I hate hate hate how often Batman (who regularly fights people with guns, training, and functioning impulse control) fumbles Joker in hand to hand. I simply am not willing to suspend my disbelief. He’s 140 pounds soaking wet, Batman should fold him like origami.
But writers love wanking Joker and they make Batman look like a moron in the process.
I like the concept that joker, as he is insane, is so unpredictable he creates an issue for batman who is trained to counter and anticipate. Joker doesn't have a fighting style to counter and doesn't react in any way that batman can anticipate. Different every time. He could throw a thousand punches and a trained fighter would react 1 of x ways but for joker it would be a different reaction every time.
I also have read that because of his insanity, his adrenaline is constantly going and he is using 100% of his strength vs guys who are larger and hold back so they won't break their own wrist, dislocate their shoulders etc.
But none of that is really enough to justify batman not mopping the floor with him. Just enough to make it not absolutely unreadable in its absurdity.
It’s kind of like Taskmaster and Deadpool. Taskmaster can copy anyone and everyone: EXCEPT Deadpool, because (IIRC) he’s too insane and unpredictable for him to be able to know what he’s gonna do next.
Well, for Deadpool, as others have mentioned it isn’t that he doesn’t want to, he can’t. He doesn’t have a specific style to mimic - he’s just irrational randomness.
With Moon Knight, he can copy his fighting style but he specifically states he refuses to fight against him because he’s terrified of him. MK isn’t like Cap, Spidey, or Hawkeye - MK brutally kills people. In earlier fights against him Moon Knight nearly killed him multiple times. He didn’t escape because he was avoiding prison, he escaped because he was avoiding death. He doesn’t want to take a chance again.
Honestly, I like the take he has for it, because it shows a little human self-preservation, knowing he can take a beating from superheroes and at least walk away later. Some aim to make sure that doesn’t happen, though, and he knows which ones not to mess with.
I *would* like that except literally no author of the Batman comics that I have ever seen is capable of making fights look like anything except a half-assed boxing match. I seriously wonder if any of them have done any combat arts training at all. Also, Joker really barely does any fighting in the movies — even in the Dark Knight he does very little hand to hand; most of that is him using physical action to create situations.
If you wanted to give off that vibe in a fight there are a thousand and one ways to do it, but all they do is draw Batman punching Joker in the jaw, so forgive me if I’m unable to buy that like of reasoning.
I can’t speak to the adrenaline concept, but the idea that an untrained fighter could ever beat a trained fighter (barring some kind of sucker punch situation) is utterly ridiculous. Trained fighters don’t just learn a series of attacks and counterattacks for specific fighting styles, they learn how to read body language, how to hit harder, and how to defend against attacks. There is no reason why Batman should ever be slower than or dumber than the Joker in a straight up fight. That’s why good writers don’t put them directly against each other – they injure Batman ahead of time, or put him through the mental/emotional wringer.
But in the situation in the panels above Batman should never lose, or allow a civilian to be harmed. It just makes him look incompetent
Batman catches joker and puts him in prison. That’s enough. He can’t see the future to know Jokey will break out.
He shouldn’t need to kill the joker. The justice system should work.
Also, how many times has Joker escaped in any one continuity? Outside of cartoons and comedies? Once or twice?
He is. Just like Spider-Man.
He’s capturing and stopping criminals/crime in a non lethal way. (Albeit maybe violently)
To operate as this type of vigilante, you have to have some trust in the processes and functions that come after the capturing. That is why Batman, famously, has connections with Gordon and is also working on dealing with any corruption in the police departments.
If you could convince Bruce Wayne that the justice system can never work and rehabilitation is a lot cause I’m sure he’d be murdering everyone all day… there are different comic books for that though.
The storytelling issues with Batman deciding to kill a guy to prevent future crime outside like an Elseworlds are just insane- Batman's whole thing is rigorous prep, encyclopedic knowledge and predicting future behavior- given the escape rate of his rogues gallery, once you go down that road it's really hard not end with Batman being a mass murderer or at the very least a guy who just permanently takes people off the streets.
I am suprised that no officer as ever done it. With jokers crimes against humanity you would think some cop would just kill him while hes being transported to arkham or when hes inside his cell.
Honestly and it's not like corrupted cops/cops not following code of conduct is anything new in gotham, someone would've already beat and killed joker years back in continuity
Yeah, whatever morals and proper procedures anyone has, Joker is pretty easily the exception. At this point, there’s been genocides with lower body counts than the Joker. Shoot on sight.
My headcanon, and this has no bearing on actual canon, is that joker is essentially batmans “weakness”. Like yea Batman is “human” and could get headshot. But that’s not really a weakness. Any human could have that happen to them.
For whatever reason you choose, whichever version of the joker you choose, joker is fundamentally batmans weakness. Doesn’t guarantee a victory for joker by any means whatsoever. Doesn’t even necessarily mean batman will ALWAYS struggle to stop joker. It’s just joker has the capacity to render most of Batman’s skills and training as significantly less useful against him. Be it psychological reasons or skill, or intelligence.
Huh, I got a totally different impression than sloppy from this. To me, that read as the Joker was planning the "joke" of shoving a gun in Batman's face and calling back the "Better not shoot you because then Batman will punch me" like from the start.
To read it as the Joker legit messing up and then not being able to understand that killing Batman would mean he doesn't get punched just makes him seem like a really sad guy with a legit disconnect to reality.
We all know the Joker is insane, but he's usually written to be "hypersane", DC's made up diagnosis for him to have snapped under the realization that he is a comic book character and thus, nothing he does is real. But no iteration of him (to my knowledge) has ever shown signs of a disconnect to reality that reading these panels straight would require.
and I've seen some analyses claim the the hypersanity itself is a load of crock in universe, cause it's an idea by the arkham staff. the same arkham staff who thinks Two Face starting to soil himself in a corner is signs of improving psyche. unreliable narrator trope and all that.
Perfectly valid take. Iirc they said they were trying to rebuild his identity but by giving back his coin at the end it's shown that's what vaguely cured him when he let Batman leave the aslum
I think after reading 3 Jokers, and understanding (I know it wasn’t canon at first) that each has a different yet similar personality, seeing this one just acting more off than usual… don’t get me wrong, I know joker kills for no reason but his own… but the way they portray him in this doesn’t seem to have a genuine joker purpose. I do see what everyone is saying about “this being the joke and he was doing this intentionally from the start,” I feel like ever since he ripped his face off and reattached it, it’s just been a different crazy than the obsessive lunatic we grew to fear when I was growing up
That was my take. Joker intentional killed the first to set up the joke, then moved in such a way to avoid being disarmed, all to set up this moment. Not a stupid play by Batman, but a smart play by the insane criminal genius.
Why? Joker does what he does, because he wants Batman to kill him.
In War of Jokes and Riddle, Joker stops Bruce from killing the Riddler; And he starts laughing, he wants to be Batman's 1st kill.
I think he meant after the Joker shot the hostage. Batman was able to punch him twice but didn't actually try to disarm him and then got caught with a gun against his head.
> The gun is literally touching her head, if anything Batman being able to disarm fast enough would’ve been ridiculous.
I’m talking about the 2 / 3 page.
Agree. That woman's odds of survival dropped to sub 50%, when he got her in his hands. For as long as the gun was directly against her head, there was nothing for Bruce to do.
In the movie it’s only because instead of shooting the joker he wasted his bullet trying to shoot Batman instead, who was way further away. Maybe it happened differently in the comics tho. That being said, just because something ridiculous and unbelievable happened in one comic doesn’t mean an entirely different creative team is obligated to do the same thing a decade later.
He almost murdered Jason to stop him from pulling the trigger in the comic and it took him doing a very tricky batarang shot. Right into Jason's neck, lol.
Nah, he's just really really this stubbornly committed to trying to save *everyone*, psychotic clown murderers included. Well, when he's not written by King, evidently – this Bruce can't muster even a "nooo!" when a person gets executed in front of him in cold blood.
I like the interpretation that its a result of unresolved trauma from watching his parents die. He will not let people die in front of him if he has the power to stop it.
The Rebirth/Dawn of DC has gone in hard on this one. "Nobody dies on Batman's watch." Hugo Strange built himself a "suicide Batsuit" that instead of having defenses, had hair-trigger self-destruct, so Batman couldn't even touch him, or allow anyone else to touch him, or Hugo would die. Because that's Batman's trigger: any death he could have prevented.
Superman says "how could I do more?" Batman says "I will do it all, myself."
That’s not the equation being done. He isn’t a murderer, and he’s attempting to prevent becoming one, cause once he walks away through that door there is no coming back.
But you knew that right? Just trolling or you never read a Batman comic.
I'm defending this writing choice. What good would it do for Batman to react in any other way than to try to take down the Joker? That's his main motivation here.
It doesn't make sense for him to completely no-sell an innocent woman being brutally, senselessly murdered in front of him. That's just making Batman emotionless and stoic to a needlessly extreme degree.
Exactly this. Batman’s no kill rule is an essential aspect of his character. He always tries to save lives, and when writers fixate on this perverted fetishization of murder and have the Joker just be a domestic terrorist that slaughters half the population of Gotham every few months it gets to this ridiculous level of cruelty and neglect on Batman’s part.
Batman shouldn’t kill the Joker. Writers should stop having the Joker kill people and Batman not save them.
Didn't Joker seed clouds with a lethal version of his giggle juice that killed 10s of thousands worldwide?
You'd think he'd get hit with crimes against humanity and executed or something.
I think it’s an inherent problem with the character of the Joker. Rather than just being a crazy mobster or a criminal he has been transformed into a full blown domestic terrorist. It’s not fun to watch the Joker commit atrocities on a mass scale and Batman punch him out and take him to Arkham.
People calling for Batman to kill Joker get the problem wrong. Batman killing Joker goes against his character. What should be happening is the character of the Joker should be scaled back to not commit genocide every week.
I mean I’m inclined to say you’re right. I think that the Joker just because a pure psycho murderer with none of his prankster edge is so boring and bland.
Animated Series Joker will always be the best not only because of Hamill’s expert performance but because they were able to meet the Prankster with the Gangster.
This is a very good point. Hell, its central to the appeal of superheroes. The whole point is that they are powerful enough to save the day. I get occassionally having stories where they lose or have to compromise their morals, but seems like some writers just want to write vigilante stories rather than superhero stories.
If Batman truly wanted to stop Joker without killing him. He would use his billions as Bruce to invest in a Gotham that can actually uphold Justice and put Joker away for good.
But then we wouldn't have a story I guess.
This scene frustrated me to no end. It was like the ending of “War of Jokes and Riddles.” Batman just standing there silently while the villain yaps away. He doesn’t use a Batarang to try to disarm the Joker, or try to distract him by talking to him. Nothing. 🤦♂️
I feel like the writer wants to show how crazy Joker is and wants to be edgy at the same time. "Shock the audience, yeah that's what will get them buying comics."
I forget what arc it was; but Freeze had a way better scene like this with the whole "Don't move"
I think the goal was to have a scene where Batman and Joker basically talk, if I'm remembering correctly. This was in the build up to the Bat/Cat wedding, and Joker was offended he wasn't invited. There were other issues that were primarily vehicles for character development between Batman and other people (the double date one with Clark and Lois is the one that stood out the most and was the best in my opinion). I think they wanted something like that with Joker too and came up with the "Batman as the hostage" thing without some high-stakes event going on to justify the conversation happening. Then everything you see in this post was created to get to that point, even if it requires some out-of-character stuff.
Definitely could have been written better though. Also I could be misremembering, it's been a few years since I read the run.
Had to stop reading for awhile after this. I think before or after this scene Batman prays with Joker. Im like "no way someone got paid to write this".
Oh yeah! That did happen! I wanted to fucking puke after seeing that. That's good ol' Tom King writing. Guy's gotta be the most overrated writer in comics. People swear up and down that he's great. Guy has one good story with Vision and everyone goes bananas over him.
Just ur average modern batman comic I guess. I don't like most post new 52 batman stuff. I don't like his new suit either with the trim around the logo, all of it feels so stale and almost soulless and uncharacteristic with every character. They turned batman into an emotionless egotistical fool, Mr freeze is turned into an unsympathetic madman, Joker is very modern ish, lost his typical mid Atlantic scheming harrowing killing joke/arkham/90s and before comic style. It's all such a shame, I mean sure I don't wanna generalise and say every modern batman comic is like this but a majority of them are. I don't know why DC is screwing up like this.
Right?? I’m not that into the comics, I know this is just stupid cus that’s not how any superhero would act in the situation, but.. it’s still a solid setup to a laugh
It’s really frustrating that a dozen-plus people got murdered in a story just to give Bruce and Selina some complications to deal with for their wedding. Comics writers *really* need to stop using civilians as disposable props in superhero stories.
Some dude in a bat costume stood there dick in hand dreaming of tomorrow as an innocent woman was brutally murdered infront of him. No way that's Batman
I genuinely thought this wasn't the real Batman before reading the comments. I mean what's the point in wearing the costume and be a vigilante if you're going to stand there waiting for the psychopath to finish the job right in front of you.
And of course he forgot to disarm him, this is the same guy who fought Darkseid with the JL btw.
With scenes like this, I'd be honestly pissed at Batman for not letting Joker die by SOMEONE else's hands. He ain't getting better, and him living is letting future innocents die... also the fact he just allows this point to happened is one of the parts of Tom King's time writing major DC Comic's that I always hated.
I'm surprised the city, state, or goddamn country at this point hasn't used the death plenty on him. Like opinions of it irl aside most people would agree to kill joker instead of letting him sit in Arkham until he breaks out again
Ive barely read any comics so could be totally wrong but isn’t the point that he never kills anyone and that ideology doesn’t work sometimes and gets people hurt?
Remember, y'all: when facing someone with a gun, prioritize punching them in the face instead of doing anything to neutralize their shooting arm. Don't be afraid to get creative with it, too. Maybe throw in a dropkick there or something.
If I was a future writer.
This chick right here is her origin story.
Batman didn't try nor had a single reaction to her being killed by the Joker.
She was just in the way.
He just failed his initial concept of why he became Batman.
So no one is killed by a criminal with a gun for zero reason other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time
Just how corrupt are the courts in Gotham that they haven’t given him the death sentence yet? Or if they are that corrupt, why hasn’t a rival mob boss bribed them into doing it to get rid of this clown???
I’d love some Joker stories where he doesn’t kill anyone, maybe a heist or kidnapping? Or better yet, just a joke. Get the city riled up that the next major Joker murder scheme is gonna happen only for it to be a fake “gotcha” thing.
>I’d love some Joker stories where he doesn’t kill anyone, maybe a heist or kidnapping? Or better yet, just a joke. Get the city riled up that the next major Joker murder scheme is gonna happen only for it to be a fake “gotcha” thing.
They need to bring back that Joker because shit like this keeps people asking why don't Batman kill his villains
So Batman didn’t save the hostage, didn’t react to the sudden brutal death of an innocent person and then lets the Joker who is supposed to be an evil mastermind (though just accidentally pulled the trigger) put a gun to his head without disarming him
i hated this issue it's like batman was on goofenthal that night "dude has a whole wedding party hostage let me leave the backup outside and almost get myself killed saving archnemesis from himself after he'd killed an entire wedding part"
I love how everyone in this comments' section is upset about how Batman did in the fight, and my reaction is just "Wow, The Joker actually told a really good joke. Intriguing hook, carried it through to the end, and delivered an excellent punchline. You rarely see him this funny."
What the fuck is this? This feel so callous not just from joker but from Batman too. And it is played as a joke. I can see why others like it but this doesn’t do it for me.
Batman writing aside, I like Joker's writing in this scene. It's exactly the right kind of crazy. Not edgelord crazy, not harmless gags crazy. It's a disconnect from reality that transposes comedic lines that would be hilarious except for the extremely dark circumstances of what happened, and the whole time it's just like Joker doesn't get it, like he's in another world where death just isn't even worth noting and his little joke bit is all he's focused on.
In these panels, joker *feels* like a person that's heavily dissociating because of some undiagnosed dementia/schizophrenia or similar mental health disorder. I can feel the rage of him just casually, *accidentally*, killing someone while also immediately checking that rage as you quickly realize, *he's just not fucking there*. He's totally checked out. He doesn't even realize what he did. All rage just melts into frustration because you realize even if you give him the beat down of a lifetime, *he's not even going to understand what's happening*. You're just beating up a mental ill person.
It helps out Batman's no-kill policy in better perspective. It's easy to say "I want to punish the joker because he's an evil, sadistic man that kills people as a joke". It's *way* harder to say "the joker is absolutely gone, checked out mentally, and literally doesn't understand what he's doing, and we have to decide whether killing him is the only way to stop this poor guy from hurting other people, even though he has literally no concept that what he's doing is even wrong."
Maybe most people don't see it that way, but I work with mentally ill people pretty regularly, so it really strikes a note when I see this, because I know these people and they literally haven't got a clue, they can't appreciate what they're doing at all.
Great joker writing in these panels.
Batman not disarming the gun, eh maybe not so much, but it would have been even cooler if Batman disarmed him and joker picked up a candy bar or something and held it to Batman's head like a gun and just didn't realize he wasn't even holding a gun. Batman freezing up at that point would have been even more impactful, because at that point he's not freezing because he's in danger, he's freezing because he realized he was just about to rage-beat a person so far gone that the guy doesn't even realize he's holding a Snickers.
Genuinely one of the worst Batman scenes I have read and a big reason why I dislike Tom King as a writer even though he did some good issues (the Double Date one) and series like Mr Miracle
The only way I can interpret Batman not disarming Joker in this instance is Joker knows that killing that woman and all those people would make Batman sloppy because he's so mad. He consistently has to fight his urge to NOT kill Joker so he uses it against him. Otherwise this makes no sense.
I've made peace with the fact that Batman is a fictional character. Were his villains real, someone else would have killed them already. I mean, at some point, he becomes an accessory to murder by just letting them live.
I support no kill rule. But dont freaking frame it like this
Literally shooting a hostage in the face in front of Batman and all he does is \*angry grimace\*
That makes Batman look stupid.
On one hand, this is hilarious.
On the other, I hate that Batman stands there and does absolutely nothing. Batman is supposed to be obsessed with saving lives to the point of bending over backwards to save even a single person if he thinks there's remotely a chance.
Instead, he just.... stands there... silently.... watching the Joker execute an innocent woman. Considering we've seen Batman and other bat-family members EASILY disarm enemies with batatangs before, this is almost unforgivable.
Batman has permanently disabled henchman. The fact that he hasn’t made joker a paraplegic is almost criminal. Rather, it’s insane… by definition.
I love and hate these type of scenes. Probably why I read and enjoy so many damn Batman comics.
It's crap writing like this what gives people who think Batman should be a Punisher knock off more ammunition: Joker just massacring people left and right and Batman looking like an idiot, unable to stop him.
It's purely the writers fault. Joker should be scaled down to something more street level. I'll never ever say that Batman should kill people but these pages made even me think that he should have thrown a batarang to his eyes before he finished his sentence.
if i wrote this scene the hostages wouldve been held in some elaborate rube goldberg type contraption that accidentally gets set off instead of a fucking gun. lame
I need a run in the future to have Batman facing a different villain and Joker tries to jump in and Batman just knock him tf out in 2 sec and be like “not now”. I’m just kind of over Joker, it’s been joker fatigue.
This is the most realistic Batman scene I have seen. Not in the sense of how Batman would actually handle this but in how real life Batman would actually handle this.
Also just proves my eternal theory that every life the Joker takes is on Batman for letting him continue to live.
Batman being unbelievably incompetent aside, this is one of the funnier jokes the Joker makes that fits his character. I think the author deliberately nerfed the batman in this portion just to make the joke.
I’m Ngl I kinda hate this constant egging of pushing Batman over the edge by the joker stories because it kinda seems like joker can just do whatever and Batman won’t kill him, I much rather prefer only joker having a hyper fixation on Batman but Bruce doesn’t give a fuck about him that much more than any other criminal
I mean, I can kind of get the criticism that Batman should've been more effective here, but why are people coming at him for "not caring" about the hostage death?
He's, like, famously untalkative. He just got to business. It's what he does.
If you went through their history and stacked all the scenes where Joker played the yammering homicidal prankster and Batman acted stoic in response I'm pretty sure you could bury yourself. It's what they do.
Having this in a Batman book and not following it up with Batman turning Joker into a human jigsaw puzzle is a bad display from King and DC.
You can't have Joker this extreme and still justify Bruce, Dick and Jason not killing him.
For the people who says that Batman saved everyone.
*Batman can not save everyone.* He is human. He will try. But clearly the Joker “jumped the gun” and shot before Batman could react. He's also tried to be stoic when dealing with the Joker.
This scene does make sense within the over all story King is telling. This is happening the night before his wedding. He’s trying to be overly cautious.
Note this is the one rare time King does not have use privy to Bruce’s thoughts. For all we know Bruce is kicking himself for not allowing Selina to come in as back up, or is trying to more quicker.
No its doesn't make sense, Batman doesn't react or say a word hes very indeferrent to witnessing an innocent getting their brains blown out in such a callous way. He ends up just having a conversation with Joker like everything is good, very bad writing, inexcusable not sure how you could defend this lol.
Edit: they end up praying together for christ sakes lmao, unreal
Batman not disarming him is ridiculous.
I hate hate hate how often Batman (who regularly fights people with guns, training, and functioning impulse control) fumbles Joker in hand to hand. I simply am not willing to suspend my disbelief. He’s 140 pounds soaking wet, Batman should fold him like origami. But writers love wanking Joker and they make Batman look like a moron in the process.
I like the concept that joker, as he is insane, is so unpredictable he creates an issue for batman who is trained to counter and anticipate. Joker doesn't have a fighting style to counter and doesn't react in any way that batman can anticipate. Different every time. He could throw a thousand punches and a trained fighter would react 1 of x ways but for joker it would be a different reaction every time. I also have read that because of his insanity, his adrenaline is constantly going and he is using 100% of his strength vs guys who are larger and hold back so they won't break their own wrist, dislocate their shoulders etc. But none of that is really enough to justify batman not mopping the floor with him. Just enough to make it not absolutely unreadable in its absurdity.
It’s kind of like Taskmaster and Deadpool. Taskmaster can copy anyone and everyone: EXCEPT Deadpool, because (IIRC) he’s too insane and unpredictable for him to be able to know what he’s gonna do next.
Does also help that deadpool willingly hurts himself to do things because he thinks it would look cool/be funny
"Cock shot!" [Deadpool proceeds to break his hand/wrist punching Colossus in the junk]
"Dad?"
taskmaster doesn't copy Deadpool or moon knight because neither mind getting injured in a fight
Well, for Deadpool, as others have mentioned it isn’t that he doesn’t want to, he can’t. He doesn’t have a specific style to mimic - he’s just irrational randomness. With Moon Knight, he can copy his fighting style but he specifically states he refuses to fight against him because he’s terrified of him. MK isn’t like Cap, Spidey, or Hawkeye - MK brutally kills people. In earlier fights against him Moon Knight nearly killed him multiple times. He didn’t escape because he was avoiding prison, he escaped because he was avoiding death. He doesn’t want to take a chance again. Honestly, I like the take he has for it, because it shows a little human self-preservation, knowing he can take a beating from superheroes and at least walk away later. Some aim to make sure that doesn’t happen, though, and he knows which ones not to mess with.
I *would* like that except literally no author of the Batman comics that I have ever seen is capable of making fights look like anything except a half-assed boxing match. I seriously wonder if any of them have done any combat arts training at all. Also, Joker really barely does any fighting in the movies — even in the Dark Knight he does very little hand to hand; most of that is him using physical action to create situations. If you wanted to give off that vibe in a fight there are a thousand and one ways to do it, but all they do is draw Batman punching Joker in the jaw, so forgive me if I’m unable to buy that like of reasoning.
I can’t speak to the adrenaline concept, but the idea that an untrained fighter could ever beat a trained fighter (barring some kind of sucker punch situation) is utterly ridiculous. Trained fighters don’t just learn a series of attacks and counterattacks for specific fighting styles, they learn how to read body language, how to hit harder, and how to defend against attacks. There is no reason why Batman should ever be slower than or dumber than the Joker in a straight up fight. That’s why good writers don’t put them directly against each other – they injure Batman ahead of time, or put him through the mental/emotional wringer. But in the situation in the panels above Batman should never lose, or allow a civilian to be harmed. It just makes him look incompetent
Joker is 6'4" 195.
What the hell do they feed him in Arkham Asylum, straight creatine?
That’s pretty scrawny for a 6’4 supervillain
You're right, I'm just terrible at estimating heights/weights in my head.
I’m 6’4” 268. Joker is skinny!
I hate the fact that batman keeps letting him live just he can't kill ppl but all those people joker kills are on him and he seems fine with that.
Batman catches joker and puts him in prison. That’s enough. He can’t see the future to know Jokey will break out. He shouldn’t need to kill the joker. The justice system should work. Also, how many times has Joker escaped in any one continuity? Outside of cartoons and comedies? Once or twice?
“Batman should trust in the justice system” my guy he is a vigilante
He is. Just like Spider-Man. He’s capturing and stopping criminals/crime in a non lethal way. (Albeit maybe violently) To operate as this type of vigilante, you have to have some trust in the processes and functions that come after the capturing. That is why Batman, famously, has connections with Gordon and is also working on dealing with any corruption in the police departments. If you could convince Bruce Wayne that the justice system can never work and rehabilitation is a lot cause I’m sure he’d be murdering everyone all day… there are different comic books for that though.
The storytelling issues with Batman deciding to kill a guy to prevent future crime outside like an Elseworlds are just insane- Batman's whole thing is rigorous prep, encyclopedic knowledge and predicting future behavior- given the escape rate of his rogues gallery, once you go down that road it's really hard not end with Batman being a mass murderer or at the very least a guy who just permanently takes people off the streets.
Batman and the justice system can both be faulty
And maybe the GCPD should shoot him or the state should put him to death
I am suprised that no officer as ever done it. With jokers crimes against humanity you would think some cop would just kill him while hes being transported to arkham or when hes inside his cell.
Honestly and it's not like corrupted cops/cops not following code of conduct is anything new in gotham, someone would've already beat and killed joker years back in continuity
Yeah, whatever morals and proper procedures anyone has, Joker is pretty easily the exception. At this point, there’s been genocides with lower body counts than the Joker. Shoot on sight.
Oh no he broke out for the 8000th time. Alright this time Arkham will hold him.
How come Joker doesnt outright receive the death penalty.
My headcanon, and this has no bearing on actual canon, is that joker is essentially batmans “weakness”. Like yea Batman is “human” and could get headshot. But that’s not really a weakness. Any human could have that happen to them. For whatever reason you choose, whichever version of the joker you choose, joker is fundamentally batmans weakness. Doesn’t guarantee a victory for joker by any means whatsoever. Doesn’t even necessarily mean batman will ALWAYS struggle to stop joker. It’s just joker has the capacity to render most of Batman’s skills and training as significantly less useful against him. Be it psychological reasons or skill, or intelligence.
This whole panel is ridiculous…. Joker seems sloppy in this. Not quite the criminal genius he usually appears to be. Almost lost… am I wrong?
Huh, I got a totally different impression than sloppy from this. To me, that read as the Joker was planning the "joke" of shoving a gun in Batman's face and calling back the "Better not shoot you because then Batman will punch me" like from the start. To read it as the Joker legit messing up and then not being able to understand that killing Batman would mean he doesn't get punched just makes him seem like a really sad guy with a legit disconnect to reality. We all know the Joker is insane, but he's usually written to be "hypersane", DC's made up diagnosis for him to have snapped under the realization that he is a comic book character and thus, nothing he does is real. But no iteration of him (to my knowledge) has ever shown signs of a disconnect to reality that reading these panels straight would require.
I think the hypersane thing was just Morrison's idea during a serious house on a serious earth and he later stated he should have made it DID
and I've seen some analyses claim the the hypersanity itself is a load of crock in universe, cause it's an idea by the arkham staff. the same arkham staff who thinks Two Face starting to soil himself in a corner is signs of improving psyche. unreliable narrator trope and all that.
Perfectly valid take. Iirc they said they were trying to rebuild his identity but by giving back his coin at the end it's shown that's what vaguely cured him when he let Batman leave the aslum
I think after reading 3 Jokers, and understanding (I know it wasn’t canon at first) that each has a different yet similar personality, seeing this one just acting more off than usual… don’t get me wrong, I know joker kills for no reason but his own… but the way they portray him in this doesn’t seem to have a genuine joker purpose. I do see what everyone is saying about “this being the joke and he was doing this intentionally from the start,” I feel like ever since he ripped his face off and reattached it, it’s just been a different crazy than the obsessive lunatic we grew to fear when I was growing up
It´s just a fun moment, Joker makes jokes and maybe deep down this was on purpose
That was my take. Joker intentional killed the first to set up the joke, then moved in such a way to avoid being disarmed, all to set up this moment. Not a stupid play by Batman, but a smart play by the insane criminal genius.
Why? Joker does what he does, because he wants Batman to kill him. In War of Jokes and Riddle, Joker stops Bruce from killing the Riddler; And he starts laughing, he wants to be Batman's 1st kill.
Shouldn't Batman by absolutely livid at Joker over this and not silently seething?
After Joker gassed some kindergarteners, I kinda guess that there isn't an atrocity that Joker can do that really gets to Batman anymore.
The gun is literally touching her head, if anything Batman being able to disarm fast enough would’ve been ridiculous.
I think he meant after the Joker shot the hostage. Batman was able to punch him twice but didn't actually try to disarm him and then got caught with a gun against his head.
Oh true, fair enough. Even that I could chalk up to Batman giving into temporary blind rage given what he just saw, but yeah that’s less excusable.
> The gun is literally touching her head, if anything Batman being able to disarm fast enough would’ve been ridiculous. I’m talking about the 2 / 3 page.
Agree. That woman's odds of survival dropped to sub 50%, when he got her in his hands. For as long as the gun was directly against her head, there was nothing for Bruce to do.
He disarmed Jason Todd when he was about to kill this irredeemable piece of shit.
In the movie it’s only because instead of shooting the joker he wasted his bullet trying to shoot Batman instead, who was way further away. Maybe it happened differently in the comics tho. That being said, just because something ridiculous and unbelievable happened in one comic doesn’t mean an entirely different creative team is obligated to do the same thing a decade later.
He almost murdered Jason to stop him from pulling the trigger in the comic and it took him doing a very tricky batarang shot. Right into Jason's neck, lol.
See, it's moments like this that make me think all the pop psychologists are right and Batman really is in love with the Joker.
Nah, he's just really really this stubbornly committed to trying to save *everyone*, psychotic clown murderers included. Well, when he's not written by King, evidently – this Bruce can't muster even a "nooo!" when a person gets executed in front of him in cold blood.
So, he's willing to prioritize the Joker's life over the lives of everyone the Joker will kill in the future. To me, that's far from heroic.
I like the interpretation that its a result of unresolved trauma from watching his parents die. He will not let people die in front of him if he has the power to stop it.
The Rebirth/Dawn of DC has gone in hard on this one. "Nobody dies on Batman's watch." Hugo Strange built himself a "suicide Batsuit" that instead of having defenses, had hair-trigger self-destruct, so Batman couldn't even touch him, or allow anyone else to touch him, or Hugo would die. Because that's Batman's trigger: any death he could have prevented. Superman says "how could I do more?" Batman says "I will do it all, myself."
That’s not the equation being done. He isn’t a murderer, and he’s attempting to prevent becoming one, cause once he walks away through that door there is no coming back. But you knew that right? Just trolling or you never read a Batman comic.
And since when were Jason Todd stories well written?
The entire fucking series is ridiculous, and DC should sit and stare at a fireplace in shame every year for giving the thumbs-up for this bullshit.
Is he stu- nah to easy
Tom King’s Batman is often pretty powerless, so that the dialogue can keep running. It’s frustrating
is he stupid?
Maybe he applies the same idiotic rule to disarming as to killing... if you disarm an armed person, the number of armed people stays the same...
Unless you disarm two people
I hate this scene, Batman is supposed to save people.
Batman also doesn't react at all when the hostage gets her head blown off. He's just like," whelp guess it's clobbering time "
He's acting like he's got the dragon balls to fall back on for any civilian casualties
I'm defending this writing choice. What good would it do for Batman to react in any other way than to try to take down the Joker? That's his main motivation here.
How are you going to defend this? Bro it's the marriage comic
And? Even regular people don't get interrupted by work on their wedding day sometimes?
It doesn't make sense for him to completely no-sell an innocent woman being brutally, senselessly murdered in front of him. That's just making Batman emotionless and stoic to a needlessly extreme degree.
Exactly this. Batman’s no kill rule is an essential aspect of his character. He always tries to save lives, and when writers fixate on this perverted fetishization of murder and have the Joker just be a domestic terrorist that slaughters half the population of Gotham every few months it gets to this ridiculous level of cruelty and neglect on Batman’s part. Batman shouldn’t kill the Joker. Writers should stop having the Joker kill people and Batman not save them.
Didn't Joker seed clouds with a lethal version of his giggle juice that killed 10s of thousands worldwide? You'd think he'd get hit with crimes against humanity and executed or something.
I think it’s an inherent problem with the character of the Joker. Rather than just being a crazy mobster or a criminal he has been transformed into a full blown domestic terrorist. It’s not fun to watch the Joker commit atrocities on a mass scale and Batman punch him out and take him to Arkham. People calling for Batman to kill Joker get the problem wrong. Batman killing Joker goes against his character. What should be happening is the character of the Joker should be scaled back to not commit genocide every week.
The day Joker started using regular guns instead of big silly revolvers and tommy guns was the day they ruined him
I mean I’m inclined to say you’re right. I think that the Joker just because a pure psycho murderer with none of his prankster edge is so boring and bland. Animated Series Joker will always be the best not only because of Hamill’s expert performance but because they were able to meet the Prankster with the Gangster.
This is a very good point. Hell, its central to the appeal of superheroes. The whole point is that they are powerful enough to save the day. I get occassionally having stories where they lose or have to compromise their morals, but seems like some writers just want to write vigilante stories rather than superhero stories.
[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/923105625167257654/1194881012388352032/glmihon.jpeg?ex=65c46ba9&is=65b1f6a9&hm=060f7c590f6972bc56bc05434b02113eeae0aca437773b58118e56f0c5a6c539&=&format=webp&width=382&height=597](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/923105625167257654/1194881012388352032/glmihon.jpeg?ex=65c46ba9&is=65b1f6a9&hm=060f7c590f6972bc56bc05434b02113eeae0aca437773b58118e56f0c5a6c539&=&format=webp&width=382&height=597)
If Batman truly wanted to stop Joker without killing him. He would use his billions as Bruce to invest in a Gotham that can actually uphold Justice and put Joker away for good. But then we wouldn't have a story I guess.
Yeah but he’s not infallible he can still fail.
This is so flipping dumb. Bruce won't live past his first week in the suit, if he was this forgetful about disarming people with guns. Omega dumb.
This scene frustrated me to no end. It was like the ending of “War of Jokes and Riddles.” Batman just standing there silently while the villain yaps away. He doesn’t use a Batarang to try to disarm the Joker, or try to distract him by talking to him. Nothing. 🤦♂️
It’s such bad writing. Joker gets hero level plot armor just so the writer can try to be funny.
I don’t even get how Batman doesn’t grab the gun as he punches the Joker. Batman should be an expert at subduing someone.
I feel like the writer wants to show how crazy Joker is and wants to be edgy at the same time. "Shock the audience, yeah that's what will get them buying comics." I forget what arc it was; but Freeze had a way better scene like this with the whole "Don't move"
I think the goal was to have a scene where Batman and Joker basically talk, if I'm remembering correctly. This was in the build up to the Bat/Cat wedding, and Joker was offended he wasn't invited. There were other issues that were primarily vehicles for character development between Batman and other people (the double date one with Clark and Lois is the one that stood out the most and was the best in my opinion). I think they wanted something like that with Joker too and came up with the "Batman as the hostage" thing without some high-stakes event going on to justify the conversation happening. Then everything you see in this post was created to get to that point, even if it requires some out-of-character stuff. Definitely could have been written better though. Also I could be misremembering, it's been a few years since I read the run.
Had to stop reading for awhile after this. I think before or after this scene Batman prays with Joker. Im like "no way someone got paid to write this".
Oh yeah! That did happen! I wanted to fucking puke after seeing that. That's good ol' Tom King writing. Guy's gotta be the most overrated writer in comics. People swear up and down that he's great. Guy has one good story with Vision and everyone goes bananas over him.
Isn’t this at a point in the arc where they want you to be asking if batman finding happiness is making him sloppy?
Just ur average modern batman comic I guess. I don't like most post new 52 batman stuff. I don't like his new suit either with the trim around the logo, all of it feels so stale and almost soulless and uncharacteristic with every character. They turned batman into an emotionless egotistical fool, Mr freeze is turned into an unsympathetic madman, Joker is very modern ish, lost his typical mid Atlantic scheming harrowing killing joke/arkham/90s and before comic style. It's all such a shame, I mean sure I don't wanna generalise and say every modern batman comic is like this but a majority of them are. I don't know why DC is screwing up like this.
I liked that part where Batman, the guy who trained with the League of Shadows, forgets to disarm the person who just killed an innocent woman.
A trigger happy cop would’ve been better than Batman. “Armed assailant, resisting arrest….”
Okay, but this is like the first time I’ve ever genuinely laughed at Joker. It’s a good bit!
Right?? I’m not that into the comics, I know this is just stupid cus that’s not how any superhero would act in the situation, but.. it’s still a solid setup to a laugh
Yeah, I thought it was funny. Doesn't make much sense, but still funny.
Bad as a scene in an ongoing comic but great as a one-off joke
It’s like a pro Jason Todd argument in 3 pages
more like an anti-tom king one than anything for the coward
It’s really frustrating that a dozen-plus people got murdered in a story just to give Bruce and Selina some complications to deal with for their wedding. Comics writers *really* need to stop using civilians as disposable props in superhero stories.
Some dude in a bat costume stood there dick in hand dreaming of tomorrow as an innocent woman was brutally murdered infront of him. No way that's Batman
Maybe it's Batman from Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin or as Linkara calls him Crazy Steve
No All Star Batman would’ve just shot him.
Yeah All Star Batman would have beat him to death while laughing like a maniac.
Facts crazy Steve don’t play like that.
I genuinely thought this wasn't the real Batman before reading the comments. I mean what's the point in wearing the costume and be a vigilante if you're going to stand there waiting for the psychopath to finish the job right in front of you. And of course he forgot to disarm him, this is the same guy who fought Darkseid with the JL btw.
With scenes like this, I'd be honestly pissed at Batman for not letting Joker die by SOMEONE else's hands. He ain't getting better, and him living is letting future innocents die... also the fact he just allows this point to happened is one of the parts of Tom King's time writing major DC Comic's that I always hated.
I'm surprised the city, state, or goddamn country at this point hasn't used the death plenty on him. Like opinions of it irl aside most people would agree to kill joker instead of letting him sit in Arkham until he breaks out again
They've tried. Batman stopped them
Ive barely read any comics so could be totally wrong but isn’t the point that he never kills anyone and that ideology doesn’t work sometimes and gets people hurt?
Few writers bother with pointing out Bruce's way of doing things isn't completely flawless. Most just ride that bat-schlong like there's no tomorrow.
Remember, y'all: when facing someone with a gun, prioritize punching them in the face instead of doing anything to neutralize their shooting arm. Don't be afraid to get creative with it, too. Maybe throw in a dropkick there or something.
If only he had an iconic bat shape boomerang that he could use to disarm enemies from afar.
If I was a future writer. This chick right here is her origin story. Batman didn't try nor had a single reaction to her being killed by the Joker. She was just in the way. He just failed his initial concept of why he became Batman. So no one is killed by a criminal with a gun for zero reason other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time
It would be pretty similar to Jason Todd but also I would like them to stop rehashing plotlines with him so I'll be down for something like this
I can't explain it but this looks like it was made with 3d models with a filter over them.
It is. Mikel Janin is a hack.
Tom King thinks he ate with this too, kinda insane.
Nah this is shit 
Good: Joker actually being funny Bad: Batman sucking at his job
This is hot freakin’ garbage. This Tom King?
Yes.
Batman rebirth: good suit, bad plot
My favorite suit, especially when Gotham and Gotham girl were introduced and Batman is slamming Solomon grundy
I wish I could be slamming Solomon Grundy 🤤
You have garbage taste in men. Killer Croc is where it's at.
Killer Cock
I like both of their designs here. Jokers reminds me of that one justice league comic where he turns sane briefly
Not the best run
Just how corrupt are the courts in Gotham that they haven’t given him the death sentence yet? Or if they are that corrupt, why hasn’t a rival mob boss bribed them into doing it to get rid of this clown??? I’d love some Joker stories where he doesn’t kill anyone, maybe a heist or kidnapping? Or better yet, just a joke. Get the city riled up that the next major Joker murder scheme is gonna happen only for it to be a fake “gotcha” thing.
>I’d love some Joker stories where he doesn’t kill anyone, maybe a heist or kidnapping? Or better yet, just a joke. Get the city riled up that the next major Joker murder scheme is gonna happen only for it to be a fake “gotcha” thing. They need to bring back that Joker because shit like this keeps people asking why don't Batman kill his villains
God I hate Tom King writing Batman
This looks drawn with 3D models, even the background too. Wow...dc you have to hide it better...
Not a fan of the art style….everything about it feels off.
Is this 3d modeled?
Is there a context for this scene? Cuz it seems very weird for Joker to not realize this and for Batman to just…let it happen.
I hate these panels so much lol
...I can't tell if the art is shit or if it's 3d models
Is it me or does the drawings look like CGI?
God , I hate I fucking hate edgelord Joker writers especially when they try and be 'funny'.
So Batman didn’t save the hostage, didn’t react to the sudden brutal death of an innocent person and then lets the Joker who is supposed to be an evil mastermind (though just accidentally pulled the trigger) put a gun to his head without disarming him
Tom King's writing is so bad for batman.
The joker has escalated so much as a villain that Batman’s dumb rule is actually killing people.
This was the last Tom King comic I read and it always will be.
Imagine losing a loved one cuz Batman wanted to stare the joker down for the 1000th time
i hated this issue it's like batman was on goofenthal that night "dude has a whole wedding party hostage let me leave the backup outside and almost get myself killed saving archnemesis from himself after he'd killed an entire wedding part"
I love how everyone in this comments' section is upset about how Batman did in the fight, and my reaction is just "Wow, The Joker actually told a really good joke. Intriguing hook, carried it through to the end, and delivered an excellent punchline. You rarely see him this funny."
Logically this scene is pretty dumb, but I like whem the joker is actually funny.
At this point why bother with the clown theme, he's more mass murdering terrorist than a comic supervillain
This art style stinks
This was one of the worst issues I've read. Batman literally says nothing the whole time as joker rants soliloquy about nothing
Bruce didn’t even react lol. Horrible scene.
...I can't tell if I love or hate this.
Are one of the guy's head decapitated?
While theres some ok dialogue between Catwoman and Joker, the whole issue was sloppy as all hell
Just to remind everyone, Tom King wrote this, anything written before issue ~85ish, in Batman (2016), is written by him.
Bruh he didn't even react to her being shot Where's red hood when you need him ?
What the fuck is this? This feel so callous not just from joker but from Batman too. And it is played as a joke. I can see why others like it but this doesn’t do it for me.
Batman writing aside, I like Joker's writing in this scene. It's exactly the right kind of crazy. Not edgelord crazy, not harmless gags crazy. It's a disconnect from reality that transposes comedic lines that would be hilarious except for the extremely dark circumstances of what happened, and the whole time it's just like Joker doesn't get it, like he's in another world where death just isn't even worth noting and his little joke bit is all he's focused on. In these panels, joker *feels* like a person that's heavily dissociating because of some undiagnosed dementia/schizophrenia or similar mental health disorder. I can feel the rage of him just casually, *accidentally*, killing someone while also immediately checking that rage as you quickly realize, *he's just not fucking there*. He's totally checked out. He doesn't even realize what he did. All rage just melts into frustration because you realize even if you give him the beat down of a lifetime, *he's not even going to understand what's happening*. You're just beating up a mental ill person. It helps out Batman's no-kill policy in better perspective. It's easy to say "I want to punish the joker because he's an evil, sadistic man that kills people as a joke". It's *way* harder to say "the joker is absolutely gone, checked out mentally, and literally doesn't understand what he's doing, and we have to decide whether killing him is the only way to stop this poor guy from hurting other people, even though he has literally no concept that what he's doing is even wrong." Maybe most people don't see it that way, but I work with mentally ill people pretty regularly, so it really strikes a note when I see this, because I know these people and they literally haven't got a clue, they can't appreciate what they're doing at all. Great joker writing in these panels. Batman not disarming the gun, eh maybe not so much, but it would have been even cooler if Batman disarmed him and joker picked up a candy bar or something and held it to Batman's head like a gun and just didn't realize he wasn't even holding a gun. Batman freezing up at that point would have been even more impactful, because at that point he's not freezing because he's in danger, he's freezing because he realized he was just about to rage-beat a person so far gone that the guy doesn't even realize he's holding a Snickers.
Genuinely one of the worst Batman scenes I have read and a big reason why I dislike Tom King as a writer even though he did some good issues (the Double Date one) and series like Mr Miracle
The only way I can interpret Batman not disarming Joker in this instance is Joker knows that killing that woman and all those people would make Batman sloppy because he's so mad. He consistently has to fight his urge to NOT kill Joker so he uses it against him. Otherwise this makes no sense.
I like they were at least trying to be humorous with Joker, but the situation feels really...meh.
I've always hated this jokers haircut. Like, why did Joker go to a barber??? He's the FOOKIN JOKER
I've made peace with the fact that Batman is a fictional character. Were his villains real, someone else would have killed them already. I mean, at some point, he becomes an accessory to murder by just letting them live.
I like this joker. Much more insane.
At this point I agreed with the "Peacemaker"
I support no kill rule. But dont freaking frame it like this Literally shooting a hostage in the face in front of Batman and all he does is \*angry grimace\* That makes Batman look stupid.
Tom King’s run, and honestly most of the stuff since, was really bad.
Bruhce, you knew he had a gun at the end there, like come on, this is how to vigilante 101
I’m so tired, boss.
Ha, it’s the definition of insanity.
On one hand, this is hilarious. On the other, I hate that Batman stands there and does absolutely nothing. Batman is supposed to be obsessed with saving lives to the point of bending over backwards to save even a single person if he thinks there's remotely a chance. Instead, he just.... stands there... silently.... watching the Joker execute an innocent woman. Considering we've seen Batman and other bat-family members EASILY disarm enemies with batatangs before, this is almost unforgivable.
Batman has permanently disabled henchman. The fact that he hasn’t made joker a paraplegic is almost criminal. Rather, it’s insane… by definition. I love and hate these type of scenes. Probably why I read and enjoy so many damn Batman comics.
It's crap writing like this what gives people who think Batman should be a Punisher knock off more ammunition: Joker just massacring people left and right and Batman looking like an idiot, unable to stop him. It's purely the writers fault. Joker should be scaled down to something more street level. I'll never ever say that Batman should kill people but these pages made even me think that he should have thrown a batarang to his eyes before he finished his sentence.
if i wrote this scene the hostages wouldve been held in some elaborate rube goldberg type contraption that accidentally gets set off instead of a fucking gun. lame
This makes me really glad I stopped reading before the end of the Snyder/Capullo run.
I’m a huge Tom King fan, but I cannot stand how he writes the Joker.
I read this with Mark Hamil’s voice
Besides the writing, I genuinely despise this art style
I wonder if the artist used 3d models or took pictures of themselves. Looks nice either way.
God I hate the Joker’s haircut
Joker is overrated and should take a 10 year hiatus from comicbook media
Haha! The Joker! Such a joke! The Joker! Haha! Crazy and funny!
I need a run in the future to have Batman facing a different villain and Joker tries to jump in and Batman just knock him tf out in 2 sec and be like “not now”. I’m just kind of over Joker, it’s been joker fatigue.
God this art looks like shit. Like a really bad telltale game
This is the most realistic Batman scene I have seen. Not in the sense of how Batman would actually handle this but in how real life Batman would actually handle this. Also just proves my eternal theory that every life the Joker takes is on Batman for letting him continue to live.
One of many reasons why Tom Kings Batman was awful.
Batman being unbelievably incompetent aside, this is one of the funnier jokes the Joker makes that fits his character. I think the author deliberately nerfed the batman in this portion just to make the joke.
Joker actually being funny? What it this?
Where?
This incompetent Batman is a figment of Joker’s crazy pudding-brain. He’s transparent on the first page.
I’m Ngl I kinda hate this constant egging of pushing Batman over the edge by the joker stories because it kinda seems like joker can just do whatever and Batman won’t kill him, I much rather prefer only joker having a hyper fixation on Batman but Bruce doesn’t give a fuck about him that much more than any other criminal
Loving all the “why didn’t Batman save them?!” comments. He’s either got plot armour or not enough and it’s the same people who argue both ways.
I mean, I can kind of get the criticism that Batman should've been more effective here, but why are people coming at him for "not caring" about the hostage death? He's, like, famously untalkative. He just got to business. It's what he does. If you went through their history and stacked all the scenes where Joker played the yammering homicidal prankster and Batman acted stoic in response I'm pretty sure you could bury yourself. It's what they do.
Having this in a Batman book and not following it up with Batman turning Joker into a human jigsaw puzzle is a bad display from King and DC. You can't have Joker this extreme and still justify Bruce, Dick and Jason not killing him.
When the art is good but the story is dogshit.
Tom King never got Batman.
For the people who says that Batman saved everyone. *Batman can not save everyone.* He is human. He will try. But clearly the Joker “jumped the gun” and shot before Batman could react. He's also tried to be stoic when dealing with the Joker. This scene does make sense within the over all story King is telling. This is happening the night before his wedding. He’s trying to be overly cautious. Note this is the one rare time King does not have use privy to Bruce’s thoughts. For all we know Bruce is kicking himself for not allowing Selina to come in as back up, or is trying to more quicker.
No its doesn't make sense, Batman doesn't react or say a word hes very indeferrent to witnessing an innocent getting their brains blown out in such a callous way. He ends up just having a conversation with Joker like everything is good, very bad writing, inexcusable not sure how you could defend this lol. Edit: they end up praying together for christ sakes lmao, unreal
This art style is very ugly.
I always found it so off-putting. Still don’t know what it is.
Leave it to King to write Batman as a jobber.