Batman #73: At this stage, my fervent hope is that, the day after DC publishes his last issue, Tom King tweets, "Can you believe I got DC to pay me all that money to set a bunch of public-domain poems and songs to pictures?" Because King engaged in some sort of long-game prank would be the only thing that would make this travesty of a run make sense.
Honestly, I don't know why I'm still reading. I guess I'm desperately hoping that King has some ace up his sleeve (and that Martha in a coffin in the desert isn't it). Ah, hope. Such a foolish thing. At this point I feel like you might accuse me of ad hominem attacks on King, but I fell like this issue, like its predecessors, is a failure if you measure it against any objective set of criteria.
First, the plot itself makes no sense. It's partly due to the DCnU/Rebirth ret-cons muddying the waters. King confirms that Bane broke Batman's back last issue, but it's hard to tell if it's the second time that he did so or if "Knightfall" never happened in the DCnU/Rebirth Universe. Either way, Thomas has fixed Bruce's back off-panel. Surgeons!
But, it goes beyond the DCnU/Rebirth problems. We're supposed to believe that Bruce has been unconscious for days and days and days. He was unconscious long enough for Thomas Wayne to fix his back, bring him to Khadym, and then drag him halfway through the desert without Bruce batting an eyelid. I assume that King wants us to assume that Thomas has drugged Bruce, but maybe King could've skipped one of the dozens of panels where Thomas is singing "Home on the Range" and have him actually mention that? Like, why have an author if we're just going to guess the plot? Just give all the money to Janín and we can make up our own dialogue in our heads!
We also have no idea why Bruce or Thomas does what he does here, particularly given that their actions don't really make any sense based on who we understand them to be. For example, Bruce pointedly asks Thomas why he worked with Bane, but Thomas doesn't answer. After all, if Thomas really just wanted Bruce to come with him to resurrect Martha, he could've just drugged him at the outset. Seriously. If we're to believe that Bruce doesn't have a resistance to whatever drug Thomas is presumably using here, we could've also believed that he was susceptible to it without the whole Bane subplot. Moreover, even when he eventually awakened, as he does here, Bruce Wayne would not be OK with resurrecting Martha. If Bruce wanted to put Martha in one of the Lazarus Pits, he had decades to do so. But, Bruce didn't. He did for his son, but he didn't do it for his mother. Maybe King is just asking us, hey, why didn't Bruce resurrect his parents but resurrected Damian? Honestly, that's not a bad question. But, he isn't asking that. I don't know what he's asking, but I'm pretty sure it's not that. So, I don't buy that Bruce just basically shrugs his shoulders and follows Thomas into the desert to do it now. I'm pretty sure Bruce would be aware that Gotham probably isn't doing great under Bane's control and would want to return to Gotham immediately. Instead, he and Thomas share a hug, and he all but starts calling him "Daddy."
I just can't with this series anymore. I guess I'll hang in there until issue #85, but, man, it's going to be rough.
Nightwing #61: This series is pretty much the only DC one I'm left enjoying (putting aside limited series like "Doomsday Clock" and "The Wild Storm"). In this arc, Jurgens has so far done a solid job of using the mysterious flame monster (or "Burnback" as Sapienza calls him) to allow each member of Team Nightwing to shine. But, this issue fell flat for me, as Jurgens leans on way too much narration to explain that Hutch's former partner -- the comatose cop at the center of the drama -- was a metahuman who could subconsciously summon the flame monster. Moreover, they don't actually know that; they're just like, "Huh, guess the guy was a metahuman. Brewskis anyone?". We also don't really get an explanation of how Burnback knew where to strike. Simply because he could summon a flame monster doesn't mean he can somehow keep telepathic tabs on his daughter, right? Whatever. After "Doomsday Clock" and "The Wild Storm" end, I might be done with DC.
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