scans_daily | Batman: The Dark Knight #21

Mad Hatter has *mind control*. Why would he torture anyone save in a psychological sense?

Yeah I was going to ask the same thing. He literally could have whipped up any mind control device and just had her tell him. Instead: FRIDGE! ANGST! AAAANNNNNGSSSSSSSTTTTT!

It's more of the "every batvill must be a killer and do bloody stuff to people!" too.

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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icon_uk - 2013-06-29 10:41 (UTC) - Expand

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q99 - 2013-06-29 18:59 (UTC) - Expand

They could have sort of worked that into the story, that his devices over-ride memory, so he takes control, but in doing so puts the actual mind/memories on hold. He can make them his puppets, but puppets aren't particularly chatty.

This just makes him seem like a tired variation of the Penguin in violent mode.

Penguin has a violent mode? 0_o

I think you meant Black Mask.

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icon_uk - 2013-06-29 17:01 (UTC) - Expand

I am going to offer the bold and hereto unprecedented opinion that I don't like this.

I'm gonna second that opinion.

I don't necessarily mind stories about a hero coming to the brink of breaking his own rules and retreating at the last moment (although they are fairly cliche and overdone at this point). But you have to really earn that--you have to set up something that is so important to the hero that its loss makes the hero really want to cross that line.

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.

I just don't see the need to extend this kind of rage to every individual member of Batman's Rogue Gallery.

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.

I get that Nike was a Greek goddess of Victory, and that Nike Missiles are/were an actual thing, but my first thought on reading "Decommissioned Nike Missile Launch Facility," was that that was some really aggressive marketing for sneakers. And then that I should reread Jennifer Government.

I didn't know that Nike WAS a type of missile, so I was just VERY confused.

It's really helpful for Alfred and Bruce to have special radio code names here. No one eavesdropping on their frequency will ever suspect that "Bat One" is actually Batman!.

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.

"Bruce Wayne can't be Batman! The guy who supports and informs Batman over the radio is Pennyone! Bruce Wayne's Butler is PennyWORTH. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!"

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lbd_nytetrayn - 2013-06-29 05:25 (UTC) - Expand

Dick is "Ass One" (He graduated to that after being "Hostage One" for a while)

Jason is "Angry One"

Tim is "Sneaky One"

Babs is "Girl One"

Cass is "Who?"

Steph is "No, reallly... Who?"

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akodo_rokku - 2013-06-29 12:14 (UTC) - Expand

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icon_uk - 2013-06-29 13:09 (UTC) - Expand

So when this guy wakes up,he's gonna be a little slow right? I mean,no one takes whoopins like that and doesn't lose a few IQ points

It's a rare thing for a writer to acknowledge the damage a beating like that would actually do.

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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icon_uk - 2013-06-29 08:57 (UTC) - Expand

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yvonmukluk - 2013-06-29 20:32 (UTC) - Expand

Alfred, the Hatter walked dozens of mind-controlled Gothamites into the river last issue and left them to drown. He beat his high school not-girlfriend to death with an iron and shot a bunch of blonde women because none of them were quite what he wanted in an "Alice" for the play he was trying to put on. His personal death toll in the last few issues is probably around five hundred people, if not higher, not one of whom did a thing to him.

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.

I know. They make their villians do utterly wretched things but STILL do the whole 'moral high ground!' thing. The balance is not going to hold if the writers weigh down one side with a dozen dead bodies, damn it!

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sadoeuphemist - 2013-06-29 09:58 (UTC) - Expand

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ablackraptor - 2013-07-02 18:38 (UTC) - Expand

Wait a minute, he told his girlfriend his secret identity and then she died?

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?

DCNu presumably wiped the slate clean, who knows if there's even a Silver St Cloud in this DCU.

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lego_joker - 2013-06-29 17:15 (UTC) - Expand

I know Jervis isn't sane or rational begin with, but I do hope in the future he will be utterly terrified to even think of going up against the Bat again, who first nearly beat him to death before letting him drown and than sadistically save him again.

Eh... too bad this is taking place in "Batman: The Dark Knight". AKA the Batman publication that no one quite cares about (in comparison to Batman and 'tec, anyways). Unless Hurwitz graduates to writing one of those two books, I think that the "main" Bat-continuity will probably ignore it.

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.)

Wow, that cowl is very expressive! That's an impressive bit of technology -- a mask that can show your emotions for you, while completely hiding your face. Cool.

This has got to be the most recycled plot ever. Batman's girlfriend dies because he revealed his secret identity, Batman almost but doesn't quite kill a villain...does this story add anything original to Batman's mythos at all?

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.

I guess the "girlfriend dies after finding out your secret identity" trope is to be expected at this point, but didn't they literally JUST introduce her for this arc? It kinda loses all impact when she's around for less than a handful of issues.

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.