King Batman Run: Analysis and Enjoyment Thread

[millernumber1]

I went back and read through the first 4 volumes to see if there was anything new I may have noticed now in hindsight.

I Am Gotham:
-I forgot that technically, this whole thing is Amanda Waller's fault. She gave the Psycho Pirate to Hugo Strange to "fix", and when he turns on her, she goes oh well, Batman'll fix my problem.
-While it does seem fairly disconnected from most of the other story arcs, I did recognize alot of the themes of fear being a major factor, and how your life choices directly impact your desired direction, which has lasted through pretty much the whole book.

Night Of The Monster Men:
-People have been bringing up naked Bane alot recently, but they seem to forget we got naked Hugo Strange in this, this goes much deeper than we thought : p
-While it is ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme of things, I'd say its at least somewhat important given it pays off all the Monster Men and Strange foreshadowing that takes up most of I Am Gotham

I Am Suicide:
-I like that Bane does seem very sincere in this story, I believe in this instance he genuinely just wants to use Psycho Pirate to remove his pain, and anything he does is just in retaliation to keep it that way.
-Oh hey Jane Doe aka Saturn Girl is in this, and she draws the Legion symbol. Completely missed that the first couple of times.
-Confession: First time I read the first letter I thought it was Bane writing to Bruce. I didn't realize until halfway through it was supposed to be Selina. I felt dumb.
-I'm curious if someone has taken both the letters in here and then the letters from #50 and dissected them side by side to find any other hidden meetings, I haven't really noticed any reading em separately besides the obvious ones.

Rooftops:
-Looking at this story in hindsight, especially after #66 (the Question Knightmares issue), I see it as another rebuff of Selina's feelings that she brings Batman down, when this shows not only how effective they are at crime fighting, but how effortlessly they do it too. Another theme relating to the fear that most of the time isn't there.

I Am Bane:
-I do think the scene where he's beating down all the inmates in Arkham does add credence to Bane not having this complete plan from the beginning. Beating Batman in this instance does seem much more in fulfilling a revenge rather than all according to plan.

The Button:
-Saturn Girl showing up here now makes more sense remembering she pops up in Suicide.
-Thomas here also does seem genuinely sincere about his feelings, which means any decisions leading to working with Bane must've come afterwards.

The War Of Jokes And Riddles:
-I still really love King's portrayal of the Joker, he's a much more "controlled" level of insane, and this unhappy version is really effective. Is whole life is death and chaos, and that's all just boring to him.
-I'm wondering if we're due for a repeat of Batman being pushed as far as Riddler did to him in this.
-Looking back on it, I see it as a reflection of the whole "Batman creates his villains" angle, in the sense of each of them needing a gimmick, and the lengths they will go in order to force that gimmick if they must. That's how the conflict starts, Riddler creating a riddle to force Joker to laugh, and that's how Kite Man is created, a gimmick for the sake of a gimmick.
-And that also shows what else drives Batman and Catwoman together, they have their gimmicks, but they see each other beyond that, they just "be" rather than force themselves to "be".

I did find it interesting overall that within the first year the book had a pretty good amount of references and interconnectedness with all the other Batman books (All-Star Batman, Detective Comics, Justice League), while in comparison the second and third years have been fairly self contained and not really mentioning other events, to the point where now currently all the Batman books are going in completely separate directions.

I also keep forgetting just how much I really enjoy this series, reading them all in one go does wonders to the pacing in comparison to following it along bi-weekly. Suicide and Bane especially I think are incredibly fun stories, and I know Jokes & Riddles is fairly controversial, but that one's still really effective in its execution for me.
(Also added thing, maybe its because Ive been reading some of Snyder's run recently as well, but David Finch's art kind of reminds me of Greg Capullo's a bit. That might also be why I really love it and Im still hoping he ends up coming back in some way to future issues)

Really interesting experiment, and great insights!

I have to admit, a lot of the reason I am on board the "Bane was planning this from before issue #1" train is because Batman just feels off to me in all three of the first issues. Maybe that was just me having difficulty with King's voice for a while, but I think King was deliberately writing Batman under extreme stress from Bane's plan already affecting him. But I can see the reason why others don't.

As Cass Cain said in Red Robin #25, "Naked villains. Different."

I really wish they hadn't done Night of the Monster Men as a crossover. I like the way it affects Detective Comics, but it really left Batman feeling kinda weird.

I agree that Thomas in The Button is probably speaking pre-contact with Bane, considering how it ends.

The chaos caused by editorial shifting massively after issue #24 really led to ripple effects, I think - plus Bendis coming in, and Snyder starting Justice League. King now has no real writers who work well with him alone, so I think that's why the Bat Books are all a mess.

Interesting comparison between Finch and Capullo - I saw Finch at Awesomecon, too, but didn't think to ask. I wouldn't be surprised if King persuades him to come back for at least some of the last arc. I hope a full issue, though, and not a pin up.

[Chubistian]

Batman #70 preview. A clear reference to Batman #19
https://www.comicsbeat.com/exclusive...ain-nightmare/

[Inversed]

Really interesting experiment, and great insights!

I have to admit, a lot of the reason I am on board the "Bane was planning this from before issue #1" train is because Batman just feels off to me in all three of the first issues. Maybe that was just me having difficulty with King's voice for a while, but I think King was deliberately writing Batman under extreme stress from Bane's plan already affecting him. But I can see the reason why others don't.

As Cass Cain said in Red Robin #25, "Naked villains. Different."

I really wish they hadn't done Night of the Monster Men as a crossover. I like the way it affects Detective Comics, but it really left Batman feeling kinda weird.

I agree that Thomas in The Button is probably speaking pre-contact with Bane, considering how it ends.

The chaos caused by editorial shifting massively after issue #24 really led to ripple effects, I think - plus Bendis coming in, and Snyder starting Justice League. King now has no real writers who work well with him alone, so I think that's why the Bat Books are all a mess.

Interesting comparison between Finch and Capullo - I saw Finch at Awesomecon, too, but didn't think to ask. I wouldn't be surprised if King persuades him to come back for at least some of the last arc. I hope a full issue, though, and not a pin up.

I do think that while he had an idea of his outline of the general story, it wasn't completely planned out right away, plus he was still getting used to everything, which is why I Am Gotham feels alot more rough around the edges in comparison to the rest of his work. I Am Suicide feels like the true start where he finds his voice.

Also I'm not sure how much of this is true, but apparently Geoff Johns did some ghost writing on most of the first Rebirth arcs so that might have also played into it, and I know Snyder co-wrote the Rebirth one-shot so he might have also been trying to transition between their two voices.

I will say that Bane was probably planning things since before #1, just not the plan we know of now. I think him and Strange's original plan was to create Gotham and Gotham Girl to give Batman hope of successors, then use Psycho Pirate to strip him away of that hope and take PP for himself to help cure. Its only after losing that fight in I Am Bane I believe he came up with the Breakup plan.

Ultimately continuity wise, its all about what works most for the story they're trying to tell. Like, Batman is over there doing the Levithian stuff, and over there in Justice League doing the cosmic stuff, and then dealing with Metal stuff in another corner, and then also completely defeated in City Of Bane, but then also having to have a writer force themselves to change things around for that can cause problems.

I think King has mentioned that Finch currently has no plans to do anymore arcs in the future, but he has teased him returning sometime in the future, I am hoping for it to be a full issue and not just a pinup like you mentioned.

Batman #70 preview. A clear reference to Batman #19
https://www.comicsbeat.com/exclusive...ain-nightmare/

So looks like they're doing that issue in reverse, with Maxie Zeus, Riddler, then Calendar Man. So will probably end up going montage of Copperhead, Hush, Dr. Phosporous, Mad Hatter, Zsaz, Man-Bat, Flamingo, Black Spider, and Firefly, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Amygala & Solomon Grundy, Two-Face, and then Bane with Maxie Zeus wrapping it up again.

[Pohzee]

Hm, with Bane deliberately ordering the villains in today’s issue to mirror their order in I Am Bane, it seems as though this part of his plan is more revenge motivated rather than part of a pro-active, pre-series plan.

We also learn the purpose of Janin’s Batfamily Spread. They will show up to get wiped out, as seems to be usual for this run.

[millernumber1]

Hm, with Bane deliberately ordering the villains in today’s issue to mirror their order in I Am Bane, it seems as though this part of his plan is more revenge motivated rather than part of a pro-active, pre-series plan.

We also learn the purpose of Janin’s Batfamily Spread. They will show up to get wiped out, as seems to be usual for this run.

There's definitely a sense that Bane is wavering between plan and hate here, and in the last issue.

My hope for next issue is that they don't get wiped out, but they do lose Batman, since we know that has to happe.

[Inversed]

There's definitely a sense that Bane is wavering between plan and hate here, and in the last issue.

My hope for next issue is that they don't get wiped out, but they do lose Batman, since we know that has to happe.

We know that Thomas ends up taking him out to the desert, along with a mysterious coffin, so I wonder if that big question will be who is in the coffin (or even if someone is in it)

[Chubistian]

I liked the reverse issue with Batman going against the same villains Bane faced previously. Both Fornes and Janin made an amazing work and I loved the overall aesthetic that was created, especially the Batman/Scarecrow scene and the end with Two Face and Batman walking away. My only problem is that the idea of Batman crossing the Asylum and fighting the inmates of the site is a common trope (Arkham Asylum Graphic Novel; Arkham Asylum Game; Death of the Family) and as much as it works in those other stories and also in this one, it will always read as something that I have already seen previously. Although I think both Snyder and King are pretty conscious of the similarities of theirs stories with Arkham Asylum by Morrison and McKean, and they pay an homage to that story knowing it will feel similar

[TheNewFiftyForum]

Two of my pet peeves turned up in #70:

*Batman beating up a large swath of his rogues gallery without breaking a sweat is a disservice to a group of rich, interesting characters and cheapen future conflicts with them.

*Lazy oversight regarding continuity. I get that it's not reasonable to discard a whole story because it doesn't 100% line up with the current continuity of every character in it, but how hard would it have been to switch Hush (last seen stranded in a different dimension) and Man-Bat (currently working for the damn JUSTICE LEAGUE) for other villains in their one-panel cameos?

[Chubistian]

Two of my pet peeves turned up in #70:

*Batman beating up a large swath of his rogues gallery without breaking a sweat is a disservice to a group of rich, interesting characters and cheapen future conflicts with them.

*Lazy oversight regarding continuity. I get that it's not reasonable to discard a whole story because it doesn't 100% line up with the current continuity of every character in it, but how hard would it have been to switch Hush (last seen stranded in a different dimension) and Man-Bat (currently working for the damn JUSTICE LEAGUE) for other villains in their one-panel cameos?

I didn't know that about Hush! Continuity is kinda weird in the Bat titles nowadays. In Tec #1002 Batman & Gordon were cool to each other while in the main Bat title they aren't on speaking terms. I don't give too much tought to continuity, but I get that it can be a problem to various readers, especially when it isn't a little detail but a big one, as Man-Bat's current affiliation not being respected. I don't have a problem with Batman defeating a large part of his rogues galleries depending on which villains appear. Given that they're not armed I get that he didn't have problems with Two-Face or Mad Hatter, to name a few, but Freeze doing nothing was odd

[millernumber1]

Two of my pet peeves turned up in #70:

*Batman beating up a large swath of his rogues gallery without breaking a sweat is a disservice to a group of rich, interesting characters and cheapen future conflicts with them.

*Lazy oversight regarding continuity. I get that it's not reasonable to discard a whole story because it doesn't 100% line up with the current continuity of every character in it, but how hard would it have been to switch Hush (last seen stranded in a different dimension) and Man-Bat (currently working for the damn JUSTICE LEAGUE) for other villains in their one-panel cameos?

I would agree that Hush is a problem, since he was stranded in a tie-in to the Batman title.

However, at this point, I don't really care what other titles are doing with the characters. It's clear to me that editorial has no idea who is supposed to be in Arkham right now (look at King, Robinson, Tomasi, Priest, and Snyder in terms of who is in Arkham during Batman, Detective, Deathstroke, and All-Star Batman) - so all I really care about is whether the run works with itself. And so far, I believe it generally does.

Would it be nice if DC would have a "show bible" and say "this is who is alive, this is who is dead, this is who loves each other, here is who is in Arkham and why"? Absolutely. However, they're not giving us that, and I don't really want to lose enjoyment of the individual runs because of it.

[Hilden B. Lade]

It's almost somewhat fitting in a twisted way that the events of Seeley's Wedding tie-ins, which were written by him without knowledge of what would actually happen in Batman #50, are subsequently ignored in the Batman book.

I guess maybe we can pretend that this happens before JL Dark for the Man-Bat issue, and that Hush found his way back into Batman's reality and got imprisoned again sometime offscreen.

[Chubistian]

Coming soon, Batman vs Bane

[TheNewFiftyForum]

It's almost somewhat fitting in a twisted way that the events of Seeley's Wedding tie-ins, which were written by him without knowledge of what would actually happen in Batman #50, are subsequently ignored in the Batman book.

I guess maybe we can pretend that this happens before JL Dark for the Man-Bat issue, and that Hush found his way back into Batman's reality and got imprisoned again sometime offscreen.

I'm headcanoning that the inconsistencies were all down to Batman still being affected by the fear gas and hallucinating.

[Katana500]

We know that Thomas ends up taking him out to the desert, along with a mysterious coffin, so I wonder if that big question will be who is in the coffin (or even if someone is in it)

I have a feeling either Bruce will be in the coffin or Thomas Wayne will have dug up his own body and put it in the coffin some reason.

[bob.schoonover]

I have a feeling either Bruce will be in the coffin or Thomas Wayne will have dug up his own body and put it in the coffin some reason.

Flashpoint Thomas Wayne wants Bruce to stop being Batman, so I'm guessing the body in the coffin is headed to a Lazarus Pit and will be someone that Thomas believes will help Bruce make that decision. Thomas or Martha Waybe are reasonable guesses, but I'm guessing it's Gotham - Thomas has figured out how to undo the Psycho Pirate's manipulations and the short-term nature of his powers.