Batman: The Dark Knight #21
Jun. 28th, 2013 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyPreviously on Batman: The Dark Knight. The Mad Hatter kidnapped Bruce girlfriend Natalya. Who Bruce told his secret identity to two issues ago.
Mad Hatter tries to get her to reveal Batman secret identity while using torturing as motivation. Natalya resisted the efforts to tell Mad Hatter anything and then gets thrown off a helicopter.
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Date: 2013-06-29 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 03:07 am (UTC)The Riddler is supposed to be interesting because he makes smart challenges. Hatter scary because of his mind control (which doesn't need anything else to be scary!), and so on.
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Date: 2013-06-29 09:02 am (UTC)This just makes him seem like a tired variation of the Penguin in violent mode.
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Date: 2013-06-29 02:31 pm (UTC)I think you meant Black Mask.
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Date: 2013-06-29 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 03:39 am (UTC)This? Well, admittedly I've not been reading the series, so perhaps the relationship with Natalya was built up that well... but I rather doubt it. She was introduced in issue 10 (and from the synopsis I read, it sounds like she was just brought in as already in an established relationship with Bruce?), and killed last issue. So that's ten, eleven issues with her--and at least part of that they were broken up.
I don't buy that she's this important to Bruce (nor, for that matter, that Bruce is so important to her that she'd die rather than give him up). It feels more like the writer wanted to do a "Bruce aaa~lmost kills, but then he doesn't!" take, so he just whipped up a scenario (and person) to cram into the scenario to set that up.
I will say, though, that I rather like the artwork here. The scene of Batman beating up the Mad Hatter sells the simple brutality of it--no martial arts, no finesse, just Batman stomping up to Tetch, and then stomping him. (Although the panels with Tetch flying through the air like he were a doll are just baffling.) And the half-page of Batman stopping, slumping resignedly, then diving in to save the man he just tried to kill, is masterful in its silent expressiveness.
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Date: 2013-07-01 03:14 am (UTC)I'm pretty sure Penguin, Riddler, and Joker had at least one each of this kind of arc where Batman *almost* kills them or something.
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Date: 2013-06-29 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 09:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 04:31 am (UTC)Also, I like the two panels of Batman's face (minus its lower half for some reason) when he's watching his girlfriend's corpse. Momentary woobie-face and then "grieving process completed. Time to be scowly again!"
Also, also, that's some very waterproof blood all over his costume on the last page.
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Date: 2013-06-29 04:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2013-06-29 09:07 am (UTC)Jason is "Angry One"
Tim is "Sneaky One"
Babs is "Girl One"
Cass is "Who?"
Steph is "No, reallly... Who?"
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Date: 2013-06-29 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 06:25 am (UTC)The only time that I can remember a writer calling back to a hero utterly stomping a villain was when Peter David had Spider-Man beat three kinds of hell out of the "Sin-Eater" (the guy had it coming) and when the guy comes back, he's lost hearing in one ear, had to walk with a cane and stuttered.
Although, there was another Spider-Man fight in the original Secret Wars were he utterly humiliated Titania to the point where she was scared of facing him. Which was kind of funny because she would operate out of New York.
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Date: 2013-06-29 05:27 am (UTC)Bruce could lash him to the back bumper of the Batmobile and drive down Route 66 until all that's left is six inches of moist red rope and he'd still have the moral high ground here.
"Just like him" my entire ass.
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Date: 2013-06-29 09:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2013-06-29 03:58 pm (UTC)Good lord, how many times has that happened to him, now? I mean, does he get a free toaster oven every fiftieth girlfriend that gets killed?
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Date: 2013-06-29 05:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2013-06-29 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-29 07:56 pm (UTC)This isn't exactly a new development - DC's Batman line has always had a sort of "third wheel" publication to tell stories that are less tied into continuity than Batman and 'tec. Pre-Crisis, it was "The Brave and the Bold". During the 90s, it was "Shadow of the Bat". During the 00s, it was "Gotham Knights". And now, it's "The Dark Knight".
("Legends of the Dark Knight" could also fit, but I think they've made that particular book's non-canon status more explicit in the past.)
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Date: 2013-06-29 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-30 01:19 am (UTC)Also, in a comic book written in 2013, "You'll be no different from them" should never, ever be uttered in a serious manner. It is painfully cliché by now.
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Date: 2013-07-05 05:42 pm (UTC)Plus Batman being super upset and furious over this loss is just kinda laughable considering he's still dealing with the loss of Damian in other books.