A few weeks back, I posted a reading list to celebrate the birthday of the big bad bat. Batman is one of the most iconic characters in the entire genre, and with as colorful a pedigree as the character has, from design to rogues gallery, he has certainly earned the spot at the top of the food chain as far as heroes are concerned. With it being a celebration of his big ol' 78th, last week I put together a list of some of my favorite Batman stories. Unfortunately, I am going to have to remove one of the books from that list. I should have known better to count on an arc that had yet to finish, but sadly, while Tom King's War of Jokes and Riddles may have started with a bang, it's ending carried the concussive force of a whoopee cushion.
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| Oh Look, Batman looks almost as Dismayed as I was by this final issue! |
This arc began a month or so ago in the wake of something huge to properly reel in it's audience. Batman took the proverbial "arrow to the knee" and proposed to long time love interest, on and off again villain/ hero Catwoman. In order to keep people invested, they did not give Selena Kyle's answer off the bat (no pun intended... or was it), and instead have Bruce prevent her from answering so that he may confess to this woman what he consider's his ultimate sin. First he must tell her the terrible thing he did during the war of Jokes and Riddles. That's what kicks us off.
Now if you can't infer by the title, this story pits the clown prince of crime against the prince of puzzlers, Joker and the Riddler face off. This whole thing is begun when Riddler confronts the Joker, who is having a rough time getting his giggles off and has been on a spree killing comedians or anyone who failed to make him laugh, with a proposition: Joker and Riddler no longer find joy in riddles and jokes because of Batman, so together they would take Batman off the board. Joker is so taken by the idea that he fires a .45 caliber slug into the Riddler's chest at point blank. Disappointed in the lack of hilarity Joker walks off without finishing the job, and the Riddler claws his way to a doctor, gets stitched up and a war begins.
This war is a BLOODBATH, the two iconic nemeses of the Bat draw a line in the sand for his other respective rogues to cross. The criminal element of Gotham has divided and its civil war. During this fight a former thug and kite enthusiast's child is kidnapped and poisoned by the Riddler creating a villain named Kite Man, Dead Shot and Deathstroke get into an assassination tango to take one another out so that the winner can kill the bat (catching HUNDREDS in the crossfire), and the list goes on. This gets to a point where Batman, at his whits end, sends an invitation from Bruce Wayne to the Riddler and The Joker to come to Wayne Manor for a dinner. Over a 5 course dinner, Bruce tries to broker a peace between the two villains (while this may not sound super exciting, this might be my singular favorite issue of Tom King's run, it's REALLY well done). The dinner fails, and it's right back to square one, except this time Batman is picking sides.
While he seemingly sides with the Riddler, it all turns into a double cross as Batman uses Kite Man (who had played the part of double agent) as his ace in the hole levels the playing field after helping the Riddler wipe out all Joker's side. Now it's between Joker, Riddler, and the Bat. Up until this point, you as the reader are probably wondering, "How on earth could this go wrong?" Which is a valid question considering how exciting the arc had been up until this point. However, Tom King destroys ALL the momentum he had built in the arc with his big moment we had been waiting for since the beginning. The Riddler all of a sudden gives up and asks if Joker's laughing, Batman is confused and asks what he is talking about. The Riddler then explains that he set this entire thing up, cost Gotham hundreds of lives, and even murdered a mans son to get him to snap, JUST so he could be beaten by Kite Man for the ultimate joke and get Joker to laugh (thus ending his gigantic murder spree). Batman, enraged by the Riddler (much as I as a reader was enraged that this whole thing was reduced to the result of a logical fallacy) tries to stab riddler in the face with a knife and is stopped by the Joker, who literally takes the knife blow to his hand. After showing the Joker laugh for the first time the entire arc, the story cuts to Batman who is then moping to Selena, about how as Batman he's supposed to be above the human urges to murder a psychopath. The issue ends with Selena saying yes reducing War of Jokes and Riddles to the most anti climactic pregnancy pause in comic book history.
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This is infuriating on many levels, first of which being is that there is literally no reason for this to have been his greatest shame. While I realize that New 52 did away with a lot of previous canon, this is the man who created the Tower of Babel protocol, got an 11 year old boy killed by dragging him into crime fighting despite his brash personality, and that's just the bad stuff he's done to his allies. But Tom King expects us to believe that breaking down to his base human urges over finding out that the whole massacre that ensued during this turf war was for the punch line of Kite Man is Batman's greatest shame?! That's ridiculous! Secondly is that at the end there was ZERO CONSEQUENCE, Catwoman isn't moved slightly by the story, kinda says "whatever, let's get married." If Selena is going to take this like a joke, why should I care as a reader! She doesn't even bat an eye during his final breakdown about this, in fact she's kinda smiling like she was thinking "oh thank god, I thought this was going to be something serious." Thirdly because Tom King is a MUCH better writer than this! His Vision title was a gem that was widely acclaimed on won awards, his current Mr. Miracle title is one of the best DC has to offer and that's only 3 issues in, I mean hell, his annual about Batman getting Ace (his iconic great dane) was more compelling than this and it was a one shot! Part of me was kind of hoping that this was a troll done by King, but the next arc is literally Batman going on a self searching journey to "redeem himself" for that ever so terrible thing he did.
If you read War of Jokes and Riddles and your opinion differs (please feel free to comment, I'd love to discuss it with you, as in you enjoyed the finale, I am glad. Tom King does work hard on this book, and there was a lot great about this arc. I was just not crazy about the fact that he was doing so well and was about to score a touchdown for the first time since he's had the book (his past arcs aren't bad, they just don't live up to his predecessors) and even have a quintessential Batman book, only to hand the ball off to the opposing teams defense and then allow them a breakaway touchdown. It's just downright disappointing, and it sucks to say, but now I kinda hope he's replaced on the book. Batman's titles are some of the least talked about in Rebirth with few exceptions which is disapointing considering they were one of the only good things talked about when Snyder and Capullo were working on it during the New 52. As of right now I am redacting the War of Riddles and Jokes portion of my Batman article. There is a new book that has just started, however, that should it finish strong will replace it, and that's Sean Gordon Murphy's White Knight.
Well, this has been another edition of Comic Relief! I hope you enjoyed and we'll see you again soon!
