Batman #75 out this week

[K. Jones]

There could be some mind control since psycho pirate and Hugo Strange are working for Bane. Plus he might have a few Gotham officials in his pocket but the real reason is if the authorities get involved then we wouldn't have a story..

Psycho Pirate I think is a big enough deal, or can be made a big enough deal, to lend story logic consistency to the whole shebang. Bane got his hands on a Crisis-level player that can even keep like, Martian Manhunter in the dark. Obviously Bane is smart enough to know that he doesn't have the expertise to "use" Psycho Pirate, and that's where Hugo Strange comes into play.

[BatmanJones]

As someone who has only read about this issue, and isn't reading the title right now, why doesn't any police/military force attack? I understand Alfred is a hostage, but one life isn't worth a city taken over to any reasonable governmental body. Is there wide-scale mind-control involved - I know there are some power-player villains.

Because innocents would be harmed. It's in the issue.

There is also some mind control from Psycho Pirate. And a very superpowered Gotham Girl is on the lookout as well.

[Arsenal]

If the military was gonna get involved with Gotham, it would’ve happened a long time ago. At this point I doubt anybody notices the difference.

[Inversed]

As someone who has only read about this issue, and isn't reading the title right now, why doesn't any police/military force attack? I understand Alfred is a hostage, but one life isn't worth a city taken over to any reasonable governmental body. Is there wide-scale mind-control involved - I know there are some power-player villains.

The epilogue of the issue with Lex Luthor explains that Bane used his "offer" to get Lex to make his rule over Gotham essentially legal so that no other government or hero could come in and try and take him down. Lex also having control over the US government in general also helps to make this more reasonable.

[Restingvoice]

The epilogue of the issue with Lex Luthor explains that Bane used his "offer" to get Lex to make his rule over Gotham essentially legal so that no other government or hero could come in and try and take him down. Lex also having control over the US government in general also helps to make this more reasonable.

Oh. He did take over the government.

Hnng I got something to say about comics requiring you to read other comics but I've said that often enough.

They still can come in the illegal way, but that will be the next issues. This one's establishing the new order.

[agentofthebat]

Just picked this up this morning. Pumped!

[Korath]

So... I've been on a lot of discussions about Kinbg earning an Eisner award for his writing on reddit, and I think it's also relevant here when it comes to what he tried to do in issue 74 with the throwback to the Animals going to St-Petersburg :

I want to talk more about this story about Bruce and that book. It doesn't make him innocently naive and pure. It makes him at best highly unbalanced and in need of psychiatric help, at worst completely insane long before his parents died.

I get the idea that King wanted, but saying that Bruce refused to hear any other stories because he wanted to learn if someone got out of the pit, and that it yet gave him atrocious nightmares is not a hailmark of purety. It's sick, and something that need to be deal with, for the kid's safety.

Now, had he simply told that he got to sleep perfectly once he heard this story, but that each morning after he had had his father reads it to him, he asked him if the last of the animals had managed to get out, without fail, without taking no for an answer, and that it was just that the story was unfinished, not a sad tale, then the point would have been well conveyed.

But it wouldn't have been troubling and disturbing. So he didn't, in the same way that he had Gotham-Girl spewing butt jokes and raving while dealing with Grundy and Amygdala. Compare it to issue 6, where her pains is so raw, so deep it's hurting to just see her like that, that you can't help but want to help her, to tell her that she'll be okay again someday. And you see that either King's goal is not to make her sympathetic or that he failed abysmally in doing so.

Honestly, I find King's writing on Batman so bad that I'm relieved -relieved!- that none of the characters I care most in the Batfamily (Cassandra Cain, Duke Thomas, Damian) have much of a presence in his run. I even hope they won't appears in Batman until once he's left and that at least six months or a year has passed and that his influence on it will have dissipated or at least diminished enough for them to not be tainted and twisted by it.