Oh nooooooooooo! Tom King’s Batman continues to nosedive in quality in Volume 11: The Fall and the Fallen - what an unfortunately fitting subtitle!
Bane’s gonna break Batman. But not if Batman can break Bane! He’s gonna break Bane. Batman’s gonna break who? Bane! Wait - what’s Batman going to do to Bane? Break him! But not if Bane’s gonna break Batman! Then again Batman’s gonna break Bane. Batman break Bane break Batman break break break Baneman Bat Bat break Breakman bane bat bane break…
Fuck me. Did Tom King suffer severe head trauma and/or a stroke while he was writing this? A lot of this book was just loopy as all hell. Repetitive, dumb, pointless rubbish that summarised over and over the series storyline to no effect. Batman escapes Bane’s nightmare machine in Arkham, goes into the break cycle, then goes on a jolly in the desert with Flashpoint Batman (his dad from another dimension with major pinkeye) who’s wearing the desert outfit Batfleck wore in Batman v Superman.
That desert sequence was the only part of the book that somewhat engaged me because it’s so dreamlike and weird that I couldn’t tell at all where King was going or what it all meant. That and Mikel Janin and Jorge Fornes’ art which was fan-nan-men-al. Loved it. Janin is becoming one of the best artists Batman’s ever had.
The book closes out with some tossed off short stories: Joker’s trying to unmask Batman, Psycho Pirate’s got a cult, Riddler’s riddling, Hugo Strange is being strange, and Bane’s breaking someone other than Batman for a change. Each one was unmemorable, uninteresting and pointless - tacked-on filler.
I really hope this isn’t the standard the title goes out on but, sadly, for now, Tom King’s Batman, Volume 11: The Fall and the Fallen maintains its crapitude set in the last book.
The book sucks as much as you, bro
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