Best Death of the Family Tie-In

[minasithil]

While I didn't think the second issue was as strong, I have to give it to B&R for best use of the face.

[RoughNTumble]

Detective

it made the event larger in scope without rehashing the same exposition and making joker even more omnipotent

Batman and robin is great except for the part where damian was made stupid and gullible for the sake or trying to trick the reader into thinking that was actually bruce.

[JasonTodd428]

Batman and robin is great except for the part where damian was made stupid and gullible for the sake or trying to trick the reader into thinking that was actually bruce.

That was exactly why I didn't think #16 was all that great at all. Damian suddenly acting like a stupid and gullible child flies completely in the face of his previous N52 characterization. Because of that characterization I would have expected him to have seen through Joker's trick within seconds of the confrontation's beginning even with Joker's toxin running through his system at the time. Instead we get Damian suddenly and inexplicably acting like a child. If this was an attempt to show that maybe Damian isn't as well prepared as he would like to think it was done in a very clumsy fashion.

[americanwonder]

I want to vote for Batwoman - the fact that it doesn't tie-in makes it the best tie-in.

I voted Batgirl. Sure, it could have been better, but we all knew Babs wouldn't get to put the beat down on Joker that he deserves. Still, I enjoyed it and look forward to more.

[OregonBat]

B&R15 was excellent. Loved the art and the drama. But BR16 was a serious let down since this kid couldn't recognize his own father.

Nightwing and Batgirl were both fun in their own right but they felt kind of disjointed.

The fact that TT and RHATO actually tied together made for a really nice subplot. So I voted TT because TT16 was probably my favorite. That's just what a comic book should be in my opinion, good action, and twists in the story line (though I'll admit the set up for the ongoing story in TT, though probably necessary, was very distracting). And having Jason and Tim together was fun, especially seeing them both embody their characters.

[Ed Sizzers]

I want to vote for Batwoman - the fact that it doesn't tie-in makes it the best tie-in.

You beat me to it, that's exactly what I was gonna say.

I'm only reading Batgirl and Catwoman, and given how very bad CW has been since Nocenti took over then Batgirl wins by default. And to be fair, it did start very weel. It was only in last issue that it all went downhill. Even acknowledging that Batgirl was never gonna get a complete victory over Joker in someone else's story, it still would have been nice for her to have had a self-contained story.

Instead, after all the action of the last few issues, she's blindsided by James Jr (who's presence hasn't helped this story at all) and we end on a cliffhanger that'll get resolved in another book, where Babs will simply be one of many supporting characters.

[Officersmile1466]

My impressions from best to worst are:

DETECTIVE: 15 was barely connected into the event but 16 was a such a powerful and brilliant story of mentally damaged people using the Joker as an excuse to go of the edge. In 20 pages, Layman managed to (probably unintentionally) draw disturbing comparisons to the Aurora shooter who was apparently inspired by the Joker while also threading in a sad story of one criminal who wanted to go along with the genuinely homicidal killers to feel accepted but couldn't cross the line. Fantastic.

B&R: It dropped the ball in the second half, but the first issue gave a fantastic and unsettling confrontation between Joker and Damian. Managed to one up Capullo by making the Joker look and feel like a creature from a nightmare.

SUICIDE SQUAD: I'm not a reader of this title usually so a lot of the bigger picture stuff went over my head, but i think this is a passable Joker and Harley reunion.

HERE'S WHERE I THINK THEY TOOK A SERIOUS DROP IN QUALITY:

BATGIRL: So close and yet oh so very very far. Rife with potential but never making it. Batgirl and The Joker facing off now that she can walk again should be legendary. It shouldn't be hijacked by annoying "I'm so freaking and crazy" James Jr in the big climax.

NIGHTWING: I dropped Nightwing after issue 9 so all I read was a whole lot of nothing from this arc. It looked great though just...*shrugs*

RED HOOD/TEEN TITANS: I don't read these normally so maybe a teen titans outsiders team up is the greatest thing ever. A brilliant climax to 14 issues of build up maybe? I have no idea who the majority of these characters are. I got these to see Joker mess with Jason and Tim and got barely any interaction whatsoever. A major waste of time and money.

AND LAST...

CATWOMAN: Why was this book a tie-in? What the hell happened anyway? Why did it need to take the barest of plots and tell in the most bizarre and incomprehensible way possible?


So overall I personally found this event to be a major wasted opportunity. When Joker shows up I shouldn't be getting increasingly fed up of his kings and jesters talk. I wonder how heavily the writers were shackled to the average story Snyder was writing? Were they forced to make Joker spew up the exact same talk in every appearance?

[Walsh06]

I was wondering is there going to be any Death of the Family collected edition for the tie-ins. Obviously batman will have its own but will the death of the family for say nightwing just be in nightwing or will it collect with other stories??

[Vil_Dee]

It's hard for me to call any of them the best because they were given the ingredients to make a whole thanksgiving spread and what we ended up with was a tv dinner.

I'd say best to worst.

Nightwing, was probably in the most need of intervention because the series was spinning on its wheels. I would say this one was the most effective as far as Joker creating a credible attack that gets at the very heart of the hero as a person and completely derails his life. The week link though was Nightwing himself, who continues to be depicted as a poor man's Batman.

Teen Titans, no one cares about the rest of the Teen Titans when Joker has both Tim and Jason captive, yet you get wasted panels of other characters looking for them who are never going to find them, and introductions of new characters and threats who have nothing to do with this story (he-lloooo your sales spiked up because it was a tie in to Dotf.). I pick this as number two though because the parallels between Joker's dialogue and Tim's thoughts were probably the most interesting character dynamic in all of the tie-ins. I know a lot of people don't like Tim's sudden arrogance and cold calculation, but I thought that Tim was always written as too perfect, and the lack of any noticeable flaws made the character kind of boring.

Batman and Robin, this book was carried entirely by Gleason's art. It went a long way to hide the fact that the story itself was mostly regurgitations of Snyder's Batman. Still, despite all the wankery with the fake Bats, the end where Joker leads Damian into the dark was unsettling.

Red Hood and the Outlaws blew what should have been an epic confrontation between Jason and Joker. No one gave two pasties about Starfire and Roy in this and yet more panels wasted to show them looking for Jason when we knew they were never actually going to and an introduction of new threats who have nothing to do with the story. Then all the weirdness with whether Joker had a hand at setting Jason up to be Robin. But if he's lying, doesn't that make the story a complete waste of time because that made up the entire confrontation?

Tec, it continued the interesting idea of Joker having followers and worshippers, the story itself was pretty good and probably better than most of the stories above, but to call it a tie in to Dotf is false advertisement.

Suicide Squad, it seemed a convoluted way to force Harley into the Doft storyline. Joker could have easily had Clayface pose as him at the chemical plant. All for what? To see a 100th iteration of Harley flip flopping between her Joker lurve and her own independence.

Batgirl, another one and a million chance for an epic confrontation blown. But instead of miring the whole thing with some strange allegation like in Red Hood, someone decides to take this golden opportunity to instead groom an archnemesis for Batgirl, her brother James Jr. Joker seemed an afterthought, as he was saddled with a wedding plot as thin as one ply toilet paper.

Catwoman, was basically a looney tunes cartoon. Nocenti's Selina astonishingly didn't even seem to know who the Joker was, and the Joker while he was mass murdering and maiming in everyone elses' books, seemed content to simply pester Selina. all for what? To tell her to stay away from Batman which she had basically already done since the end of the first Catwoman arc?