Batman #85 City of Bane Finale Reactions

What did y’all think of the ending to City of Bane? I really enjoyed. For those that haven’t read it yet, there will be spoilers in the comments so watch out.
It is sad there Alfred had to die to get to this point. It feels wrong that Thomas just basically gives up at the end after the lengths he went to.
I couldn’t really understand, do Bruce and Selina think that they are married now? Because it seems like it. Which I think is awesome, because now they get to explore an entirely new Batman story.
Overall though, I loved the story and the road to getting here. I can’t wait to see what happens next. That epilogue makes me excited, but it also feels like what just happened with Superman.
I am reading Nightwing at the same time, and it makes me wonder how Dick (Not Ric) would react to all that has happened while he has been gone.

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Good riddance to Tom King. His was the worst run of Batman ever. He made Batman weak, whiny, and useless. It’s embarrassing.

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I don’t think it’s weird that Thomas gave up in the end. His motivation was to save Bruce from being Batman, not to actually kill him or anything. He (falsely) assumed that Bruce became Batman because of his addiction to darkness, and, with that darkness, he will never be happy being Batman. Based on this assumption, he concluded that if he break Batman hard enough and show him a way out, he will be able to break that addiction, and Bruce will finally have a chance to be happy.

While in truth, Bruce chose to be Batman because of hope. He wants to become the beacon showing that there is hope even in the darkest moment. I think in the end, Thomas just realized that it is not possible to “break the bat” and make him give up being Batman.

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I don’t think King’s Batman is weak. It’s true that he was beaten and has his dark moments, but he refused to give up, again and again. That is anything but weakness.

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I think that puts you in the minority. He drove the comic sales down to less than half of what Batman usually does. Effeminate, weak, spineless, and overly dependant on his Catmommy to fight his battles for him. King was fired because he sucks. He ruined Miracle Man, Heroes in Crisis, and now Batman. And DC will have him (and Bendis) ruin all their top tier characters before long.

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King’s Batman is not for everyone, and it’s totally fine not to like it. But I wouldn’t say the people who like his run is in the minority. The review for his run is mixed at best.

BTW, he’s not fired. His run ends early only because DC has some plans on Batman that has to do with the big event in the coming year. He will finish his story in Batman/Catwoman.

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Mr. Miracle <> Miracle Man. Tom King has never written Miracle Man.

As to whether they are married - I thought the point was that the legality didn’t matter to them. Any ceremony would have been unorthodox to begin with, since Bruce Wayne could not marry Selina Kyle and preserve his secret. Both of them operate outside the law anyway, so formalizing things legally was not a priority. They’re together - that’s all that really matters to them. (And this way, future writers can interpret it however they like, without being trapped by a plot point.)

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King’s Batman has been my favorite Batman run. I love how he made Batman human, and made him suffer for 25 issues straight.

Also, and it’s also been pointed out, but King wasn’t fired. Not sure anyone would possibly say he ruined Mister Miracle considering it’s one of the year’s best books.

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I really did enjoy Tom King’s run. But sometimes it had its moments.

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I’ve enjoyed his run. He put bats through the ringer. He should he is just as human as anyone and not some invincible god. And in his darkest moment he still conquered it and rose to top. As this also proved that the bat can exist even if he is happy. And that’s awesome.

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Yeah, I was really happy when he decided that he could be happy and still be Batman. He has suffered enough and I think Alfred would still be happy with this turn of events. I really loved the gravestone though. That was nice, especially after he told Thomas he wasn’t his father.

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Thomas should have realized, the best way to end Batman is to kill the Joker.

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After all the stuff that happened to Batman in King’s run, I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better ending. With the exception that Alfred’s dead and Selina is his “wife”, King did manage to keep everything that happened in his run pretty contained, and it was nice to see things actually conclude in that way.

I wasn’t too crazy about the stuff with Wesker and Psycho Pirate, but I’m able to look past it. The fact that Bruce chose to be happy and be Batman does show growth on his part, though I really think this could have all been accomplished in like 20 issues, not 85.

The other thing that kinda bothered me was the structure of the issue. Flipping back and forth from the fight with Thomas, to the bar with Kite Man, to the rooftop with Catwoman, etc. really got annoying. And of course King has yet to win me over with his character dialogue, but I get that he’s trying to make a point with it (most of the time anyway).

So yeah, while I’d rate the whole run like a 4/10, this issue is probably 8/10.

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Great ending for a great run on the title. I hope the Alfred death and marriage to Selina sticks.

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I have intensely disliked this run and I am glad to leave it in the rear view mirror. I think this whole story could been told in 30-40 issues and I probably would have hated it less. From this 85 issue years in the making story, what is different? Alfred died. Batman and Catwoman are together. Gotham Girl has powers but the same terrible costume and name. That’s all I can come up with.

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I honestly loved this whole run. It did have a couple weird parts, but I enjoyed it all. To me it really got the center of what Bruce has become as Batman. He started off to avenge his parents, but now he has a whole extended family. Along the way he went from a child angry at the world, to a parent trying to be a beacon of hope for his children.

Seeing him fall that many times and still stand back up, to me, is the whole meaning of Batman. He is a human. He has no powers. But he still does what he needs to do.

That being said, I am not a big Catwoman fan. I am also a huge Alfred fan, so I had some losses in this series. I’m hoping Alfred returns at some point but not too quickly. This loss needs to be real.

I know this was a long run at 85 issues. But I think if it had been any faster we wouldn’t have gotten the depth of all of these emotions at the end. The panel of Alfred’s gravestone killed me, even though it has been months since he died. I don’t know if that and other little things would have been that effective with a smaller amount of time between them.

I did like tying it all together with Kite Man and Campbell at the end though. That was a nice touch.

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I liked the start of his run, but became irritated with King after Bruce was left at the altar. Alfred’s unceremonious murder thoroughly disgusted me, and they had better fix that with Flash_Forward. Batman has become a caricature of the hen-pecked “Yes Dear” husband - except he didn’t even get the requisite wife to be henpecked.

Jim Lee needs to either knock some sense into Didio or someone needs to tell Lee to stick to what he does best - penciling and inking great art.

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I have to agree with you. I think King has done some damage to the character that won’t be fixed any time soon. I loathed “Heroes in Crisis.” The bloodbath at its beginning was unnecessary and to bring Wally back, just to turn him into a glorious _sshole by having him cover up all those deaths that he caused, was the last straw. It will be a while before I buy a comic book that has the name “King” on it.

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Noticing a lot of the people who hated King’s run using words like ‘effeminate’ and ‘weak’ and ‘hen pecked’ to describe his take on Batman, which I think says more about the reader than the writer.

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Not really sure what you mean by that. Would you care to explain?