Originally Posted by
millernumber1
I've been reading since 2004, and have done a lot of back-reading, though not much of the pre-Year One stuff.
The TL,DR version of why I love King's run:
For one of the first times since I started reading Batman, King has made me care about what Bruce wants. I care because it feels like he might end up in a different place than in Hush, or in Bruce Wayne, Murderer, or in Batman Inc, or the n52. All of which basically end by saying, "Batman cannot figure out how to balance a long term serious relationship with his mission."
And that does sound an awful lot like I just care about Bat/Cat. But if you look at Detective Comics #1000, "Batman's Greatest Case" - that, I think, is the mission statement for King's Batman. It's not all about Bat/Cat. It's about Batman finding a certain measure of contentment with the family he's found after his parents were taken away. It doesn't end with Batman alone - it ends with him saying, "Cheese."
And yes, it's kinda cheesy. And I would never argue that it's flawless. But Batman finding that contentment while still being able to be Batman is really exciting for me.
(There's also a lot about King's style - the setups and payoffs, the poetic style, the interpretive gaps - that appeal to me. But that's about all of his writing in general, not just Batman.)