you know, I really enjoy the run tom king has done on Batman but I hear its not to popular with a lot of people. just want some opinions. Do you like it, do you dislike it? I’m just curious to see what the populous thinks.
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Sales estimates of Diamond Distro put Batman at #5 and 6. Seems pretty popular to me. Now Batman generally sells well, but Kings numbers have been very good. I’ve loved his run, but thought his Batman has an induced nightmare has gone on too long.
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I have enjoyed his run. But it is very spotty. Many issues have felt like nothing moved, filler, duds. And then others have felt like brilliant examinations of the human condition. He’s an artist who is putting out content at a rapid clip. He’s going to hit and miss. But Bruce and Diana fighting off the horde happens, too. And Supes and Bats going on a double date happens, too.
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I gave up after The War of Jokes and Riddles. I can’t stand King’s style. It feels like he’s being deliberately obtuse to mask how thin his plots are.
I Am Gotham was a little overwrought and it was weird that the new characters didn’t really say anything about where their powers actually came from, but it was overall a passably average story and I’m sure King got around to filling in the backstory at some point.
I Am Suicide was really strange. First, if King was trying to make an actual point by the revelation that Bruce tried to commit suicide when he was a kid, it’s defeated by the fact that no one actually does anything with this information. It’s just kind of there. Second, there’s no real reason for Batman to be repeating the exact same awkwardly-phrased speech to Bane over and over again. Third, some of the layouts are really hard to read. Fourth, it seems to me they could’ve brought Gotham Girl to Santa Prisca and made some kind of deal with Bane to let Psycho-Pirate treat both of them. Fifth, Bane needing Psycho-Pirate to get over his Venom addiction throws out all of his prior development, but that’s to be expected since the modern timeline hates character development and aggressively reverts people to either their Silver Age status quo or at least the earliest one possible for any characters introduced thereafter.
I Am Bane sucked. First, King himself said Nightwing was a better fighter than Batman, and yet Bane takes out Dick, Jason, and Damian all at once but loses to Batman later. I know what the response to that is, and I’ll shoot it down when I get to the Bane vs. Batman fight. Second, why not have Superman put Bane in stasis instead of the Robins? Third, there’s no way the plot takes three entire days to play out. Fourth, Batman using the Arkham inmates as meat shields against an angry, homicidal psychopath seems out of character. Fifth, Bane seems to effortlessly steamroll the inmates for no clear reason. Sixth, yes, it’s supposed to parallel Bane using the Arkham inmates as a gauntlet for Batman, except it fails because Bane never displays the exhaustion that Batman was under in the original Knightfall arc, which makes Batman’s victory feel unearned. He just kind of decides he’s going to win and headbutts Bane.
The War of Jokes and Riddles was where I decided to give King one last chance, just because I like the Riddler. OK, so the Joker decides he doesn’t want to tell jokes or laugh (because those aren’t really necessary for a Joker story, are they?) and then decides he’s going to get into this big fight with the Riddler. The two of them, despite not being very popular among the Gotham rogues, somehow gather exactly half of Gotham’s underworld to each of them. Deathstroke and Deadshot have a dumb fight that Deathstroke somehow doesn’t win in under thirty seconds and none of it really amounts to anything. The Kite Man meme King started gets a melodramatic backstory that somehow leads to Batman trying to kill the Riddler even though he’s never resorted to that even after far greater transgressions by villains, and the Joker stops it and that’s the end. There are some good moments here (I actually loved the dinner scene) but the plot feels like it’s just trying to find forced ways of creating moments King wanted to have happened.
King really reminds me of Grant Morrison: Lots of flashy spectacle and some cool moments, but completely dysfunctional plots.
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@Batjamags That hurts. King is no Morrison. While Morrison’s plots are non-traditional and not always easily digested, they are far from dysfunctional.
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I don’t think King is dysfunctional but really found his footing when focusing on the Batman and Catwoman crossover!
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I mean Love story!
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I could not get into it. I bought the first vol. I AM GOTHAM but didn’t care for it and at the time had just got done buying vol. 1, 2, and 3 of the JL rebirth hoping it would get better and it didn’t so I took a brake.
I was talking to the guy at my new comic shop FANBOY COMICS in Wilmington N.C. whoop whoop. and he told me it doesn’t really pick up until issue 6 or so.
Would any of you agree to that?
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@fansumtheory.16165 I would say it never picks up at all. There are a few nice moments, but it’s mostly just robotic dialogue combined with a mediocre and slightly nonsensical plot with a clear build up to the obvious reveal that gasp Batman has emotions. Highlights include Batman trying to get a drunk judge from a Looney Tunes crossover to legally marry Batman and Catwoman (because apparently that works legally?) and a seven issue long dream sequence which is interrupted for a crossover with the Flash that ignores pretty much everything that Tom King actually wrote about a certain character. I really don’t like this run. You should still try to read it though because a lot of people do, so who knows? Maybe you will too.
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Thanks @Awesome_Squid
I totally get what you mean with the robotic dialogue. When I was reading it, it just didn’t sound like things batman would say. I cant quite put my finger on it, but it just didn’t feel like batman to me rather just someone in the bat suit.
I will def check it out though sense its on here now. Thanks DCU. I spend a fair amount of comics and really appreciate the chance to read some without worrying if it will be sunk cost.
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King’s Batman and his storytelling in general isn’t for everybody, which is fine, we don’t all have to drink the same cup of tea. I’ve personally loved everything I’ve read from him. His work is really divisive, you either love it or hate it. I like how cerebral his stories are and I think that might turn off people who are looking for more straight forward bang pow action stuff.
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@RagdollRebel I usually like Tom King’s stuff. Actually, I think his run on Batman is the only thing of his I’ve read that I didn’t like. The problem for me can’t entirely be his storytelling since I usually like it. I think my real problem with Tom King is how he writes dialogue for characters. Batman sounds overly robotic to me and all of the interactions feel off. I think the robotic dialogue is intentional though. I just can’t shake the feeling that Tom King is writing Batman like he wrote Booster Gold. How somebody who doesn’t know the history of the character might write him.
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I love it. It may be my favorite run of the past decade. It didn’t blow me away from the start, but it eventually hooked me. I can certainly pick nits, like the way he writes Booster Gold, but overall this is the most emotionally resonant Batman I’ve ever read.