Runner Up: Batman #74 – Tom King, Mikel Janin, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles
Tom King’s Batman can be hit or miss sometimes, but this one is definitely a hit.
For the entirety of his superhero career, Batman has been driven by one singular goal: to make sure what happened to him as a child didn’t happen to anyone else. He’s vowed to protect the streets of Gotham and to honor the memory of his parents and the city they loved.
This vow has become increasingly harder to honor over the course of this run; from being unable to save a possible replacement in the Superman-like Gotham, to being told to stop being Batman by his father from an alternate universe, and ultimately being left at the altar by the love of his life. One man is responsible for it all, Bane.
Part of the (admittedly) convoluted scheme to break the Batman was to somehow bring the Flashpoint Batman from his Universe to finally convince his son to stop. Thomas rationalizes that all Bruce needs is the love of his parents and his sickness, his broken need to be Batman will go away. As revealed in the last issue, Thomas’ goal is to resurrect Martha Wayne in Ra’s al Ghul’s most powerful Lazarus Pit and reunite the Wayne family.
Mikel Janín’s art remains amazing as always. I could gush for days about how he’s able to make Thomas and Bruce solemnly expressive through body language and only using the lower halves of their faces, but Jordie Bellaire, is the real star of this issue. She manages to color this story in a way that makes it seem like it takes place in three acts.
The first act takes place in the beautiful drawn and barren desert after Bruce and Thomas reconnect while fighting Ra’s ninjas. Everything is bright and the yellows, contrasted to the Blacks of the Bats give things a slightly warm feel. Thomas is happy for his son to join him and give up his crusade.
The second act shows Bruce and Thomas reaching the edge of the pit and is coated in the cool blue hues of night. The scene feels somber and intimate as Thomas tells Bruce how stubborn he was as a child, crying because he wanted to hear his favorite story over and over until he fell asleep. Thomas says that Bruce absolutely got that from his mother, who would constantly insist that Thomas read him that story, how she always had faith that Bruce would sleep. The two begin to climb down into the pit.
Throughout the issue the Russian Folk Tale, “Animals in the Pit” had been told and spoken about in the usual Tom King style. The tale involves a group of animals that get trapped in a pit and perform contests where the loser gets eaten. In the end, one of the two remaining animals tricks the other into ripping himself open and feasts on his flesh.
In the final act, in the dark of the pit, the book takes on a harsh red hue. Thomas is finally there, at the end of his journey to give his son the happiness and family he deserves. Saying that he couldn’t deny Bruce his childish wishes as a kid, but now he will deny him remaining Batman.
Bruce tells him that the reason he wanted to hear the story constantly was because, despite the horror, his father told him the story with a bit of levity. Bruce gained hope that one of the animals just might escape and even if he knew it was impossible, he never gave up hope. He then betrays his father with a right cross to the face.
Janín can draw a beautiful, flashy fight scene when he wants to, but this fight is anything but. It’s raw and brutal, it’s close quarters and every emotion is felt, accentuated by the excellent coloring. Bruce punches his father, Thomas punches his son right back. Even when the fight pivots away from them to focus on the coffin, the tension is still there. Their ideological struggle is felt through the shadows on the wall and when Thomas is thrown into the coffin, things spiral downward for him.
Right on the heels of the hopefully amazing “City of Bane” storyline, this two issue filler arc strengthens Batman’s resolve for what will be the final confrontation with one of his greatest enemies and all of his pawns in Tom King’s Batman run. While the issue does suffer from the usual King-isms (long winded diatribes taking up entire pages, lack of explanation for possibly crucial plot points, like how Thomas came to this world, and the general pretentiousness in dialogue structure) they don’t pull the issue down in a distracting way. While mildly annoying, they fit this story very well and continue to expand on Bruce’s reverence for his mother, introduced in the “I Am Suicide” arc and furthers him being resolute in his mission.
Bane’s going to have hell to pay when the Batman comes for him. High recommend.
Ty Talks Comics 