Batman: Gotham Knights #73 and #74

March 1st, 2006

Filed under: Comics

Mild Spoilers Below

I’m going to spend the next few posts looking into the medicine behind the recent storyline in Batman: Gotham Knights. Before I get into that, I wanted to spend a moment to give my general opinion of the story:

I didn’t like it. It’s not because of the medicine, though there was quite a bit of bad medicine in it. It’s just an uninteresting and uninspired story with bland, overused characters and no resolution of the problem.

Though this appears in Batman: Gotham Knights, it is not a Batman story. He appears as a supporting character, but he isn’t the focus. This is a story about villains. That is not in and of itself a bad thing. With the right characters and the correct writer, villains can certainly carry a story on their own — just look at the recent Injustice League storyline in JSA Classified. Hush and Joker can’t pull it off though.

In a nutshell, here’s what’s wrong with the story:

  1. The Villains
    • The Joker - It’s time to put the Joker out to pasture. Sure, he’s the most recognizable Bat-villain — but he’s also the most overused. He’s been so diluted that he lacks any hint of a threat anymore, so writers keep trying to up the ante and make him seem formidable by having him kill more and more innocents.
      As an example of how overused the Joker is, the same time he is appearing in this story trying to kill Hush, he is also appearing in Batman where he is kidnapped by the Red Hood and blown up.
    • Hush — I’ve made my low opinion of Hush known on many occasions, and this storyline does nothing to change my mind. I’m reading about this guy running frantically through the rain, looking like a combination of Mumm-ra and a flasher, and I’m wondering if he’s still going to be around in 10 years*? How about 5 years? How about next year? To quote Sixteen Candles: “There’s no there there.”
  2. The Threat

    3. At the beginning of the storyline, the threat is laid out: the Joker has a device that can kill people who have a Waynetech pacemaker. At the end of the storyline, the Joker has a device that can kill people who have a Waynetech pacemaker. The threat is never resolved.

  3. The Ending

    4. A clever ending that leaves you guessing? Or a lame attempt to make a poor story seem more interesting than it actually is? You decide.

*I predict that in a few years there will be a big Bat-storyline that will be advertised as having the death of a “major villain.” This villain will be Hush. This way DC can get rid of this ridiculously lame villain, but still pretend that he was something special.

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8 Responses to “ Batman: Gotham Knights #73 and #74 ”

  1. Vincent J. Murphy
    March 1st, 2006 at 11:39 am

    Hush is the modern equivalent of Bane, another bad Batman villain born out of plot contrivance, rather than characterization. And any time either of them gets used it just shows how lame they are.

    I’d kinda like to see Batman stop a robbery one of these days. Just a plain old robbery.

  2. Scipio
    March 1st, 2006 at 1:14 pm

    “I predict that in a few years there will be a big Bat-storyline that will be advertised as having the death of a “major villain.” This villain will be Hush. This way DC can get rid of this ridiculously lame villain, but still pretend that he was something special.”

    If there is, I’ll buy four copies.

  3. Jer
    March 1st, 2006 at 1:30 pm

    ” It’s time to put the Joker out to pasture. ”

    What, again? You mean they didn’t learn their lesson when there was a virtual moratorium on all Joker stories for years in the early 90’s (or so, I’m not sure when it happened)? I mean, jeez, he’s a great villain, a great visual, but if you use him over and over and over again, he just becomes tired. (That’s true of all villains, actually, but the Joker is so well known, and his schtick is so limited, that its particularly true of him).

  4. Mr.Chris
    March 1st, 2006 at 1:31 pm

    This storyline was the epitome of suck. It was a poor way to end a series that should never have existed to begin with.
    The clash of continuity between this and the regular Batman series made me wonder how any decent editor could let this crap come out.

    I am glad you’re covering this though, as I was wondering about the medical validity of this.

  5. Jeff R.
    March 1st, 2006 at 2:38 pm

    The Joker moratorium was after his presumed death at the end of “A Death in the Family”. The story that brought him back on stage was completely forgetable, since I’ve forgotten it already.

  6. Tim O'Neil
    March 2nd, 2006 at 12:22 am

    Hey, I LIKED Bane. They may have seen cheesy at the time, but his early stories were actually pretty cool. Sure, the whoel Az-bats thing was bad and contributed to the slow death of humanity, but the early parts of Knightsend when Bane was basically taking Batman apart like a cheap watch - that was some pretty strong stuff. Good Aparo art as well - back when Batman was in the gray and blue, not the boring black. I still remember the sequence with Batman saving Comissioner Gordon from a flooded subway tunnel, running from the rushing water with his costume torn to shreds… intense stuff.

    Everyone knows I’m hardly a Batman fan, but those were some good Batman comics.

  7. boolean
    March 2nd, 2006 at 7:46 am

    “I predict that in a few years there will be a big Bat-storyline that will be advertised as having the death of a “major villain.” This villain will be Hush. This way DC can get rid of this ridiculously lame villain, but still pretend that he was something special.”

    And then, fifteen years later, when everybody’s forgotten how lame he is, they can bring him back!

  8. Chris Arndt
    March 2nd, 2006 at 2:49 pm

    In that story Batman was saving the Mayor, not the Commissioner.\

    However… I also support Bane as being cool and good. He who says Bane is lame does not understand the character.

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