplomatic. But like, people have been misreading this run so badly (and Heroes in Crisis as I just discovered) and booing it so loudly, not dissimilar to the Star Wars thrashings, it's so immature and I just want someone to be like "Just because it's different from what you want it to be, doesn't mean it's poor quality."

Actually I dislike the gadgets, I much prefer King's approach to just the basic tools. I meant I liked how the podcast (very briefly) touched on the idea of Robin being the key to Batman's popularity and I think that's true, though they didn't get into it.

It took me a long time to appreciate Hush. I didn't love it when it was being released. Its popularity was a bit grating. But yeah -- it put the main "Batman" title on the map in a way that hadn't really been done except for "Knightfall." The crossovers following Knightfall tried to keep it up but it was "Hush" that led to the more concentrated high profile modern runs.

I like it as a great fun Intro To Batman and I like that it centers Catwoman in the story.

It just occurred to me that Loeb and King are actually pretty similar storytellers with how they pace their visuals, the repetition in the dialogue, emphasizing Catwoman... huh!

I actually really appreciate that King doesn't get into back and forths with fans. I'm tired of the wars between creators and readers - I want to enjoy things, and if I don't, I'd rather seek out things I do than keep fighting about what I hate. Though I can sort of see the point of view that if someone's writing Batman (or Star Wars, or Justice League, or any other major title that sucks the air out of the room when discussion starts), you can't escape it, so if you hate it, there's no place you can go without being reminded. I don't agree with that point of view, but I can see why people hold it.

I think that gadgets have their thrill. So does a stripped down approach. But Robin, to me, is pretty essential. King is clearly of the O'Neil, Dixon school of thought that without Robin, Batman is just less heroic - and I think that's because Robin is essential to see two things about Batman. 1) Batman's inspirational quality. 2) Batman rebuilding the family he lost, that made him who he is. Both of these are why I think King's Tec 1000 story is so perfect.

I still don't really appreciate Hush, largely because of the factors I mentioned before about Didio, but also because...the plot at the end just doesn't make sense. Ah, well. I know people say that about King's plots, too, so maybe I just can't see it.

King doesn't fall into the Loeb trap of "arbitrarily split Bat/Cat up at the end," though.

[lilyrose]

King doesn't fall into the Loeb trap of "arbitrarily split Bat/Cat up at the end," though.

That's true and I appreciate that, but now it's up to other writers to decide to break them up or keep them together. Or ignore her entirely. I wonder what's going to happen with that. They would have at least been forced to deal with it if he had married them (he tried to marry them in spirit by having her put her ring back on and say we're "forever," but that's just so easy to undo/ignore).

It would have been funny if he had really gone all the way with the whole "we're married in our hearts" thing and had them do a full on ceremony with vows to each other, just not in front of a judge. Maybe that would have made it too obvious that DC wasn't allowing the legal marriage but he was trying to sidestep it as much as possible.

[millernumber1]

That's true and I appreciate that, but now it's up to other writers to decide to break them up or keep them together. Or ignore her entirely. I wonder what's going to happen with that. They would have at least been forced to deal with it if he had married them (he tried to marry them in spirit by having her put her ring back on and say we're "forever," but that's just so easy to undo/ignore).

It would have been funny if he had really gone all the way with the whole "we're married in our hearts" thing and had them do a full on ceremony with vows to each other, just not in front of a judge. Maybe that would have made it too obvious that DC wasn't allowing the legal marriage but he was trying to sidestep it as much as possible.

Well, to me, I think the fact that Tynion is clearly featuring them as being a romantic couple in his run is a good sign in that regards. It IS easy to ignore, but we're not starting out ignoring it, at least.

[lilyrose]

Well, to me, I think the fact that Tynion is clearly featuring them as being a romantic couple in his run is a good sign in that regards. It IS easy to ignore, but we're not starting out ignoring it, at least.

I really wonder if that was mandated by DC because of the Bat/Cat book. I'd love to know if that's the reason.

[millernumber1]

I really wonder if that was mandated by DC because of the Bat/Cat book. I'd love to know if that's the reason.

I mean, I think Tynion prefers an on-again/off-again, based on how he showran Batman Eternal, but I think he enjoys them together too. But I hope that DC is mandating them for at least the next five years.

[bob.schoonover]

I really wonder if that was mandated by DC because of the Bat/Cat book. I'd love to know if that's the reason.

If all the 5G rumors pan out, it'd seem silly not to keep Bat/Cat around in the short term. Let the fans be happy, make it seem like things will stick for awhile, and if DC feels like un-coupling them, just make that part of whatever undoes 5G, too (c.f. 52 and Superman/Lois).

[lilyrose]

If all the 5G rumors pan out, it'd seem silly not to keep Bat/Cat around in the short term. Let the fans be happy, make it seem like things will stick for awhile, and if DC feels like un-coupling them, just make that part of whatever undoes 5G, too (c.f. 52 and Superman/Lois).

Is the 5G rumor about Batman that Bruce is dead or retired? Because if retired, they could easily have him choose to retire to raise his daughter Helena. Fans would like that (well, not like it, because no one wants him gone, but I think they would accept that as a reason. And then when he eventually comes back, Helena could be old enough to be a new, girl Robin, little sister to Damian, etc. That would work perfectly).

[gregpersons]

That's true and I appreciate that, but now it's up to other writers to decide to break them up or keep them together. Or ignore her entirely. I wonder what's going to happen with that. They would have at least been forced to deal with it if he had married them (he tried to marry them in spirit by having her put her ring back on and say we're "forever," but that's just so easy to undo/ignore).

It would have been funny if he had really gone all the way with the whole "we're married in our hearts" thing and had them do a full on ceremony with vows to each other, just not in front of a judge. Maybe that would have made it too obvious that DC wasn't allowing the legal marriage but he was trying to sidestep it as much as possible.

One thing that I hope to see addressed in the Batman/Catwoman series is that a "we're married in our hearts" is still not actually a true, full commitment from Bruce. I understand King's POV on it -- his vow to Selina is as important to him as his vow to his parents -- but, to really demonstrate that he fully trusts Selina, I think it is important for the marriage to be binding in a more material way.

There's a really interesting angle to it, because Selina is... a thief. So, Bruce would be making himself incredibly vulnerable by trusting her completely by getting married legally, maybe even with no pre-nup. Does he trust her with half of his immense fortune? A full marriage partnership would mean fully sharing the assets. It would be interesting to see that explored on the page.

[gregpersons]

Hopefully we don't get a lot of flames based on this! I actually quite enjoy Heroes in Crisis, but at this point, given how poisonous it is to most conversation in the past year, I think King is right that major mistakes were made, mostly in picking Wally. I wish there was a way to read it without people being so angry, but after all, I still get quite heated when Batman: War Games comes up, so I completely understand why they do.

There were a few writing notes that I think King stumbled on, largely in Barbara Gordon's voice (I wrote a whole piece on it when issue #4 came out, I think), but as one of my podcast co-hosts pointed out to me, that's partly because Babs has suffered seriously from a lack of consistent voice since the n52 started.

I don't think HIC is perfect -- Babs voice being one of a number of flaws -- but I was just surprised how much I liked it and how much I thought it did work, especially with it being Wally. I sort of knew the twist going in and was expecting to dislike it.

But I felt like Wally was actually the perfect choice? I'm not sure any other character in that role would've been quite as effective. It both makes sense that it's Wally, and it hurts that it's Wally, because we love Wally, or the Wally we want him to be. It works because he's a beloved character. I don't think it's character assassination at all; it's acknowledges the character in a better, more human way than he's had in... who knows how long, idk. My reference for Wally is the Waid/Morrison era when Linda and the kids were what made Wally different from the other JLAers.

Whoever is in that role in the story is going to be the "wrong" choice because it hurts to see the hero screw up so horribly. That's the point. So if not Wally then I don't know who would be a better replacement. You could pick a Z-lister and the story would still work I think and it would definitely be less controversial but I dunno if it would be better.

Again, book isn't perfect. It is meandering and it is messy. The ending is frustratingly unsatisfying with Wally's vague punishment. The cover-up was convoluted to an absurd degree but never clicked motivationally. Didn't think he captured the voices for Batgirl and Harley Quinn, don't think the nursery rhymes worked here. Etc etc. Plenty to pick apart in a thread about picking it apart. But in a thread for analysing what I enjoyed about it, maybe I'm the only person who felt this way but I thought Wally was an inspired choice.

To tie it back to the Batman run, HIC does improve through context some of the weak points of the run -- The Gift, and Thomas's motivations.