PREVIEW: Snyder & Capullo's "Batman" #14

[Coal Tiger]

Not at all. It's ambitius.

This Joker is here to do what he needs to do to be the funny Joker again. The Joker knows that he is the jester, here to make poeple laugh, including Batman, but he can't until Batman - the King - is on his throne again.

Maybe Snyder should have done some work establishing that the Joker wasn't funny at some point, because he definitely was at the end of Morrison's Batman and Robin. And Batman isn't the king? I'm not getting that impression anywhere. Again, Snyder isn't bothering to work out basic motivations that are internally consistent with the world in which they're told in.

I can understand that some might not like this Joker, because he isn't funny, but Snyder didn't fail here. You might not like what he is doing, but he is trying to do something, and I think he's done it well.

If you think Snyder is trying to show what Morrison and, very especially Miller, did (both great), I think you are missing the mark, here.

I have no doubt that Snyder thinks he's doing something original. The problem is, he isn't.

[Nite-Wing]

As if Commissioner Gordon is gonna make or break this arc, I can take him getting a bit of the Killing Joke treatment if it means we get some really good Joker moments.
Oh wait no!, time for more buzzwords to make it seem like I actually have a consistent point about how bad Snyder's writing is.

Make up some good Joker stories(there aren't that many so you won't get any namedrops) this is not as good as that therefor this arc has no point.

Man this issue really must be 5 stars because I swear every complaint amounts to nothing but nitpicks that are overblown and you get nothing but reaching when it comes to the issues with Joker.

[Aquacatlungfish]

You didn't understand why they buried Batman alive instead of just shooting him? I mean, they say why right in the book.

Ah my mistake. I haven't read it in a while and forgot about that. But I still stand by the point that people focus on plotholes too much. If the plotholes can give you interesting situations and scenes and aren't that distracting to the non nickpickey reader then it shouldn't matter.

I hate it when people say things like "if you don't like *random book* then why'd you read it?" but with comics that is a good question. I would recommend that if you hate the book as much as people here do then you should drop it. I do that with crappy comics with the exception of Justice League because of Shazam and Aquaman crossovers.

[Mr. Holmes]

Ah my mistake. I haven't read it in a while and forgot about that. But I still stand by the point that people focus on plotholes too much. If the plotholes can give you interesting situations and scenes and aren't that distracting to the non nickpickey reader then it shouldn't matter.

I hate it when people say things like "if you don't like *random book* then why'd you read it?" but with comics that is a good question. I would recommend that if you hate the book as much as people here do then you should drop it. I do that with crappy comics with the exception of Justice League because of Shazam and Aquaman crossovers.

The problem is that not all of us outright hate the book. There are things I like and things I don't like.

And there's no meaningful discussion about the books criticisms because we now have sycophants trying their absolute hardest to ad hominem this thread to death to the people that are critical of the book.

[Concept Coop]

Maybe Snyder should have done some work establishing that the Joker wasn't funny at some point, because he definitely was at the end of Morrison's Batman and Robin. And Batman isn't the king? I'm not getting that impression anywhere. Again, Snyder isn't bothering to work out basic motivations that are internally consistent with the world in which they're told in.



I have no doubt that Snyder thinks he's doing something original. The problem is, he isn't.

Snyder has very clearly stated - both in the book and out - that this is a different side of the Joker. It's a more desperate Joker. The Joker is the Joker partly because of what he does and doesn't care about. Life and death being the two major things he doesn't care about. We're seeing the Joker react to potentially losing something he does care about: Batman.

Morrison did this, but didn't go into it the same way. Morrison's Joker was never desperate for Batman; Snyder's is.

Joker is the same guy, we're just seeing a new side of him. A not-so-carefree Joker; a Joker threatened. Batman can't threaten Joker - becuase what can he threaten him with? Joker can't be threatened directly, because he doesn't give damn about anything...except his additction to the Batman.

[mike626]

I would think it be stupid if the Joker didn't know when you consider he's Batman's archnemesis, intellectual equal, mirror image, not to mention, extremely obsessed with him. He doesn't care about Bruce, but he would be interested in knowing how Batman came to be.

And Snyder hasn't changed anything. Joker knowing Batman's identity was established since the original Death in the Family story.



The cigarettes weren't put in there to humanize Gordon, they were there to set up the punchline that Joker has been creeping around Gordon's home.

The Joker has 60 years worth of history that exempts him from needing a dissertation explaining how he is able to make the red shirt GCPD act like teenagers in a horror movie.

Previous confrontations in the past between the Joker and Batman have shown Bats behaving uncharacteristically reckless. The Joker knows how to push his buttons and cause him to lose control of his emotions and make stupid mistakes. That's one of the things that makes Joker dangerous.




And now we have cassettegate. Snyder's entire Joker Opus is now invalidated because he recorded Alfred's torture session on cassette instead of leaving Bats an ipod or the password to his Amazon cloud account.



If I was going to criticize Snyder's writing, I would say that he's wasting too many panels on dialogue that doesn't move the story forward enough. When people wait a month for an installment they want significant progression. From issue #13 to 14, I feel the story neither progressed much, nor introduced new information that was not already revealed in Snyder's interviews or could not be inferred from the previous issue. So what we got was some interesting, though not very revealing, moments mixed in with superfluous dialogue that slowed rather than propelled the story. The nightwing and motorcycle scenes should have been blended better into the story, so that what he wanted to convey in them could be expressed simulataneously with a story progressing sequence. The last panel of the story should not have been the cliffhanger since we already knew this is what Joker was going to do from the red hood scene of the last issue. The story should have ended giving us some kind of hint to what Joker's batfamily offing plan actually entailed.

Now,this is a review I like! no hyperbole or whining That is one of my few issues with Synder but to me it's not enough to kick about.

[Conway]

And now we have cassettegate. Snyder's entire Joker Opus is now invalidated because he recorded Alfred's torture session on cassette instead of leaving Bats an ipod or the password to his Amazon cloud account.

Really again like the kidnapping scene this scene was almost close to working, but yes the cassette tape took me out of it and a disc wouldn't have fazed me. As for the rest of it, the cigarette scene if not humanizing was completely unnecessary because Joker just saying he was under your bed is creepy enough. Cops freaking out when the lights go out was just bad. And The only issue that hasn't had Batman being off his game was the one where the kid thought he was but it was intentional.

And yes, this issue did nothing to move the plot forward, unless you count putting Gordon in the hospital as a plot point.

[Aquacatlungfish]

I the Joker knows Bruce is Bats, then that's just stupid. I wish I had a more intelligent , well thought out response, but the only thing that comes to mind is that it's just stupid.

They're basically letting a writer who's hot right now change the entire 70 plus year dynamic.

Joker might be crazy but he isn't stupid. He should know after he unmasked himself in front of him and screamed his kid sidekick's name a billion times and not realize who he is then he is just some crazy clown. The Joker is just acting on it now to get rid of his family, I doubt he'll try and blackmail him, that's not his style.

[Mr. Holmes]

Joker might be crazy but he isn't stupid. He should know after he unmasked himself in front of him and screamed his kid sidekick's name a billion times and not realize who he is then he is just some crazy clown. The Joker is just acting on it now to get rid of his family, I doubt he'll try and blackmail him, that's not his style.

The point isn't that he doesn't know, it's that he doesn't care. To him, Batman is Batman. The idea that Batman is Bruce in a mask ruins all the fun, so he ignores it.

[Darknet]

Yup, that was part of the point of Dark Knight, where he's just teleporting bombs everywhere.

I don't think that was the point. But yeah, you're like "How the hell does he get away with half this crap? You'd think they'd search the damn boats before using them, what with a mad bomber on the loose in a city". Maybe the GCPD just sucks, like the Miami PD in Dexter.



And by now you'd think Batman would be like "Okay, Joker has planned this all out. He knows my every move. So the first thing I think I should do, I won't do and think of something else."

[cactusmaac]

You're putting stock into something that doesn't matter at all, though, Concept. Sales have nothing to do with quality.

At least not when it comes to a blockbuster. When indie stuff soars, be it comic books or films, that's due the quality. No one is surprised when Twilight makes all the money in the world.

I'm not comparing the quality of this book to the quality of Twilight, by the way. You could replace Twilight with the Batman films, Avengers, etc.

I dunno, I've been to a couple of cons and Snyder's 52 Batman run has a LOT of people buzzing. Plenty of people who don't necessarily go on the internet to argue about comics and mostly enjoy other accomplished writers, really like what he's doing.

Also, calling Court Of Owls a Hush redux rather spectacularly misses the point about what the two stories are about, unless the intention is to write off CoO as another dumb action blockbuster.

Hush was about someone close to Bruce Wayne orchestrating his classic rogues in a conspiracy to specifically destroy him. If anything, RIP was much closer to Hush.

CoO's was designed to be an opposite story. Here Batman goes up against a threat that's been around much longer than he has, which regards him as a flamboyant nuisance at best. The Court treats him lightly, reckons it can deal with him just the same as any of their other enemies. There's no grand, evil plan here but two equal and opposite forces stumbling over each other. Even the Night of Owls wasn't part of an orchestrated plan, it was more a rash over-reaction to Batman getting away. Unlike Hush, Knightfall and RIP there was barely any reliance on Batman's regular cast of villains.

It's similar to how Snyder successfuly counter-programmed the Day-Glo superheroics of Morrison's Batman and Robin with his dark and horror-tinged Black Mirror.

Similarly his Joker here is acting completely opposite to The Thin White Duke Of Death in Morrison's run who spent most of his time killing and defacing other villains and acting as a weird sort of ally to Dick-Bats and Damien. This Joker is singularly focused on seriously maiming\killing Batman's allies in order to improve him.

[Mr. Holmes]

I dunno, I've been to a couple of cons and Snyder's 52 Batman run has a LOT of people buzzing. Plenty of people who don't necessarily go on the internet to argue about comics and mostly enjoy other accomplished writers, really like what he's doing.

Also, calling Court Of Owls a Hush redux rather spectacularly misses the point about what the two stories are about, unless the intention is to write off CoO as another dumb action blockbuster.

Yeah despite Snyder's pretentions of doing this epic, ultimate, definitive, Batman and despite all the roll-eye worthy melodramatic monologues, CoO is basically a dumb action comic.

[Aquacatlungfish]

Yup, that was part of the point of Dark Knight, where he's just teleporting bombs everywhere.



The problem is that not all of us outright hate the book. There are things I like and things I don't like.

And there's no meaningful discussion about the books criticisms because we now have sycophants trying their absolute hardest to ad hominem this thread to death to the people that are critical of the book.

There are some complaints about the book that I can agree on like over exposition I was just annoyed with people constantly pointing nick picky plot holes as that has always been something I've hated. Who cares if they sent multiple talons to Wayne Manor? It makes the issue have more excitement as we've seen him fight just one Talon before. That's just an example of things people complain about. I suppose most people just come off as more negative here because this is a comic book forum, the place to complain, I just wish people would stop setting the book to such a high standard. I rarely ever see criticisms at this magnitude at say Batman and Robin or the Flash.

[adkal]

The point isn't that he doesn't know, it's that he doesn't care. To him, Batman is Batman. The idea that Batman is Bruce in a mask ruins all the fun, so he ignores it.

True - and he isn't actually going after Bruce, even in taking Alfred.

Everyone in the family has a duality, including Alfred. On the face of it, he's after Bruce's butler...but he's actually going after Batman's 'tether'. His constant.

Even after announcing that he knows everyone's secret identity, he doesn't call them by it. He doesn't call Nightwing 'Dick' (or 'Dickie-bird' or 'Richard' etc), he still calls him 'Nightwing' (it's a contrast to when Bruce was calling Alfred 'Pennyworth' as an emotional blocker).

So far, other than Alfred, he hasn't targeted or done anything to anything Wayne-related.

[Aquacatlungfish]

The point isn't that he doesn't know, it's that he doesn't care. To him, Batman is Batman. The idea that Batman is Bruce in a mask ruins all the fun, so he ignores it.

That's why I said that it would probably go back to normal after this story. He's just using his identity to piss him off by messing with Alfred.