When I saw that CNN was running a story on "Batman" #17, I managed not to read it. But, given that temptation is strong, I realized that I need to prioritize reading "Death of the Family" as I make my way through my back issues so that I don't wind up caving and getting the answer spoiled.
I will say that everything seems to be happening pretty fast. Compared to the year-long Court of Owls story, this story has unfolded quickly. Joker had a few opening moves: kidnapping Alfred, killing the cops at GCPD, and poisoning Commissioner Gordon, not to mention everything he's been doing in the other titles. But, the conflict with Batman has been pretty quick. He tricked him into going to Ace Chemicals, where Harley attacked him, confronted him at the reservoir, where he "revealed" that he knew his identity, and then lured him into Arkham Asylum. Maybe it's just because the beginning of the Court of Owls story was so brilliantly paced, but I do feel like Snyder is moving us through this arc a little too briskly. He seems to be relying on the tie-in issues to show the breadth of Joker's plans, leaving the story in "Batman" as a more frontal assault. It feels a little more Hush-y than it does Joker-y.
At any rate, Snyder builds the tension well here, but, essentially, nothing really happens. Batman makes his way through Arkham as Joker taunts him, eventually finding Joker in Jeremiah Arkham's private chambers, where he's assembled the "Batking's" court. The Penguin, Ridder, and Two-Face angle is funny, but I'm not entirely sure if we're supposed to recognize the four people that he has playing Aquaman, Green Lantern, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Even if we are, though, we're not given all that much time to recognize them, since this scene is really a feint, building up Bruce's confidence that he's managed to capture Joker only to reveal that Joker is holding (or has killed) the Bat-family.
It's here where Snyder takes an odd turn, having Bruce willingly sit on an electrical chair. I'm assuming that Bruce didn't think that he was going to kill himself, but Snyder doesn't make that entirely clear. Moreover, the secret identity issue rears its ugly head here again. For all the hand-wringing over whether Joker knows Batman's identity or not, Snyder makes it completely irrelevant with this scene (but not in a good way). If Joker really wanted to know, he very easily could, pulling off the unconscious Batman's mask. But, he doesn't. So, again, it either means that he knows or he doesn't care, once again showing how ridiculous it is for Snyder to put this question at the center of the story.
The real question at this point is pretty clearly whether Alfred's head is on the platter that Joker shows Penguin and Two-Face. Now, even if it is, it's pretty easy to dismiss that "revelation" as shock value. After all, the Dollmaker made Joker a living tapestry, so it seems plausible that he could gin up a reasonable facsimile of Alfred's head. The other question is how Joker defeated the various Bat-family members, a question that I assume that I'm going to get answered in the various tie-in issues that I'm going to read next.
But, I have to wonder if I care about the answer to either question. I mean, even if Joker did cut off Alfred's head, do I really think that he's going to stay dead? I mean, as we've already established, Alfred, Bruce, and Jason have all died and returned; Barbara and Bruce were both paralyzed and can walk again. At this stage, only Dick and Tim haven't gone through some sort of miraculous resurrection/healing (though, honestly, they may have and I just forgot about it). Moreover, any assurances after the fact that "Alfred is really dead" from DC would be met with as much belief as the "Peter Parker is really dead" assurances from Marvel.
Maybe at the end of the day, my problem with this arc is exactly that. It plays on two of the oldest tropes -- secret identities and dramatic deaths -- in comics that have lost their punch over the years. The Court of Owls arc, in the beginning, was interesting because it spoke to whether Bruce understood the city as well as he thought he did. This arc just brings us stuff -- including a title -- that we've seen time and time again.
No comments:
Post a Comment