Batman #53 Preview

[Miles To Go]

I enjoyed it for being unexpected AND good.

It wasn't "unexpected", it was plastered all over solicitations for months, and it wasn't any good.

Bruce is acting incredibly childish over this whole break up. Selina's hurting too, but at least she's keeping mementos of how much Bruce meant to her (refusing to sell her engagement ring)

[Rakzo]

And this, THIS is how King decided to finish his story. As I said before, I liked the two previous chapters but I knew to keep my expectations low due to King's usual poor way to conclude stories and dear Lord, I'm glad I did.

You see, King uses this opportunity to talk about Bruce's faith, about how he stopped believing in the Christian God and started to put his faith in Batman and therefore himself instead which is fine enough. Such thought leads to the conversation that Batman could be considered God by many and thus most people believe he's perfect at judging others which at the end makes everyone realize that he's not infallible.

This is an acceptable direction... until you start thinking about it and as with most of King's ideas in this book, it gets worse and worse once that you do it.

First of all, do you see ANYONE starting a talk like that in a jury? Think about it, do you anybody starting to say that they believe in a cop, a judge or anybody in a higher position to be God? Most importantly, do you THINK that such conversation could lead to people actually believe in the innocense of a man due that the one who caught him might have made a mistake? I mean, yes, the law can make mistakes but one sure as hell don't come to that realization from such topic.

And this comes to my next point, King clearly just used this theme to talk about religion and Bruce's faith and is a pretty shallow execution because King ultimately didn't say anything about them. We all know that Bruce doesn't believe in God, that has been explored before and in more interesting ways and the take on religion is terribly forced into the plot since it tries to connect both topics in a really illogical manner.

Weeks' artwork is really good at least, solid expressions and storytelling.

Aside from that, good GOD. King never changes, instead of trying to deliver a satisfying conclusion, he wanted to go profound and more important than he actually is and for that reason the story just becomes pretentious and unfulfilling as hell. Just go.

[RepHope]

Fantastic art. I liked King deconstructing "Batgod" and exploring how Bruce views himself. However it makes zero freaking sense for the jury to say "not guilty". All Bruce did was wax on about hypotheticals and say that *maybe* Batman made a mistake. He offers zero proof that Batman *did* make a mistake. Freeze still violated his parole by getting all dressed up in his suit and arming his gun so he should still get shipped off to jail anyway. Would've been a stronger ending if the jury convicted Freeze anyway imo.

[PurpleGlovez]

I appreciate the sentiment behind returning to the "original" costume but this really takes a sledgehammer to any attempt at a coherent Batsuit chronology. King's run has gone all-in with Year One as the proper origin with shades of pre-Crisis and only vague concessions to Zero Year in War of Jokes and Riddles. Tynion's Detective run doubled down on Zero Year and the New 52 timeline at every turn, and there's a flashback in The First Victim to Batman's second night that shows him in the Zero Year costume. Dark Nights Metal: Batman Lost showed him in historically accurate garb during the Case of the Chemical Syndicate with purple gloves, no wrist gauntlets, and the stylized belt. If the Year One costume is the original then it eliminates all those as well as the few early variations prior to the traditional Batsuit becoming standard in Detective Comics #36 (and, ignores the capsule belt.)

All of this in addition to the fact that King's run has been wildly inconsistent with Batman's costume during flashbacks and usually just shows him in the Rebirth costume regardless of era. I'm not mad online™ about any of this, I just think it's worth noting. And I haven't even mentioned Doomsday Clock...

[Samson3191]

It wasn't "unexpected", it was plastered all over solicitations for months, and it wasn't any good.

Bruce is acting incredibly childish over this whole break up. Selina's hurting too, but at least she's keeping mementos of how much Bruce meant to her (refusing to sell her engagement ring)

-i don’t read solicits
-I’m saying the idea of exploring Bruce’s mental state through having him have to prove to
A group of people that Batman isn’t perfect was unexpected for me
-Selina isn’t hurting as much as Bruce because it was her decision to end the wedding, not his
-That’s why Bruce is acting the way he is. I WANT to see Bruce hurt and fail and be flawed after something like that. Not immediately act like he’s fine and handle it all perfectly. We know Bruce is a deeply troubled human in general. I think it makes sense.

IMO

[K. Jones]

This was okay. I mean the art was gorgeous but the story ended up sort of being all over the place, and the abstraction from the main story thread where it would jump around to Batman in different time periods, punching villains, whatever, akin to all the Catwoman flashbacks in Issue # 50, and I feel like it would be stronger (and more Gotham Centrally!) if the narrative itself was a little more straightforward. This arc's high concept had be just utterly floored and excited but this arc proves to be an off arc - and by that I mean that I've liked King's run "as a whole" a lot but I feel like every few issues or arcs I'm just like "yeah, not feeling that one". And while he's tied them together with sticky string and made them all count for something narratively, they don't all always feel like high points.

I thought the immediate pre-wedding stuff was high point stuff. Catwoman burgling a dress, Joker freaking out, and Tim Seeley's tie-ins, and the wedding itself. Even the Booster arc I liked quite a bit though it felt both a bit diversion-ish, and a bit ... you know ... "TO BE CONTINUED IN HEROES IN CRISIS!"

So yeah, not sure. I do definitely prefer seeing Bruce work personal crap out in a sort of procedural TV crime drama style setting with gorgeous noir art like this instead of you know, talking heading it about his feelings in stories where the characters just talk to each other about personal drama while cavalierly and carelessly just foiling some tired, low stakes villain plot. So "COLD DAYS" certainly gets a passing grade from me. But it's not my favorite thing ever.

[K. Jones]

This was okay. I mean the art was gorgeous but the story ended up sort of being all over the place, and the abstraction from the main story thread where it would jump around to Batman in different time periods, punching villains, whatever, akin to all the Catwoman flashbacks in Issue # 50, and I feel like it would be stronger (and more Gotham Centrally!) if the narrative itself was a little more straightforward. This arc's high concept had be just utterly floored and excited but this arc proves to be an off arc - and by that I mean that I've liked King's run "as a whole" a lot but I feel like every few issues or arcs I'm just like "yeah, not feeling that one". And while he's tied them together with sticky string and made them all count for something narratively, they don't all always feel like high points.

I thought the immediate pre-wedding stuff was high point stuff. Catwoman burgling a dress, Joker freaking out, and Tim Seeley's tie-ins, and the wedding itself. Even the Booster arc I liked quite a bit though it felt both a bit diversion-ish, and a bit ... you know ... "TO BE CONTINUED IN HEROES IN CRISIS!"

So yeah, not sure. I do definitely prefer seeing Bruce work personal crap out in a sort of procedural TV crime drama style setting with gorgeous noir art like this instead of you know, talking heading it about his feelings in stories where the characters just talk to each other about personal drama while cavalierly and carelessly just foiling some tired, low stakes villain plot. So "COLD DAYS" certainly gets a passing grade from me. But it's not my favorite thing ever.

[Aahz]

Who else thinks that Bruce and Dick will soon have some sort of falling out, and that afterwards we are getting again a looner batman who goes back to his roots, or something like that...

[Pohzee]

Ha! About the last way I expected this arc to end was for Bruce to start spewing about religion. Regardless, I just about everything about this arc: lower stakes storytelling, focus on Bruce, explores the detective/ legal side of Batman, Week's art... and the return of the Year One suit! Quoth the Kite-Man, "Hell yeah!"

[Chubistian]

I really liked this arc overall. My only "but" would be that the Mr Freeze case was sidelined too much. Maybe having Dick investigate while Bruce was making his case could've worked. Anyways, just a minor complaint, art was amazing, pencils and colors, the writing was top notch and it played well with the consequences of Catwoman's change of mind about the wedding.

[Scott Taylor]

It was a decent issue. For a courtroom drama. Kind of a silly way to address "Batgod," though, as it has never meant he was actually a "god." His whole argument is that Batman is human and makes mistakes. Duh!

But if this means he is wearing the shorts again, people mistrust him again, and he has to stay more hidden in his crime-fighting activities - bring it on!

[Nick Miller]

It was a decent issue. For a courtroom drama. Kind of a silly way to address "Batgod," though, as it has never meant he was actually a "god." His whole argument is that Batman is human and makes mistakes. Duh!

But if this means he is wearing the shorts again, people mistrust him again, and he has to stay more hidden in his crime-fighting activities - bring it on!

Agree with this.

I thought this issue was ok,

But man the way Bruce talks here, it’s so unnatural.

And to me King makes a very unsatisfactory read here, his Bruce just doesn’t sound like Bruce.

NOBODY talks like that. I, mean in real life we stammer, and hesitate, and um,,,,,, but I don’t want to read that. Unless it’s VERY good, And few writers make it work

[theoneandonly]

I wonder how Bruce will. deal with a situation where the only way to save a innocent person from being proven guilty is revealing himself as Batman. there was such a arc in Batman adventures but it's not a true arc. Anyway I think king wanted to let both sides Bruce and Batman delineate themselves from each other while depicting how Bruce views "batgod" as not only a healing balm for him but as saviour to him but his Bruce side has time and again got to go through the tribulations of job for the "batgod" and ultimately made him suffering as much as it made him believe salvation is possible or at least it was what I made of the tripe.

[FBarnhill]

We all knew, or at least assumed, Batman’s an atheist. I just don’t like how they’re not exploring his Jewish ancestry. He’s Kate Kane’s first cousin, and since she's Jewish, that would mean Bruce's mother Martha Kane was Jewish, and since Jewish ethnicity is matrilineal, that would make Bruce Jewish.

[millernumber1]

I still think that Bruce isn't saying he's an atheist (there is no God), but that he's agnostic (he doesn't believe in God).