Worst Part of 'War Games'?

[TheCape]

That the story exist in the first place.

[millernumber1]

War Games can work if you take it as a deconstruction of everything Batman is.

The whole situation would have been avoided if Batman wasn't such an a-hole to his supposed partners, including but not limited to Steph.

The whole situation would have been avoided if Batman wasn't so controlling (as evidenced by the existence of the plan).

The whole situation would have been avoided had Batman actually done his job of weakening the mob in Gotham. If the mob is still that powerful after 15 years of Batmanning then Batman should retire as a failure.

The whole situation would have been avoided if Batman had bothered to upgrade his cybersecurity after Ra's al Ghul pulled the exact same stunt as Steph in Tower of Babel.

As an exploration of why Batman is terrible at being a superhero and really has no business fighting crime in the first place War Games is magnificent. As a story whose intention was to show why Batman is right and how awesome he is it's a complete and utter failure.

Yeah. Batman isn't my favorite character, but I love him, and I think that's a big part of why I hate Batjerk. War Games's whole purpose, especially in conjuction with War Crimes, is that Batjerk is the best version of the character, and I HATE it.

That the story exist in the first place.

Haha, so well said.

[dancj]

You know, I put that bit in the OP about not everyone hating it because I knew there had to be some people who liked it, but I honestly didn't actual think there would be any within the relatively small sample size of this forum's users. The few I've met who defend the story tend be HUGE Steph haters. What's in it that you enjoy?

It's hard to say. I read through all three TPBs in one go. I think it could have been a bit painful reading it as it came out, but for me the story moved at a good pace and kept me interested.

[SicariiDC]

I felt it was pretty racist too iirc

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

I felt it was pretty racist too iirc

Out of curiosity, what about it struck you as being racist?

[MajorHoy]

I didn't like all the stuff with Steph, but I hated what they did to Leslie. At the time, I enjoyed that Catwoman series, where Leslie was a big part of her supporting cast. War Games put an end to that.

I haven't read "War Games", nor do I ever really plan to.

However, I did read the issues from Catwoman that were part of it in a Catwoman tpb collection, and those chapters weren't bad.

[millernumber1]

Out of curiosity, what about it struck you as being racist?

The accusation that it's racist usually centers around the death of Orpheus, I believe.

I haven't read "War Games", nor do I ever really plan to.

However, I did read the issues from Catwoman that were part of it in a Catwoman tpb collection, and those chapters weren't bad.

The Catwoman chapters did tend to be better. Unsurprising, since Brubaker was one of the stronger writers in the staff at the time.

[SicariiDC]

Out of curiosity, what about it struck you as being racist?

The depiction of the Hill characters

[MajorHoy]

Since we recently had the thread "CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME SPOILER'S "DEATH" DURING WAR GAMES?", this seemed like it might be an interesting thread to revive.

Note that the thread originally was started back in July of 2017.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

With 39 people having voted,

* The Sexualization of the Torture of Stephanie Brown = 6 votes
* The Character Assassination of Leslie Thompkins = 6 votes
* The Bait-and-Switch (Steph being planned to die from the start) = 6 votes
* The Torture and Death of Stephanie Brown = 5 votes
* The Aftermath (The splitting of the Batfam, the victim blaming, etc.) = 4 votes
* The Clear Malice this Story was Written with = 4 votes
* "Other" = 4 votes
* Most Characters Acting OOC for the Sake of the Plot = 3 votes
* The Throwaway Death of Orpheus = 1 vote

[godisawesome]

A weird thing about War Games, at least in hindsight, was how much it overshadowed the issues people had with stuff like Officer Down and Batman: Murderer, to an extent it arguably helped those stories come off better as time went on just because they didn’t seem as spiteful, contrived, or blatantly exploitive as War Games.

The sheer speed with which they decided to ditch and kill Orpheus is shocking. The patently manipulative set-up of Stephanie as a Robin just so she could be killed is shocking. The bitter spite towards Leslie Thompkins is shocking. The fact that pretty much no one in the main Batman family could claim a cool highlight from the event is shocking. The fact that so few people have anything good to say about it is shocking.

It’s like it was the nightmarishly perfect mix of a premise that wasn’t really worth a crossover and such wretched execution almost nobody finds it interesting.

[Timothy Hunter]

A weird thing about War Games, at least in hindsight, was how much it overshadowed the issues people had with stuff like Officer Down and Batman: Murderer, to an extent it arguably helped those stories come off better as time went on just because they didn’t seem as spiteful, contrived, or blatantly exploitive as War Games.

The sheer speed with which they decided to ditch and kill Orpheus is shocking. The patently manipulative set-up of Stephanie as a Robin just so she could be killed is shocking. The bitter spite towards Leslie Thompkins is shocking. The fact that pretty much no one in the main Batman family could claim a cool highlight from the event is shocking. The fact that so few people have anything good to say about it is shocking.

It’s like it was the nightmarishly perfect mix of a premise that wasn’t really worth a crossover and such wretched execution almost nobody finds it interesting.

Robin 129 where Tim Drake defends his High School from a gang war was incredible and easily the crown jewel issue of Bill Willingham's run on Robin.

That being said the death and resurrection of Stephanie Brown has to be the most ineptly handled editorial decision in DC's history, that or Cassandra Cain turning evil during One Year Later.

[Adset]

I wasn’t reading the Bat-books during War Games and I read it for the first time years later. After hearing how terrible it was I went in expecting the worst, but I actually didn’t hate it at all. I disagreed strongly with what they did with Leslie, but other than that I found it relatively non-offensive.

[Multiverse]

It shocks me how quickly they killed off Orpheus, he was a relatively new character and had an interesting backstory. And they just killed him outta left field.

[godisawesome]

It shocks me how quickly they killed off Orpheus, he was a relatively new character and had an interesting backstory. And they just killed him outta left field.

I’m a White guy, so any analysis I have of representation should be taken with a grain of salt, but damn, were they quick to kill off the first black Bat-family member.

It almost comes off like someone saw the Batfamily had a black member and immediately decided he should die to make Black Mask go big.

[Batman Begins 2005]

That the story exist in the first place.

Right answer.