Batman #85 Review
Summary: I'm exhausted. Batman's exhausted. Selina's exhausted. Tom King must have been exhausted to because the writing just drops off.
3
It's over.
SPOILERS INHERENT IN REVIEW!
The Story: It’s finally over.
Background: This is it! Tom King’s run on Batman is done (sort of.)
Summary: Before we start, Tom King made the decision once again to split this final book up into so many random cuts that it’s impossible for me to write a coherent summary. What I’ll do is combine the parts together to form little chapters, which just like last will be shown as numbered points.
Chapter 1:
- Thomas has just punched Bruce and tells him once again to stay down.
- Selina doesn’t the Bat and Bruce does the Cat thing and she launches into action.
- Selina damn near breaks Thomas’s back and starts to choke him with the whip as well as stomp him.
- It turns out that Thomas’s fatal mistake is that he left Wesker with Psycho Pirate and the pirate apparently ahs no control over Wesker. Only Scarface does. Selina shows up with the doll’s eye which she also apparently took from the Memory of The Mountain. Thomas lunges for Wesker but Bruce puts him down.
- Thomas is about to admit defeat. Just as we think it’s over he draws a gun on Bruce and keeps it at his head.
- Thomas screams in anger. He says that he showed Bruce the price and futility of Batman. He have up everything for Bruce to be happy… and then we get the Batman Forever speech.
- Mind you, it’s more in depth, but in the end Bruce chooses her (Selina), happiness, and family. But he also chooses Batman.
- With that, Thomas surrenders. Bruce makes sure to KO his father, but not before making sure that Thomas knows that he is not Bruce’s real father,
Chapter 2:
- Batman and Gotham Girl are once again on the satellite tower.
- They speak about Selina and Gotham Girl wants to see a marriage. I guess she was under the Psycho-Pirates control the whole time. It’s not really explained but its whatever at this point.
- Bruce offers to help Gotham Girl with her powers and pulls out PLATINUM KRYPTONITE.
- It will give her powers just like she had, but these won’t kill her. She accepts and flies off.
Chapter 3:
- Bruce meets with Thomas in Arkham.
- Thomas is full blown Lecter in his straight jacket and mask.
- Bruce confesses that he asks his parents everyday if they are proud of him.
- He then explains he just waits for the silence to go away, but it never does.
- We then see Thomas sitting at home in bed with Martha.
- Thomas is worried about Bruce, but Martha says he’s fine.
- We then see Thomas is laying in his cot in his room and the previous sequence was imagined. Bane comes in and Thomas agrees that it is time.
- Bane breaks his back all while screaming one-liners about “how this is the end Batman!” I guess Bane finally get to break Batman.
Chapter 3:
- Bruce talks to Alfred’s grave as Selina approaches.
- The signal lights up and we are off.
- They fight Crazy Quilt, King Tut, Condiment King, and one villain I don’t recognize as they talk about the time they “met” on the beach.
- They talk about getting married.
- Selina stays on a building’s ledge and this time wats for Bruce. He wings over and embraces her and they kiss.
- Later in bed, they realize that they missed their chance with the judge again. BUT they don’t care and decide that the ring means enough. For all intents and purposes’ they are married.
- We get one last Bat and Cat.
Chapter 4:
- Bruce and a fellow sit at a bar watching a football game.
- He mentions his name is Chuck Brown (which took me FOREVER TO FIGURE OUT IS KITE-MAN’S ACTUAL NAME.)
- Long story short, they talk a lot and this is what it boils down to before Selina walks in to join Bruce.
Chuck: “Nothing ends, nothing begins. It’s all the same. It all just keeps going.”
Bruce: “Maybe he knows how to go down and how to come back up. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s just enough.”
THE END.
EXCEPT ITS NOT! There is an epilogue by next series writer James Tynion. The Joker’s goons ask him if he’d thought about Batman giving up his secret identity like Superman and if Joker knows who Batman is, why doesn’t he do something about it. Joker beats the crap out of him and then decides that maybe he is right…
Final call:
Let’s get the epilogue out of the way first. It’s only a few pages, but the dialogue really feels like a breath of fresh air. I’m not going to be reading Tynion’s Batman past the first issue though. I am just too wiped out from reading an 85 issue storyline. I need some time away from Batman (at least they main title).
Now!
It’s over. All of Tom King’s crazy ideas have been boiled down to this ending. Let’s take this “chapter” by “chapter”.
Chapter one covers the fight between father and son. Except for a few punches, Selina is actually the one who fights Thomas the most. Thomas’s use of the gun just hammers home that he isn’t our Thomas, that losing his son and wife mentally imbalanced him to an extreme. The fact that Wesker can’t be controlled by the pirate is just too damn convenient. It’s another deus ex machina King pulls out of his toosh. Add to the fact that we get no update on any of the bat-family and this just makes things even more unsatisfying. We don’t need to of seen it, but the fact that we don’t even get a single line telling us what happened is weird.
Chapter 2 is nice and short. The fact that we never get an official word on why Claire (Gotham Girl) went bad is infuriating. She formed such a major cornerstone of the early parts of the storyline that her not having a satisfying conclusion is maddening. Oh, and platinum kryptonite? Really? At least she still has powers so she can show up later.
Chapter 3 is alright. The fact that Bruce and Selina decide that they practically are married, just not by law, is something that could have been decided by issue 75. Bruce did not need 25 issues of moping to get back together with Selina (and 8 of those in a dream).
Chapter 4. Oh chapter 4, what shall I do with thee? The fact that Bane breaks A Batman is nice and unless someone dares use him again, Thomas has been taken off the table permanently. Thank god, because I honestly don’t want to see him ever again. Also, how the !$@$%^ is bane still alive? He wasn’t wearing his mask when he got shot or any type of facial covering. He survived two bullets straight to the head? Alright then.
Chapter 5 is really supposed to be where the come down happens, but by that point I was just too damn tired. 5 issues ago I would have thought it was meaningful and cute writing, but the fact that I didn’t remember who Chuck Brown was doesn’t bode well for the book and story.
Tom King is over. For those of you who enjoyed all this, kudos. But King lost me a few issues ago and never got me back.
2.5 out of 5 stars.
PS: Why was Skeets with Bane in issue 50?
About the Author
Matt Fischer Lover of all things nerdy. Reader of Comics for over 25 years. DC encyclopedia. X-Men historian. Spider-Man and Marvel lover. Indie side guy.
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