War Games

[Captain Jim]

I actually liked War Games. I thought it was an interesting story despite it being full of off characterizations.

I agree. At the time it was coming out, I found the storyline riveting and couldn't wait to read the next installment the following week.

It was far from perfect. I agree that both Stephanie and Leslie were depicted way out of character. And Black Mask's graphic torture of Stephanie was way over the top. I don't excuse these for a moment. But none of this was enough to make me dislike or dismiss the entire storyline out of hand, as so many do.

[shark]

I agree. At the time it was coming out, I found the storyline riveting and couldn't wait to read the next installment the following week.

It was far from perfect. I agree that both Stephanie and Leslie were depicted way out of character. And Black Mask's graphic torture of Stephanie was way over the top. I don't excuse these for a moment. But none of this was enough to make me dislike or dismiss the entire storyline out of hand, as so many do.

I thought the plot sucked. And it wasn't just Stephanie and Leslie. Batman was both an idiot and a douche in this.

[Jono11]

The failing of War Drums/War Games/War Crimes is that it was in continuity. The story itself is fine in a vacuum, and pretty gripping. But yes, there are some off characterizations, and more problematic, the effects on continuity going forward were beyond dumb. There was obviously a mandate from above to thin out the Bat-cast, so we lost several interesting elements, on all sides of the law. We got the stupid retro idea of the cops not working with Batman anymore. We got Black Mask set up as the boss of Gotham, which was almost certainly to set up what eventually happened in Catwoman, even though that very thing was supposed to have already happened in Catwoman when Brubaker was writing it, so we could see Selina having a nervous breakdown about killing a guy she had previously believed she had already killed, and had never so much as batted an eye about it. We eventually got Leslie booted out of the supporting cast. And didn't Oracle and the Birds have to move to Metropolis for awhile? But bar none, the worst impact the story had on the Bat-books going forward? It interrupted David Lapham's amazing run on Detective Comics for two months so we could get a hackneyed, unnecessary retcon written by the most overrated writer in mainstream comic books. Un. For. Givable.

Even the underlying premise was extremely poorly thought out. How was Joe Chill supposed to control all the gangs? Why does his absence result the war getting out of control? Wouldn't a "controlled" gang war that was apparently the original plan still involve lots of people dying?

It was Matches, not Chill, and the idea was that it was an absolute last resort.

[Blue_Beetle]

When did Selina kill Black Mask?

[Jono11]

When did Selina kill Black Mask?

Aside from the time everyone always talks about? At the end of Relentless. She basically sent him off the top of a building. I know it's comics, but still, she had every reason to believe she'd killed him. Didn't give it a second thought.

[E.L. Berquist]

Stephanie Brow was an awful Robin but besides that, yep this is what pissed me off the most, after War Games/Crimes it looked like DC were really going to push Roman Sionis/Black Mask as being a serious heavy hitter in the Gotham Underworld as the undisputed "boss of bosses" and then... they had him killed by Catwoman.

Now we got a wuss like Jeremiah Arkham wearing the mask... As far as I'm concerned Black Mask is still dead.

I come from the same school of thought that Gail Simone does. There is no such thing as bad character. It's the writers job to make them good characters. The problem with Stephanie Brown and to the same extend Jason Todd's time as Robin, is that the writers either didn't understand these characters and write them badly as a result.

[ArnoldoAAD]

It was Matches, not Chill, and the idea was that it was an absolute last resort.

it plot is a mess fair and simple
it goes like this
Batman makes an strategic plan in which Malone take over all the the gangs of gotham, ergo controlling all major crimes which would end up being the ultimate win of batman
but it would provoke a lot of deaths so it was never meant to be implemented

this is the the first flaw of the plot, if Batman had all this plans to eradicate crime, some which were only meant as an exercise why wouldnt he had implemented one or several which didnt involved death, and if the plan was just an exercise then why did he kept it in the batcomputer under "final plans"

Stephanie is sad cause she got fired from being robin so she enters the cave, steal the plan and implements it but the plan fails cause Malone is not there
but the first step was to call all the gang lords and ALL OF THEM COME, except Malone, but Malone was never a gang Lord, and if everything came down to malone why didnt she contact him before implementing the plan since he was the most important part of it and how is that she manage to contact all the other gang lords in the first place

then the guys randomly kill each other cause the plot says so and Steph realizes that she really **cked everything up and DOESNT TELL ANYONE
at least until the very end, then she is told to not do anything and she doesnt listen, and she pretty much does nothing important other than telling Black Mask that Orpheus was Batman´s guy and then she dies

I think the biggest Fail is that we dont get a clear view of how the plan was suppose to work so that we can understand how is that Steph planned it to make it work and how is that it didnt work

Basically what we get is that the plan didnt work cause Steph didnt knew that Malone was Batman but it just drops everything under her responsibility

I read somewhere, probably an interview, that the writers/editors/whatever planed War Games to have the death of Spoiler as one of its big events very early on, so they delivery make her Robin with this in mind so that it would have a bigger impact for the story
the problem with that is that she wasnt Robin in any of the chps of War Games, and every single bad thing that happens on War Games is completely her fault, like if the plot was telling that her death was deserved and her part as Robin is completely pointless

and Orpheus, he is just forgotten, he was the first black character to work with Batman(not counting Lucius Fox) and he gets kill, and no one cares

this story was just the perfect example of what NOT to do with Batman or a Batman event
and im happy really DCNu retconned it, though it doesnt really matter cause DC pretty much retconned everything about it after just some years

[dancj]

And don't forget about the gratituous and sexualized torture of a teenage girl.

It was an important plot point - and so by definition not gratuitous.

It's been a while since I read it, but I don't remember it being sexualised either.

[Jared]

It was Matches, not Chill, and the idea was that it was an absolute last resort.

Matches, right. Was he ever a big-time criminal before? I thought he was pretty low-level, since Batman can't play him all that often.

[Jono11]

Batman makes an strategic plan in which Malone take over all the the gangs of gotham, ergo controlling all major crimes which would end up being the ultimate win of batman
but it would provoke a lot of deaths so it was never meant to be implemented

this is the the first flaw of the plot, if Batman had all this plans to eradicate crime, some which were only meant as an exercise why wouldnt he had implemented one or several which didnt involved death, and if the plan was just an exercise then why did he kept it in the batcomputer under "final plans"

Batman, for a good twenty years, has evolved into a character who is so determined to be prepared for all eventualities that he makes contingencies even for the unthinkable, for situations he can't even predict, even plans he cannot imagine himself carrying out.

Stephanie is sad cause she got fired from being robin so she enters the cave, steal the plan and implements it but the plan fails cause Malone is not there
but the first step was to call all the gang lords and ALL OF THEM COME, except Malone, but Malone was never a gang Lord, and if everything came down to malone why didnt she contact him before implementing the plan since he was the most important part of it and how is that she manage to contact all the other gang lords in the first place

I agree that the Matches thing was a little unclear. That should have been explained a little better. Ultimately, the macguffin should have just been a massive, catastrophic gang war. There's a lot of mileage in that kind of story.

I think the biggest Fail is that we dont get a clear view of how the plan was suppose to work so that we can understand how is that Steph planned it to make it work and how is that it didnt work

Also a fair point. I think we get a clearer picture than you're acknowledging, but it could have been more well illustrated.

[Jono11]

It was an important plot point - and so by definition not gratuitous.

It's been a while since I read it, but I don't remember it being sexualised either.

Sexualized in terms of how she was positioned, how Black Mask approached it and talked about it, etc. Gratuitous in the sense that it didn't need to be done the way it was. Compare it to Black Mask's torture of Maggie Kyle and her husband. It's brutal, it's heartbreaking, and it's even pretty nasty and vicious on-panel, but only in the ways it needs to be. Quite a bit is left off-panel and to the reader's imagination. That's how you do a Black Mask torture scene.

Matches, right. Was he ever a big-time criminal before? I thought he was pretty low-level, since Batman can't play him all that often.

Yeah, this is a point that should have been better-examined in the plot. Again, I think the macguffin was weak. They could have even done a similar thing, but have it all be Black Mask's master plan. Then Batman implements HIS master plan, and right there you have a better template for the same story.

[shark]

It was an important plot point - and so by definition not gratuitous.

It's been a while since I read it, but I don't remember it being sexualised either.

That's ridiculous. There was no need to extend the torture for pages and pages and I doubt they sexualized it for plot's sake.

Stephanie's poses, the focus on her breasts and ass, the way Black Mask talked to her. There's no way the scene would have been the same had that been a male character.

[Shimarenda]

And didn't Oracle and the Birds have to move to Metropolis for awhile?

They operated out of the Aerie One for several issues and then settled into Metropolis. That didn't work out badly on the whole, and they added Lady Blackhawk, though it did cause a lot of things to be abandoned that were being developed, like the waitress and her daughter across the street from the Clocktower. But the idiocy of the last half of Batman #633 is simply jawdropping.

[Jono11]

though it did cause a lot of things to be abandoned that were being developed, like the waitress and her daughter across the street from the Clocktower.

Yeah...that's what really sucks about these big events, is that the fallout always means that you don't get to see where the creator really wanted to go.

[mex4173]

That's ridiculous. There was no need to extend the torture for pages and pages and I doubt they sexualized it for plot's sake.

Stephanie's poses, the focus on her breasts and ass, the way Black Mask talked to her. There's no way the scene would have been the same had that been a male character.

To be fair (perhaps the weirdest use of that phrase ever), given we have Black Mask torturing someone for pleasure, and the victim is an attractive young woman, I think the dialogue is completely reasonable, effective, in character etc.


edit: That doesn't mean those scenes as a whole were a good idea. I'm certainly not arguing that.