The Gotham War: Batman vs. Catwoman Crossover

[Arsenal]

The name and premise don't really do nothing for me but it's (at least partially) by Zdarsky so I know I'll likely enjoy whatever it ends up being.

The thing I'm most interested in is the RedHood Mini attached to it. It's just so.... random that I'm hoping it'll lead to him getting a book of some sort at the end of it. (He won't but a man can dream)

[Godlike13]

It's how storytelling works, if the writer can't convince a reader to buy in and believe and care about what is going on then they have broken or in some cases entirely failed to even build a fantasy for the readers to get lost in.

And buying a book isn't the same as buying into a story.

You keep using these words like they all mean the same thing, but they don’t. A story wants to engage the reader, get them interested, get them to care about what’s going on, and accept to world they are selling. Absolutely. What they are not doing is trying to convince readers that what they are reading isn’t fantasy and have them disassociate between what is and isn’t real. Comics operates under the impression that its reader inherently knows the stories aren’t real. Too many explosions doesn’t break that. Your conflating readers not being interested with readers not understanding that these things they are reading aren’t real. These are not the same thing. Batman does not need readers to believe in him or his city to enjoy or care about his stories.

And buying a book is how the industry measures interest. The industry operates on getting readers to buy theses stories to buy into them. Events are a proven way to do that.

[Frontier]

The name and premise don't really do nothing for me but it's (at least partially) by Zdarsky so I know I'll likely enjoy whatever it ends up being.

The thing I'm most interested in is the RedHood Mini attached to it. It's just so.... random that I'm hoping it'll lead to him getting a book of some sort at the end of it. (He won't but a man can dream)

I'm more concerned about Howard's writing which I feel like the story will mostly be derived from.

[thwhtGuardian]

You keep using these words like they all mean the same thing, but they don’t. A story wants to engage the reader, get them interested, get them to care about what’s going on, and accept to world they are selling. Absolutely. What they are not doing is trying to convince readers that what they are reading isn’t fantasy and have them disassociate between what is and isn’t real. Comics operates under the impression that its reader inherently knows the stories aren’t real. Too many explosions doesn’t break that. Your conflating readers not being interested with readers not understanding that these things they are reading aren’t real. These are not the same thing. Batman does not need readers to believe in him or his city to enjoy or care about his stories.

And buying a book is how the industry measures interest. The industry operates on getting readers to buy theses stories to buy into them. Events are a proven way to do that.

I'm not the one confused here, fantasy doesn't mean ,"anything can happen and consequences don't matter." fantasy is the ability to craft a world with a sense of otherness and it's only successful if readers accept its rules and become attached to the world(buy in). If a writer does something that causes readers to stop becoming attached and to check out then they have broken that fantasy.
In this case regularly killing off large swaths of the city's population with an ever increasing frequency causes lots of readers to disconnect from the world and start questioning its internal consistency(why would anyone want to live in Gotham?).

And you can't waive that away with, "It's just fantasy! You can't apply the real world to it!" because for a writer to build a fantasy world it has to have some semblance to our own in order to have some suspension of disbelief. If elements resemble our world enough, and people behave as we would rationally expect them to in everyday situations then we can buy that there are aliens that can fly and be super strong and yet look like us, or that a slight gene mutation could give someone claws or laser eyes. But when people don't move away after repeated atrocities it stretches credulity because we know that when terrible disasters happen people don't tend to flock right back: New Orleans has only regained about 80% of it's pre-Katrina population, after a string of devastating tornadoes in the late 2000's the town of Cordova in Alabama decided to pack it in completely and is no more,Beichuan in China did the same after an earthquake killed 50,000 people, and after decades of rising crime and joblessness the population of Detroit is just half of what it was 30 years ago.

So we can accept Batman and his various enemies because they're the outliers and they're supposed to be super, but when normal expectations aren't met it breaks the fiction.

[MajorHoy]

. . . You might be tired of it as readers, but Gotham is existing how it was created to exist. Writers keep writing Gotham being blow up and it’s made up people being killed because generally readers tend to like reading about Gotham being blow up and it’s made up people being killed.

Somehow, I don't think Gotham City was created with exactly that in mind back in the early 1940s . . .

[charliehustle415]

man, I wish they did a story where Bats does an epic gauntlet.

I feel like I haven't seen The BATMAN run through fools in a while.

Make it a 12 issue arc and each month Batman takes on a major villain until reaching Darkseid of some ****.

I just read King's Superman and man that book was epic, I want something like that for Bruce.

I want a challenge for Bruce in my Batbook not, lately the challenge is how can we make Batman look ineffectual, make him look dope AF

[Godlike13]

I'm not the one confused here, fantasy doesn't mean ,"anything can happen and consequences don't matter." fantasy is the ability to craft a world with a sense of otherness and it's only successful if readers accept its rules and become attached to the world(buy in). If a writer does something that causes readers to stop becoming attached and to check out then they have broken that fantasy.
In this case regularly killing off large swaths of the city's population with an ever increasing frequency causes lots of readers to disconnect from the world and start questioning its internal consistency(why would anyone want to live in Gotham?).

And you can't waive that away with, "It's just fantasy! You can't apply the real world to it!" because for a writer to build a fantasy world it has to have some semblance to our own in order to have some suspension of disbelief. If elements resemble our world enough, and people behave as we would rationally expect them to in everyday situations then we can buy that there are aliens that can fly and be super strong and yet look like us, or that a slight gene mutation could give someone claws or laser eyes. But when people don't move away after repeated atrocities it stretches credulity because we know that when terrible disasters happen people don't tend to flock right back: New Orleans has only regained about 80% of it's pre-Katrina population, after a string of devastating tornadoes in the late 2000's the town of Cordova in Alabama decided to pack it in completely and is no more,Beichuan in China did the same after an earthquake killed 50,000 people, and after decades of rising crime and joblessness the population of Detroit is just half of what it was 30 years ago.

So we can accept Batman and his various enemies because they're the outliers and they're supposed to be super, but when normal expectations aren't met it breaks the fiction.

Fantasy does in fact mean anything can happen. A fantasy world might reflect the real world, it might even establish the illusion of rules it’s world follows, but those rule don’t overrule the inherent rules fantasy. If a writer does something that causes readers to stop becoming attached and to check out, that doesn’t mean they broke the fantasy, that just means they made the reader disinterested in the fantasy they are creating.

Regularly killing off Gothams citizens isn’t anymore fantasy breaking then Batman’s flying cars, and super kung fu, and ridiculous suit, etc. They can in fact just wave it away. Now would that be interesting, probably not, but they can and have done it. Why, because none of it is real. As a city Gotham needs people. It’s not a city with no population. So Gotham always has people. Just because a fantasy world might resemble our world, doesn’t mean it has to follow the rules of our world. The population of other cities in the real world do not matter. The point of Gotham is that it’s not real, it just looks like it, and therefore does not have to actually function like other real cities. Readers picking and choosing when it needs to and when it doesn’t, sorry but It doesn’t work that way.

What’s more, Batman’s done alright. This narrative that they have driven a lot of readers away, and broke the fantasy, by its constant and escalating crime, or it’s populations death toll, isn’t actually supported by any real metric. In fact, the opposite is more supported.

[TheKryptonMan]

If this is a War between Bruce & Selina , then bring Talia in to side with Bruce .
But really with Batman vs Robin , then Lazarus Planet , it's too soon to have any Event in Gotham again .

[Jackalope89]

I'll check the Jason tie-ins, but that's as far as I'll go.

[thwhtGuardian]

Fantasy does in fact mean anything can happen. A fantasy world might reflect the real world, it might even establish the illusion of rules it’s world follows, but those rule don’t overrule the inherent rules fantasy. If a writer does something that causes readers to stop becoming attached and to check out, that doesn’t mean they broke the fantasy, that just means they made the reader disinterested in the fantasy they are creating.

Regularly killing off Gothams citizens isn’t anymore fantasy breaking then Batman’s flying cars, and super kung fu, and ridiculous suit, etc. They can in fact just wave it away. Now would that be interesting, probably not, but they can and have done it. Why, because none of it is real. As a city Gotham needs people. It’s not a city with no population. So Gotham always has people. Just because a fantasy world might resemble our world, doesn’t mean it has to follow the rules of our world. The population of other cities in the real world do not matter. The point of Gotham is that it’s not real, it just looks like it, and therefore does not have to actually function like other real cities. Readers picking and choosing when it needs to and when it doesn’t, sorry but It doesn’t work that way.

What’s more, Batman’s done alright. This narrative that they have driven a lot of readers away, and broke the fantasy, by its constant and escalating crime, or it’s populations death toll, isn’t actually supported by any real metric. In fact, the opposite is more supported.

That's a description (and an apology) of bad writing, good writing will have internally consistent rules so no, not anything can happen. And in the world of DC superheros the everyday people act just like everyday people here do, so no it's not bad form to ask why normal people would continue to come to Gotham if the story doesn't explain why in a consistent manner. Some writers have tried to do just that, King's "I am Gotham" touched on it, and Mariko Tamaki talked about people coming to Gotham looking to be challenged in her run on Detective...but most times? No effort is given to why the city just seems to reset to normal after each destruction and that kind of laziness and lack of editorial control isn't great for the book.

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

Furthermore, the very premise of this "war" tries to address the rampant crime plaguing Gotham since the excuse for Bruce and Selina fighting each other is the clashing of their methods to deal with the criminals, and it is also why Jason is being dragged into this mess.

[Frontier]

Furthermore, the very premise of this "war" tries to address the rampant crime plaguing Gotham since the excuse for Bruce and Selina fighting each other is the clashing of their methods to deal with the criminals, and it is also why Jason is being dragged into this mess.

And we all know whoever wins nothing will actually change. Any more than trying to replace Arkham with Arkham Tower actually changed anything (hint hint, it didn't).

Remember when Mayor Nakano was a significant character? Feels like he's screwed up so badly he's basically become irrelevant again.

That's a description (and an apology) of bad writing, good writing will have internally consistent rules so no, not anything can happen. And in the world of DC superheros the everyday people act just like everyday people here do, so no it's not bad form to ask why normal people would continue to come to Gotham if the story doesn't explain why in a consistent manner. Some writers have tried to do just that, King's "I am Gotham" touched on it, and Mariko Tamaki talked about people coming to Gotham looking to be challenged in her run on Detective...but most times? No effort is given to why the city just seems to reset to normal after each destruction and that kind of laziness and lack of editorial control isn't great for the book.

That was also Snyder's take on why people stay in Gotham. It's basically a crucible.

Of course Snyder also really pushed the whole "massive city attack/war every few months" thing.

[Hulkout42]

Someone correct me if i'm wrong but, isn't this the third time that someone has gone to war over the control of Gotham? I mean it was first Bane then Joker right?

Also, why are CZ and TH ripping off a previous Marvel story line written by Slott? You know the one where Black Cat became a mob boss and pseudo evil but it was just plain ridiculous and awful no one in their right mind bought for a second? Or do they have Selina actually go and kill someone for crossing her? I mean if they won't let her and Bruce be together at least kill that ship off by making her actually do something he cannot forgive and we can all move one from it.

[Jackalope89]

Furthermore, the very premise of this "war" tries to address the rampant crime plaguing Gotham since the excuse for Bruce and Selina fighting each other is the clashing of their methods to deal with the criminals, and it is also why Jason is being dragged into this mess.

And Jason has sworn off killing about 5 times in the last 3 years because writers refuse to do anything else with him except to clash with Bruce over it, again and again.

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

At this point, having Jason actually agree with Bruce's methods and deciding to support him, not only would've shown Jason's growth as a character, but it also would've been a novel and interesting take, rather than just rehashing the same story for the nth time.