I created a thread about Dick Grayson/Nightwing and Koriand'r/Starfire. It is to acknowledge and honor their iconic and popular relationship.
I created a fan page about Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson. This page is for all the Spider-Marriage fans.
In terms of new characters, sure. But he dived deeper into the mentality of Bruce Wayne than Scott Snyder. Snyder's Batman was quite a 2 dimensional character.
And King asked a really interesting question, "can Batman be actually happy and still be Batman?" He really didn't stick the landing on that one. Issue 50 was the beginnijg of the downfall, although Cold Days was the story arc right after and it's one of the most interesting stories we've ever had.
But he did at least 2 interesting things with Joker, which seemed impossible after Snyder overused that character without ever doing anything interesting with him. Sad Joker was an interesting take, and so was the chapel mini story with Bat/ Cat/ Joker.
He did a pretty good story with the Riddler, which I would say wasn't as creative as Zero Year (the only Snyder batstory I liked) but was probably the most threatening thing anyone has done with Riddler. He made Kite-man into a pretty lovable character. He managed to use differing origin stories for Bat-Cat in a metatextual way that emboldened the relationship within the confines of the fictional reality.
I have a lot more stories to recomend from the King run than I do from the Snyder run.
I have to say, I'm enjoying his new characters. I stopped really following comics towards the end of Johns' Green Lantern run, but it was pictures I saw of Punchline that caught my eye last summer. The Punchline Special was the first single issue I've purchased since 2012/2013. It was the Zero Issue month where I fell off. I've since collected a bunch of old Batman and fam collections, digitally, and also gotten and read the Clownhunter Annual. I'm really digging both of them, and have been strongly considering jumping back into single issues starting in March. Probably some combination of Batman/The Joker/Robin/Urban Legends, maybe Nightwing.
After reading the Punchline Special, I also went and purchased Their Dark Designs, and am waiting for the Joker War Saga trade to come out in a few weeks. I'll admit Ghostmaker doesn't really do anything for me, and the trade with his intro arc isn't releasing until the summer, but I'm digging his other new characters.
I love that Clownhunter is a product of the ongoing supervillian/superhero struggles that have engulfed Gotham, and that he's trying to step up and take things into his own hand. And Punchline's whole persona and social media manipulations are fascinating and I'm excited to see where her stories go in The Joker's back-ups, and her confrontation with Bluebird.
Not sure how relevant this is to what you said but.
1. I like the character design for Mircle Molly... almost a tank girl feel. Plus I know a slew of babes in real life with this fashion sense. DC needs as many Harley Quinn or Punchline or Catwoman or whatever female lead characters as possible... woman are huge growing market in DC.
2. In the last 3 weeks a new employee started. He's 20. I'm 35.
We been chatting, we both read comic's, he's been exclusively Manga or independents... I'm mostly DC, some Marvel and independents... I'd never read Manga.
We agreed to begin book swapping... I gave him a few DC.
He lent me All You Need is Kill... first Manga book I ever read... realized 50 pages in this was the book that inspired Edge of Tomorrow with Cruise.
Long story short the Manga book was great and we are gonna regularly swap our collection...
Apparently it was his sister that got him into Manga books...
DC definitely needs to lure in young people to grow their comics fan base
Would also be wise for DC to do Manga art and story inspired works but with traditional DC heroes as a bridge.
3. Not surprisingly a slew of negative comments below yours... why so much hate for a new character? Her style is directly lifted from the younger generation... do people not connect with young people? Rave kids or festival goers? That's what Miracle Molly looks like anyhow.
As I've said I'm glad future state isint going to be the permanent thing it was going to be however I'm super bummed we aren't getting a new writer with infinite frontier. Like why keep tynion on the book? He was a stop gap, their dark designs, joker war and then future state was going to be the new paradigm. Once didio was fired and they wanted to at least make some money off what they already paid for why did they let tynion have the book for the foreseeable future?
It blows my mind that a company wide soft reboot is happening with tons of new creative teams and we are about to go down tynion road for the next three years. I'm pretty confident they could of got zdarsky to come over to do a batman run. Why not let Taylor due it, he's doing everything else. I'd actually be interested in where Williamson could of taken batman as well as a robin book. Man having Taylor and Williamson both write batman with Taylor on nightwing and Williamson on robin, that would of been cool.
Three years guys...Three years....
For when my rants on the forums just aren’t enough: https://thevindicativevordan.tumblr.com/
Batman has sold well for a while now. During the end of King's run it dropped, but King was unique case. I doubt that someone like Taylor would sell less than Tynion does now.
His formula works and sells, not much to it other than that. Probably would be the same if someone else was on, but Tynion was put on first. Not even sure DC expected he'd sell well since he was meant to be a transitional role until we got to the 5G stuff with Ridley. But he sold, which was more than enough to put him in a permanent role, since the most important thing is sales. It was really a stroke of luck more than anything.