I don't know what to make of Tom King's Batman just yet.

I loved the above few panels from Batman #2, which is written by Tom King, pencilled by David Finch and inked by Matt Banning and Danny Miki. Bruce Wayne excuses himself from a fundraising event in The Morrison Room of the mansion and walks to the secret entrance to the Batcave with partners Alfred Pennyworth and Duke Thomas a few steps behind him. When Wayne tells them that he's going to bring new Gotham-based superheroes Gotham and Gotham Girl with him to answer Commissioner James Gordon's Bat-signal summons, Thomas asks, "Do you trust them?"

Above you see Wayne's answer, and Alfred's response. It's a nice, sharply-scripted exchange showing essential elements of both Batman Bruce Wayne and Alfred's personalities, as well as their unique relationship, which is at once a father-son and boss-employee thing. They're technically partners, but their balance of power is like a see-saw, and obviously as the older one, Alfred was in charge for a long time, and now just seems resigned to Batman's child-like qualities.

He's also joking, of course, which is one of the cool things about a well-written Alfred; he's ability to constantly needle and deflate Batman in a way no other characters can. At least, not effectively.

So that scene was great. The rest of the book, I'm still not so sure about. I wrote about the first issue previously. The main plot, based on the attention given to them in the first two issues, revolve around the sudden appearance of two new super-powered superheroes with unimaginative names, characters who are essentially just one more analogue to Superman...and Supergirl. (The inclusion of Gotham Girl at least makes this slightly different than all those other comics where Superman-in-all-but-name show up.)

Gotham, the hero, wears a cape, he's super-strong, he flies and he has all sorts of vision powers. His female companion is a blond woman in a skirt, with all the same powers. They arrive at the same time that Batman begins contemplating his mortality and his legacy, and that a few, high-profile crimes are committed by a mysterious, behind-the-scenes player who will be familiar to fans of Batman comics, cartoons and even video games.

It all seems a little disconnected from what I've been reading in the other Batman books prior to the "Rebirth" brahnding of the DC Universe, although I did miss the last few issues of the previous volume of Batman, so it's quite possible these things were addressed satisfactorily and I just didn't catch them.

For example, while Batman: Rebirth #1 went to some lengths to explain how Bruce Wayne got his entire fortune back, how he reclaimed Wayne Manor and even that he had a new costume, I was and remain surprised to see Gordon is police commissioner again after the events of Batman Eternal and the "Superheavy" story arc of Batman. It's also weird to hear him cracking a joke about the new heroes' costumes.

"Is it really easier to fight crime with a mask on?" he asks, lighting his pipe. "I'd think it would itch." Well, having fought crime with a mask on as Batman, Gordon should know, shouldn't he? I suppose he's trying to keep that fact secret from Gotham and Gotham Girl, but it's a weird crack for a guy who spent so much time this past year being Batman. (Also, I was caught off guard with the pipe smoking. I thought New 52 Gordon smoked, then quite to be Batman, resorting on patches and stolen cigarettes. Odd to see him going back to a pipe now. Hell, he's only supposed to be like 40 or something now, right? Maybe he should be vaping.)

There's a weird scene previous to either of those in which Bruce Wayne, still wearing his costume, is standing in the Batcave, contemplating his mortality as Alfred comes down to urge him to get up to the fundraiser.

Says Batman:

I was dead. I knew the options. I knew there weren't any options. There's going to be others, Alfred. Other planes. Asteroids. Aliens.

I won't be able to stop them. I'll die. Then Dick will take my place.

Then he'll die.

I can't... There's nothing I can do.

This is a weird line of thinking coming from Batman. He explicitly mentions his protegee Dick Grayson, who filled in as him for Batman the time he died before the last time he died, but he's also trained or is currently training such partners and successors as Red Hood Jason Todd, Red Robin Tim Drake, Robin Damian Wayne, Batgirl Barbara Gordon, Bluebird Harper Row, Spoiler Stephanie Brown, Orphan Cassandra Cain and now Duke Thomas. That's a lot of young people able to defend the city from crashing airplanes and aliens in the future. And hell, the last time Batman died, none of them took over, but a completely different person without his sanction stood up and did a pretty good job of being Batman (That would be Gordon, as mentioned above).

And please correct me if I'm wrong, as things got a little wonky at the end there and, like I said, I missed a few pages, but I thought a large part of Scott Snyder's "Endgame" and "Superheavy" story arcs revolved around Bruce Wayne's attempts to build an immortal Batman, which involved backing-up his own brain and mind and storing it outside of his body and, I don't know, cloned bodies...?

I'm not sure where Taylor is going with this scene just yet, and how exactly Gotham and Gotham Girl will fit into it–presumably their being supermen is an attractive quality that Batman would like in a successor–but it feels like its coming a little too close on the heels of Snyder's last arcs that dealt so much with the idea of Batman as a legacy and an immortal idea that can exist outside of Bruce Wayne.

Finally, there's the reveal of the villain on the last page. I'm relieved it wasn't Rorschach or Ozymandius, as I initially feared, but I was surprised to see that particular villain, in that particular company, and involved in such particular acts, given the last time I saw him he was in Gotham Academy, where minor Batman villains fill-out the ranks of the school's faculty.

Bat-Pope Week: "Broken Nose"

Batman: Black & White was a really good idea. This four-issue 1996 miniseries was an anthology series featuring short Batman stories by a bunch of big names, all presented in—as the title says—black and white.

There were familiar Batman creators like Dennis O’Neil, Brian Stelfreeze, Matt Wagner, Chuck Dixon, Klaus Janson, Brian Bolland and Bruce Timm; there were big names not normally associated with Batman, like Walter Simonson, Richard Corben, Bill Sienkiewicz and Neil Gaiman; and there were “Holy fuck, they got this guy to do a Batman story?!” creators like, well, just Katsuhiro Otomo. Covers by Jim Lee, Frank Miller, Barry Windsor-Smith (!) and Alex freaking Toth (!!!).

It was apparently successful enough that DC continued soliciting Batman Black and White stories from creators, which they ran as back-ups in then-third monthly Batman: Gotham Knights.

Running from 2000-2006, Gotham Knights came out of the more structured, post-“No Man’s Land” Batman line. Each of the books took on a particular focus distinct from the others. Batman became the Batman-as-as-superhero book, Detective was the Batman-as-a-detective-and-crimefighter book, and Gotham Knights focused on Batman’s relationship with his “family” members, playing to writer Devin Grayson’s strength with characterization and interpersonal drama.

Gotham Knights was further distinguished by its eye-popping Brian Bolland covers, and the presence of the black and white back-ups, from such creators as Kyle Baker, Warren Ellis and Jim Lee, Dave Gibbons, Chaykin and Jordi Bernet, Grant and Enrique Breccia (which I really should have written about during Scarecrow Week, as Breccia does a mean Scarecrow), Mike Carlin and Dan DeCarlo, Paul Dini and Ronnie Del Carmen and so on. The original series and most of these back-ups can be found in the three volumes of trade collections DC has published.

Since this is Bat-Pope Week, then you know which one I’m going to talk about once I finally get to the point of this post, right? In Gotham Knights #3, Pope’s next Batman story appeared.

It was entitled “Broken Nose” and is about Batman getting his first broken nose.

What kind of foe could actually break the nose of one of the world’s top martial artists (and all-around badasses)?

Well it wasn't necessarily a better fighter; but it was a guy in a robot battle suit.

You don’t have to be that fast, strong or schooled in the fighting arts to break a man’s nose, provided your arm is encased in pounds and pounds of metal, after all.

The story opens with Alfred patching up Batman after round one with the guy in the robot suit, Alfred noting that it is Bruce Wayne’s first broken nose, which, for a vigilante hero is perhaps something like losing one’s virginity.

Batman isn’t amused.


Since it only hurts when he smiles,

Alfred advises Batman not to smile. That shouldn’t be too much trouble for Batman, the ever grim, ever dour hero who doesn’t even find Alfred’s dry wit the least bit amusing.

In fact, there’s only one thing that makes Batman smile, and t hat’s causing physical pain to criminals.

And that’s just what happens during round two, when he brings a can-opener into battle, gets in close enough to tear off the robot suit’s face plate and, ignoring his now vulnerable foe’s panicked surrender, proceeds to break his nose, and suffers the consequences.


Oh Baman, you lovable sadist you!

Why Alfred Pennyworth's awesome (in just one page)

In this single page we see that:

1.) Alfred shows deep understanding and subtly dispenses wise fatherly advice without ever sounding preachy.

2.) Alfred draws the Robin icon on Robin's brown bag lunch even though he was hand-delivering it and there was therefore no danger of Batman or one of the Teen Titans accidentally grabbing the wrong brown bag lunch.

3.) Alfred apparently has the same sneak-up-on-people-from-behind-and-scare-them ninja skills thateveryone else that lives in Wayne Manor has.