Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Batman #48 Review



And I Thought Church Was Boring Before!


Written By: Tom King
Art By: Mikel Janin, June Chung, Clayton Cowles
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: June 6, 2018


The countdown to the wedding is on and even though we have all these preludes coming out that are showing the Joker rallying the troops to stick it to Batman for his big day, it seems that we're going to get him right away here.  Let's jump into this issue and see how Batman deals with his arch nemesis.  Let's check it out.




While I would love to be able to jump on the bandwagon and love this issue because the Joker is in town and just trying to mess up Batman's day......... I can't.  I was bored out of my mind with this and like normal, Batman doesn't really have much to do in this issue.  Hell, he only has a single line of dialog, while the Joker drones on and on.  Yeah, it's not out of the ordinary for Joker to be a chatty Cathy but this dialog seems to be an evolution of King's normal repeating dialog in that the Joker says the same things, just in different ways. 


Ultimately, what we get here is a talky issue that doesn't really say anything, while our hero and title character of this book just doesn't get the job done in stopping a maniac from murdering several people.  I guess it's up to Catwoman to come to his rescue because like we've gotten so far, she's really the hero of this book.  As for the art, while I normally love Mikel Janin, for some reason this seems to be a bit less than I'm used to from him.  Mostly, it's just that I don't like the way the Joker looks here, but since he's the main focus of this issue, he's the thing we're dealing with the most and I just couldn't get into it.  So while, this issue is better than what we've been getting lately, what with it making some kind of sense within it self, it just doesn't rise to the occasion and isn't that interesting of an issue.


Bits and Pieces:

The Joker's in town but sadly, he's not bringing the fun with him.  While this issue is better than the nonsense we've been getting lately, it just doesn't get me on the other side of the fence where I can start enjoying this title.  The art isn't for me, even though I usually love Mikel Janin and in the end, we have an issue where there's a lot of talking, but it just doesn't have a lot to say.

5/10

9 comments:

  1. Dumb Batman is back and stupid as ever, I'm at the point now where I think Dr. Manhattan dumb downed Bruce as a experiment.

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  2. For what it was, hell lot better than the past couple story arcs. Art was pretty good, few panels was the best. Probably give the overall art 7/10. For an intro issue to the story give it about 8/10. Tom King don't me down, hopefully the next issue will be at least as good as this for me.

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  3. Once again here comes Catgod to the rescue!

    This Batman sucks at everything.

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  4. Going from a "Snyder Joker" to "Kings Joker" is pulling me out of this book. N52 started off with Joker being this all knowing creature who could literally out plan the Batman. Kings version is a much smaller version of joker, more like a jilted friend who is going up against something like Batman, to which he should be more cautious in his approach and plans. Kings version doesn't have the same gravitous. Kings version is literally a rival to somebody as pathetic as riddled not Batman. I fear that this wedding fight with Joker is going to have a "Jokes & Riddles" feel, and ultimately not be a challenge to Bruce & Selena.

    This issue was boring because king doesn't understand the how Big and important Batman and Joker are to the dc universe as a whole. Batman and Jokers conflicts should feel like the foundation of dc as the greatest comic book hero going up against there greatest comic book Villian. But that's no where near the feeling I get from this joker or Batman this issue. Art is truly a redeeming quality in this issue.
    6/10 I expect so much more from a Batman vs Joker story then what we've been given.

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    Replies
    1. Not to mention that this Joker speaks like a dumbass. Just like 99.9 of Tom King's characters.

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    2. Couldn't possibly agree more with you.

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  5. I find the whole thing a shallow, hollow exercise in trite symbolism masquerading as some sort of philosophical profundity. The character and the fans deserve immeasurably better than this.

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  6. I love the way this Joker looks. The artist is knocking it out of the park. For the sake of my blood pressure, I'll just not even talk about the rest of it. Let's just say that I'm counting down the rest of King's issues like a prisoner making scratches on the cell wall. At least King was kind enough to let us know how long our sentence would be. . .

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