"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
The Road to NML has Cataclysm, not Contagion/Legacy. Those two stories are already completely collected in three thick tpbs and would be a lovely omnibus if you're listening, DC! You just have to concatenate them
Anyway, I think it's when, not if, on King omnis. Too many good artists, too much cache with King's name, plus their most popular character.
Blue text denotes sarcasm
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
Jumping though time was a bit off-putting at first, but overall this was very Tom King. I think this format just suites him better. Oh and Mann was on point with his Selina
But look at this joker!
We have never seen him look this dope, I wish we can see more of Joker like this instead of the gross rotting version we've been getting.
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I guess it all depends on what you’re reading. I didn’t read Joker War, or any of Snyder’s Justice League books, and I certainly didn’t read Three Jokers. The last Joker story I read (Harleen notwithstanding) was Best Man, so I don’t feel the fatigue at all.
On the topic of omnibus, I often wonder how and what they would collect. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a custom binding of the run myself and making a proper reading order has proven quite difficult. Do you include Night of the Monster Men? What about the Button? It’s hard to say no because there is so much build up to Monster Men in I Am Gotham that without you leave a lot of loose threads untied. And of course Button, despite being a DD Clock vehicle for Williamson is the catalyst for the later half of the run. I also think at minimum, the first arc of Catwoman should be collected with Cold Days and Knightmares for emotional context.
I wonder if there’s a way to build a omnibus by focusing on the good, like Catwoman, and trimming the fat that doesn’t work or gets forgotten about, like Duke and Claire, while still keeping things readable.
Those are incredibly pertinent questions! I agree about Monster Men (despite my dislike of that arc) and The Button - they are key for the run. I think the first issue of Catwoman, maybe, but it doesn't really feel very connected at all to me. I would personally ditch The Price like a hot potato. Though I actually could see the argument for including Heroes in Crisis.
That reminds me...I think King said that Claire was gonna be in Bat/Cat...
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
I feel like the Doomsday Clock really screwed up King's story, because it just left a dangling plot thread... dangling.
I think in any King Bat omni there should be like a 1 page coda at the end of City of Bane where Thomas came from.
Can you imagine if a new reader who has heard all of this acclaim about King's run picks it up and sees Bruce Wayne's father alive!?
This is probably my only gripe with King's Batman and it's not even King's fault - it is so frustrating because Bruce barely even addresses it and tries to explain it.
Ah, the world of superhero comics
Haven't read this as I REALLY didn't like Tom King's Batman. King's a very hit and miss writer. Heroes in Crisis was terrible. I still want this to be good though, least the art will be with Clay Mann on it. Want justice to be done for Andrea Beaumont. The Bat/Cat dialogues, ugh and double ugh. May try the first three issues and see from there.
Definitely a welcome revisit to King's Batverse. At first, it was difficult to follow the jumps but a second reading took care of that. I had no problem with it, its no different from the kinds of things Morrison would do, like introducing new characters or concepts and then not explaining them until much later. You had to reread his stuff as well. It makes for deeper more inter-connected storylines.
I'm on the bubble at re-visiting Phantasm. Mainly because I was hoping for more connection to what King did in the rest of his run and to see development of more of those elements here. But I shouldn't complain about it. Snyder essentially connected his "final Batman story" with his run and it was disastrous imho.
Mann's art - wow. Joker has never looked better. Did anyone else think Andrea looked exactly like Poison Ivy, though? Kind of miss seeing how he draws Harley, and wish she would show up just because Mann's depiction of her was so epic, but I am thinking we aren't seeing her in this one.
Every day is a gift, not a given right.
I guess for the crossover events whenever DC gets around to King's run they could always just pack in the full issues that King wrote and add new one-page summaries for what happened in the rest of the crossover. I think this is how the Grant Morrison omnibuses dealt with the Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul crossover.
I found Bat/Cat #1 itself to be a promising start, and I think anyone who enjoyed King's run will get something out of it. Do wish it was one of King's less cheesecakey frequent collaborators doing this (and the three timelines structure of the book was a perfect excuse to get multiple artists from King's Batman run on this book), but Mann's art does get the job done spectacularly.
If nothing else, I'm glad that Bat/Cat will give me a DC monthly book to read since DC cancelled Si Spurrier's Hellblazer and I'm tradewaiting everything else I'm interested in.
Last edited by Hilden B. Lade; 12-03-2020 at 01:11 PM.
I'm definitely looking forward to reading this. Does anyone have any recommendations as to reading this either monthly or waiting for the collected edition?
It's the Dynamic Duo! Batman and Robin!... and Red Robin and Red Hood and Nightwing and Batwoman and Batgirl and Orphan and Spoiler and Bluebird and Lark and Gotham Girl and Talon and Batwing and Huntress and Azreal and Flamebird and Batcow?
Since when could just anybody do what we trained to do? It makes it all dumb instead of special. Like it doesn't matter anymore.
-Dick Grayson (Batman Inc.)
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
That's the main thing tempting me to read it! For King's run I held out in chunks at first, then started reading monthly with 50. I much preferred the first half of his run, but I don't know how much of that was due to editorial interference and how much is it reading better in trade.
It's the Dynamic Duo! Batman and Robin!... and Red Robin and Red Hood and Nightwing and Batwoman and Batgirl and Orphan and Spoiler and Bluebird and Lark and Gotham Girl and Talon and Batwing and Huntress and Azreal and Flamebird and Batcow?
Since when could just anybody do what we trained to do? It makes it all dumb instead of special. Like it doesn't matter anymore.
-Dick Grayson (Batman Inc.)
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord