BATMAN #126 exclusive preview page

[Matt Rat]

spoilers:

Welcome back Zur-En-Arrh

end of spoilers

[Restingvoice]

I read it more as Joker played with them and then got away without Bruce doing a damn thing to stop him.

Hell, Barbara was whooping Joker's behind in Batgirl until she was forced (primarily for story purposes?) to give in and surrender (I believe because Joker was supposedly holding her mother hostage?).

Babs was winning the chainsaw fight with Joker and was actually about to kill him (she's had enough) when her brother James Jr. knocked her out from behind, exchanging her for their mother's safety

[Felipe Silveira]

great action, really looking forward to what's to come

[thwhtGuardian]

I still hate the general idea of Bruce thinking he needs to isolate himself from his family, and the robot isn't very interesting...but Zur-En-Arrh? It got at least one more issue out of me.

[Mantis-Ray]

Reading this I'm kinda just waiting and seeing whats coming afterwards to truly form some thoughts.

Cause this is a very much a "Break em down" kind of arc where Bruce is utterly destroyed and that sets up the status quo for whatever Zdarsky has planned next.

I can't even really say anything about Failsafe cause he's just a really ultra powerful robot being pretty flat for the moment.

[thwhtGuardian]

Reading this I'm kinda just waiting and seeing whats coming afterwards to truly form some thoughts.

Cause this is a very much a "Break em down" kind of arc where Bruce is utterly destroyed and that sets up the status quo for whatever Zdarsky has planned next.

I can't even really say anything about Failsafe cause he's just a really ultra powerful robot being pretty flat for the moment.

That's why I just can't really get behind it because I'm just so damn tired of that story at this point.

He's a great writer, and the writing is at least competent here(which I can't say for some of the previous writers) but the direction is just not something that interests me.

We've done broken down Batman to death at this point. We've done Batman not trusting his family.

I want a well adjusted Batman who embraces his family again. Mark Waid gets it in Worlds Finest and I don't get why that isn't the default at this point.

[Triniking1234]

There are a lot of different reasons I've seen online. I don't agree with all of them, but the recurring ones I've seen are:

1) Zdarsky uses "solider" to refer to the members of the bat-family. Twitter didn't really appreciate Bruce calling some of his children his soldiers. May also be related to twitter's aversion to Frank Miller's Batman.

2) Bruce trying to push away the bat-family only for him to realise that he shouldn't is a story that has been done multiple times at this point. People are tired of repeating character arcs.

3) Bat/Cat fans are upset that King's marriage in Batman/Catwoman didn't stick, and that Selina is moving on with Valmont (she isn't, but the initial reaction and indignation has stuck).

4) Yet another run revolving around an OC character. Even if Failsafe turns out to be the best new bat-character in decades, we have such a glut and oversaturation that I don't think anyone would care.

5) Some feel that the bat-family will be "jobbing" a lot (Tim getting shot, Failsafe soloing the entire family) all for Bruce's development and eventual triumph (think Thomas Wayne).

1) I mean Zdarsky's Bruce is just being honest. He feels he treats the others like soldiers more than children. How does Clark treat Kara and Jon?

2) True

3) Which is DC's fault. The main books post-King treat Bat x Cat as separated. Now all of a sudden this mini-series is canon. Nah.

4) I think people need a break from random OCs after JT4's run.

5) True

[Mantis-Ray]

Really thinking about it, Failsafe is a pretty boring design.

I feel like we've reached critical mass on the tendency of the majority of Batman's new rogues being villainous copycat versions of him or these uber high-tech sleek slim stylish state of the art sci-fi guys which guys like Talon, Prime-Earth Owlman, the Colony from Tynion's DecTec run, Abyss, and every near every character Tynion created in his Bat run like Ghost-Maker, Punchline and Miracle Molly all arguably slot into some degree.

And so we just got a character whose design is basically he's a sleek slim Bat robot. Its pretty bland and lacking in personality.

Like Bane who is previously Batman's "Doomsday" has more generally creative design by comparison because he's not an evil Batman or an uber state of the art tech guy. He's just some big motherfucker in a sex black tank top and a luchadore mask. It lends him a more creative theme that aligns with the generally more wackier aesthetic of the classic Bat-rogues while the modern ones can be argued as trying to hard to look cool and falling into the trap of overfocusing on evil versions of the character.

[Drako]

The art was great and the action was cool.
But if this is supposed to be a message about how the "Batfamily" is detrimental to Batman, you already lost me. Also, why having them jobbing to the robot if Bruce already lost to him very easily?

And i don't see how the last page would help Bruce fight the robot, it's not like it changes his habilities.

[Vishop]

Felt like a bit of filler to me with batfamily fighting Fail Safe but it was a surprising to see Zur-En-Arrh even if its only literally connected to the word "Fail Safe". Will found out whats next to come.

[Triniking1234]

They had to add that Failsafe has Amazo tech to explain how they got their asses kicked so fast.

How old does Bruce think he is? He sounding like pre-Crisis Earth 2 Batman.

Nice to see Duke in two books in a day.

[Mantis-Ray]

They had to add that Failsafe has Amazo tech to explain how they got their asses kicked so fast.

How old does Bruce think he is? He sounding like pre-Crisis Earth 2 Batman.

Nice to see Duke in two books in a day.

How old is Bruce at this point?

Is incredible his body is still functioning after multiple lifetimes of punishment.

[Triniking1234]

How old is Bruce at this point?

Is incredible his body is still functioning after multiple lifetimes of punishment.

To be fair, Synder probably rebooted his body like 3 times from the books I've read.

[millernumber1]

The art was great and the action was cool.
But if this is supposed to be a message about how the "Batfamily" is detrimental to Batman, you already lost me. Also, why having them jobbing to the robot if Bruce already lost to him very easily?

And i don't see how the last page would help Bruce fight the robot, it's not like it changes his habilities.

I don't read it as Zdarsky saying the Batfamily are bad or detrimental at all. As someone who generally prefers the Batfamily to Bruce, I would be pretty turned off if I thought a writer was saying that at all.

The last page, to me, was Bruce doing investigation, because Failsafe seems to be something connected to his past, but he has no memory of it, so he feels someone may have been controlling him, so he wants to get to a part of his mind that is completely free from control to root out the problem in the past. I think it's kinda cool!

To be fair, Synder probably rebooted his body like 3 times from the books I've read.

Beat me to it! Snyder reset Bruce's body to that of a mid-late 20-year old with Superheavy. But it's not like any writer has really been hampered by previous writers putting Bruce through a meat grinder.

[Drako]

I don't read it as Zdarsky saying the Batfamily are bad or detrimental at all. As someone who generally prefers the Batfamily to Bruce, I would be pretty turned off if I thought a writer was saying that at all.

The last page, to me, was Bruce doing investigation, because Failsafe seems to be something connected to his past, but he has no memory of it, so he feels someone may have been controlling him, so he wants to get to a part of his mind that is completely free from control to root out the problem in the past. I think it's kinda cool!

The "i got soft and surrounded myself with kids" line makes me assume he is saying that he is not as good now cause he has the batfamily.
Let's see what he does with Zur-En-Arrh.