Batman #48 Preview / Discussion (Spoilers)

[Naked Bat]

If people want to buy a title they hate, more power to them. I, for one, still really love King's run. I can't wait for next issue. To each their own.

[JasonTodd428]

I don't care how much I love a character - if I don't like the writing, I stop buying.

I love Batman, and would love to be reading the main title but King's run has been absolutely deplorable and I can't support it.

If someone's reading it and actually loving it, great - more power to them. But hate reading a book because you feel a compulsion to keep buying is just silly. You've got to vote with your dollars and if you're paying for what you feel is junk month in and month out, you can't complain that garbage stays on the shelves.

I can see sticking things out through a so-so arc or an occasional dud issue but King's Batman has been the way it's been for awhile. Certainly long enough for anyone to decide whether or not they like what he's doing or not.

We don't agree on much but this is exactly what I was getting at and you said it much better than I. I broke the habit of continuing to buy crap books out of habit a while back and I'm much happier for it. A so-so arc or an occasional dud issue is one thing but frankly if I hate the writing or the art I'm usually done with the book period until a new creative team comes on. That's just how I roll.

[Rise]

I personally think King's run is decent and enjoyable enough to make me read it from time to time, but not enough to make me follow it every month.

[Scott Taylor]

King's Joker is almost as boring as Snyder's. God, why anyone lauds this is beyond me. It feels like it wasn't too long ago we had Morrison showing everyone just how electrifying the character of Joker can be. Unpredictable, unknowable, and mysteriously driven. You could truly see why he was Batman's greatest enemy.

In comparison, King's Joker just seems psychopathic for the sake of psychopathy. He just feels shallow. Like all he's done really is just pitch tantrums and kill people for little to no reason (because you know that's just, like, SO cuh-razy). He's not scary, he's not intriguing, he's not charming...he's just there because he's the Joker and he HAS to be there.

That's not even going into the terrible art on this issue, or complete nonsense like Batman having zero reaction to seeing Joker slaughter an innocent woman like right in front of him. He just barges in, throws a few punches and kicks, and bows out.

Well I welcome this more shallow and evil Joker as a change of pace. The problem with making Joker into such a big deal is that it gets boring and limits how you can use him. He becomes the Norman Osborn of the Batman franchise, where every single story just has to be even bigger and bigger and up the stakes higher and higher and .... zzzzzzzzz.

Using him like that as a status quo just won't hold because every time he is in a story, and inevitably gets beaten, it erodes the very status quo you are trying to present. After a while he just becomes a bad joke.

Morrison's run was great, and I'd argue that his approach elevated Joker, but that it was done in a sustainable way. Snyder elevated the Joker in an unsustainable way and this kind of approach that King is doing is balancing him out.

[Restingvoice]

The image of Joker and Batman praying made me laugh, but this issue's biggest problem is the padding. The whole thing can be condensed into one scene, with the rest of the book dedicated to Catwoman searching for Batman and Joker setting a trap for her. That's actually what I thought will happen but they spread one scene to fill an issue. This makes it feel like it's another filler.

I fully expect the next issue to be another long scene in the same setting, this time between Joker and Catwoman, to highlight the difference between Bat and Cat

[WhiteQueenEmmaFrost]

Why are Joker's speech bubbles wavy?

[dietrich]

I collect Batman, so I've bought it in the past when I didn't necessarily like it, I don't want a gap in my collection.

This. same with Tec

[Frontier]

Why are Joker's speech bubbles wavy?

It's been this way since Snyder started writing him.

I have no idea what it's supposed to be for.

[millernumber1]

Why are Joker's speech bubbles wavy?

It's been this way since Snyder started writing him.

I have no idea what it's supposed to be for.

1) Snyder and his letterer wanted Joker to be extra creepy, and the wavy speech bubbles and lettering style are meant to convey a really creepy voice pattern.

2) They've pulled it WAY back, thankfully, in King's run. It's still very distinct from "normal" speech bubbles, but I'm really glad to be done (at least here) with the "Snyder Joker font" (which we last saw in Metal, I think. Or did they use it in this weeks Justice League?)

[BatmanJones]

Just saying, redditors on the DC comics sub aren't unanimously in love with King either. Negative reviews have been outnumbering positive ones for a while in the weekly discussion thread. King's Batman is quite divisive among folks on comicbookroundup.com too.

I've never read comicbookroundup.com but I just visited it from reading your post. At the top of the home page Batman 48 is cited for having an aggregate review of 8.1/10 out of 26 reviews.

That's not very divisive. If one were only to read this forum one would be persuaded King's Batman is an utter disaster. Meanwhile 26 critics average an 8.1 review for the issue most here have utterly trashed.

This forum is highly unique that way. I don't read reddit because I'm not into obsessing over things I hate.

[TheCape]

It's been this way since Snyder started writing him.

I have no idea what it's supposed to be for.

Because CRAZYYYYY!!!!!!.

In case that you're wondering or it wasn't clear enougth to you before Snyder .

[CryNotWolf]

I don't read reddit because I'm not into obsessing over things I hate.

What does this even mean

[BatmanJones]

I've never read comicbookroundup.com but I just visited it from reading your post. At the top of the home page Batman 48 is cited for having an aggregate review of 8.1/10 out of 26 reviews.

That's not very divisive. If one were only to read this forum one would be persuaded King's Batman is an utter disaster. Meanwhile 26 critics average an 8.1 review for the issue most here have utterly trashed.

This forum is highly unique that way. I don't read reddit because I'm not into obsessing over things I hate.

The reader reviews are a little more divisive but still score it highly with an aggregate of 28 reviews averaging 7.8. And that's including a 1, a few 3's, and a few 4.5's that bring the score down dramatically. The clear majority of the reader reviews for this issue are between 8-10.

Here the aggregate would be more like 4/10 than 8/10. The site Ten_to_Three cited as proving what a divisive run it is proved the opposite.

[BatmanJones]

What does this even mean

I hardly ever go to reddit but when I have I've found it to be like reading the comments section of a newspaper. So many trolls. Maybe that's a false impression but that's the impression I've gotten from very limited reading of reddit posters.

As for not obsessing over things I hate, I just posted an article from Revenge of the Fans that is far more articulate than I can be about what I mean. I posted it in this very forum because this forum is what it made me think of--a place where people go to post about things they hate. Here it is again.

https://revengeofthefans.com/2018/06...andom-in-2018/

[Ten_to_Three]

I've never read comicbookroundup.com but I just visited it from reading your post. At the top of the home page Batman 48 is cited for having an aggregate review of 8.1/10 out of 26 reviews.

That's not very divisive. If one were only to read this forum one would be persuaded King's Batman is an utter disaster. Meanwhile 26 critics average an 8.1 review for the issue most here have utterly trashed.

This forum is highly unique that way. I don't read reddit because I'm not into obsessing over things I hate.

Given we were talking about fans' reception of King's Batman, when I mentioned Comicbook Round Up I meant the user ratings there, not critic ratings. The user rating of the current issue is 7.4, and that of the five issues before it were 6.2, 6.9, 7.4, 7.4, and 6.7. An average around 7 is pretty divisive IMO.