Riddler, Catwoman, and Killer Croc heist something valuable from a safety deposit box belonging to Bruce Wayne, kicking off an intense chase involving backstabbing, the US government, large sums of cash, and many, many deaths. But what is the item and why do so many want it?
Tom King and David Marquez’s Killing Time is a decent done-in-one Batman book that’s always unpredictable and never boring, with fantastic art throughout, though ultimately the story is a forgettable one with a very underwhelming finale.
It seems to be set in the early days of Batman’s career for no real reason. It definitely doesn’t follow King’s Batman run as the Batman/Catwoman relationship is completely non-existent here. In fact Catwoman is written very differently from the Cat in King’s run - here she’s very vicious and quite mad.
That said, Catwoman hasn’t looked quite so striking in some time and that’s fully down to Marquez’s skill as an artist. The Batmobile looks great too as does his Batman. There isn’t any page in the book that looks bad but some stand out more than others, like the double-page shot of Batman on a motorbike. Marquez is a superb illustrator - I have no gripes about his work on this book.
There’s a new villain introduced called The Help, who’s like a slightly zombified mash-up of Alfred and Batman. He’s terrifying - some of the scenes put me in mind of Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men - and I liked how his past ties into Batman’s. He’s a very capable match for Bruce too. I think he’s the best new addition to Batman’s rogues gallery we’ve had in a while and hope to see him in more stuff in the future.
There’s a subplot running in parallel to the modern-day one, set in Ancient Greece and revolving around Euripides’ play The Bacchae. We don’t find out the significance of this until the end not only for its connection to the mystery item but also in understanding the point of the story. The play’s end also mirrors the end of the main storyline.
It could be that the story is about the transient nature of power, how the item passes from one to another, each briefly empowered before losing it to another, and so on. Or perhaps the stupidity of superstition. Or perhaps it’s simply a story meant to kill time, as the title suggests, and that it’s not really about anything more than what we see on the surface. Maybe it’s a commentary on the nature of superhero comics, that are all middle story and no real conclusion, that gets repeated over and over again ad infinitum. As Riddler intones at the end, “What did we… solve? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.” Maybe it’s a superhero retelling of The Bacchae.
None of these explanations though are especially satisfying for me and that’s partly why I found the final act disappointing. It’s also not the most memorable story. A bank heist, a chase, lots of fighting - it’s well done, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen Batman do before numerous times.
There are myriad storylines intersecting throughout and jumping back and forth in time, a bit like Pulp Fiction, but the overall narration has this pattern of noting very specific times, which feels tedious to read after a spell, not least because who’s really taking in specific dates in relation to the story? It makes sense though when the narrator is revealed at the end - in typical Tom King fashion, he’s resurrected a relatively unknown character from the DC back catalogue.
Killing Time isn’t a bad Batman book. I loved the art, the story was intriguing and I was never bored. But the story also feels quite empty and forgettable with any number of banal interpretations possible to see within it that make it feel overall unimpressive. I’d still say it’s worth a look if you’re a Batman fan but beware the rather flat ending.
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