Long ago Bane broke Batman’s back; now Batman has broken Bane’s mind – or has he? After his latest stint in the Asylum, The Penguin breaks the shocking news to Batman: Bane is running all crime in Gotham from his cell in Arkham – news that sends Batman over the edge as he begins punching his way to the truth. And then there’s the other Batman lurking in the shadows…
It happens with long-running titles that you occasionally get Franken-books like this: Batman, Volume 9: The Tyrant Wing collects just three issues (#58-60) of Tom King’s main story and the rest is made up of a crappy anthology issue called Batman: Secret Files #1 and Batman Annual #3. Still, The Tyrant Wing is yet another stonkingly good Batman book in Tom King’s run of the title!
I loved the main story, seeing The Penguin being dragged into Batman and Bane’s demented 4D chess game. Not a whole lot really happens and yet it was deeply compelling to see how Bane has gotten into Batman’s head. Mikel Janin’s art is damn near flawless and Jorge Fornes’ pages looked like Year One-era David Mazzucchelli – definitely no bad thing! Oh, and that cliffhanger – I wish we’d had the next part of the story instead of the extraneous stuff that followed!
King’s short story in Secret Files #1, True Strength, is just ok, and that’s unfortunately the best of the bunch. A GCPD officer convalesces after a dose of Scarecrow’s fear gas, there’s a rubbish murder mystery about a drone, Batman’s hunting in the snow for some reason, and Batman and Detective Chimp team up in a follow-up to something that happened in the Metal tie-in, The Wild Hunt – none of it is worth reading.
Tom Taylor and Otto Schmidt’s Batman Annual #3 is pretty good though. The story is no great shakes but it’s more of a character piece on Alfred and Bruce’s relationship. If you like Alfred as much as I do it’ll give you the warm and fuzzies!
The Tyrant Wing is a really fun read – any Batman fan will get something out of it. Nine books into his Batman run and thankfully there’s no sign that Tom King’s letting up on the quality – if he keeps this up he might usurp Grant Morrison as the writer with the greatest Batman run ever!
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