Batman: Killing Time

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Five Years Before Year Two: February 11: Ra’s al Ghul trains Bruce with swords, knowing Bruce is leaving that night and giving him the box, the product of great slaughter. April 8: In Morocco, Batman captures Riddler and Catwoman, having been led there by an angry Riddler. After the disappointing Batman/Catwoman, which served as King’s conclusion to his ongoing narrative during the main Batman title whilst playing with non-linear storytelling, Batman: Killing Time is basically a repeat of that storytelling. When Catwoman, The Riddler and The Penguin join forces to pull off the greatest robbery in the history of Gotham City, Batman investigates the deadly heist that goes wrong. Oh, and David” Let Him Draw Everything” Marquez and Alejandro “Let Him Color Everything” Sánchez are involved too? Yeah, I’m in even more. 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.

Batman: Killing Time - The Batman Universe TBU Collected Review: Batman: Killing Time - The Batman Universe

For the past several years, Tom King has been writing Batman in one way or the other, be it the main title, miniseries, or one-shots featuring Elmer Fudd that stand up as some of the finest Batman content the world has to offer, full stop. King’s presence in the Batman world will continue in 2022, as a new six-issue miniseries titled Batman: Killing Time has been announced. The Help gives Vera (Croc’s flame) the money for being Penguin’s patsy, telling her not to spend it. Killer Croc enters the bank in the rain, and the guard lets him in without challenge. He begins the robbery. New Commissioner Jim Gordon is alerted and turns on the Bat-signal. Riddler approaches Mr. Barrington, bank president. Batman: Killing Time is the latest Batman-related project from prolific writer Tom King. The comic book author, who penned The Vision, Mister Miracle, and The Sherriff of Babylon, wrote 85 issues of DC's main Batman title, taking over for Scott Snyder. Following the run's conclusion, he's worked on a follow-up Batman/Catwoman maxiseries alongside Clay Mann, Liam Sharp, Tomeu Morey, and Clayton Cowles. King is also currently writing Supergirl alongside Bilquis Evely, and Human Target with Greg Smallwood. Meanwhile, David Marquez has done the art for Justice League alongside Brian Michael Bendis as well as Batman/Superman with Joshua Williamson.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. In Batman's second year of his crusade against crime, while he is still changing and perfecting his craft and the art of the vigilante, the cowardly lot of criminals in the city are changing as well—giving rise to darker, specialized rogues. Analysis: In 2022, two and a half years after he completed his 85-issue run on the main Batman title (though just overlapping the conclusion of his 13-issue Batman/Catwoman series), Tom King returned to Batman for Batman: Killing Time. Probably commissioned as part of the promotion of The Batman film released in March 2022, King focuses heavily on Batman as a solo crimefighter, Catwoman and Riddler as the main visible antagonists with a strong Penguin presence, all elements directly mirroring the film. The call for Riddler's head isn't without warrant. In the title's premiere issue, the Riddler/Edward Nygma betrayed the Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot, who had bankrolled a shared job between the two villains, Catwoman and Killer Croc in obtaining the mystery item from the bank. When Penguin requested the item at their meeting spot, Nygma instead beat Oswald with his own umbrella 46 times, leaving him battered and bruised in the hospital.

Batman: Killing Time on the way from King and Marquez Batman: Killing Time on the way from King and Marquez

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. March 4: Catwoman (disguised as a blonde) teaches Mrs. Barrington (the bank president’s wife) tennis, has tea with her, then changes into Catwoman and holds her hostage, taking down the guards brutally. January 18: Catwoman and Riddler, robbing a jewelry store, talk about their frustration with Batman’s constant capturing of them. The plot is fairly simple: Catwoman gets a tip from the Joker about the MacGuffin. She recruits the Riddler to set up a buy for the MacGuffin. Batman catches wind of the heist and is especially upset the MacGuffin has been stolen. Penguin, who has been double-crossed in the midst of all this, calls in reinforcements in the form of The Help, who also becomes interested in the MacGuffin. These narratives converge in a big kerfuffle.

April 17: Batman fights Ra’s, seeking the Help, who vanished, and explains why he kept the Eye Ra’s gave him, tormented by it. Despite the beautiful, incredibly sexy, and energetic art by veteran superstar artist David Marquez (a new collaborator with King), the message of this miniseries is much, much more nihilistic than the messages of both his main Batman run and his Batman/Catwoman run, both of which try to show the meaning and help that love and family can bring to a life of trauma (A small link between Catwoman and the Joker early in the chronology of the run provides an Easter egg for fans of King’s Batman/Catwoman series, which shows that relationship developing throughout their lifetimes.). This story has none of that to levan the flat misery that the four villains unleash on Gotham – but King and Marquez’s brilliant storytelling makes the dark pill slide home much more easily. Overview: In Batman: Killing Time, during year two of Batman’s career, Batman stands against Catwoman, Riddler, the newly created villain, the Help, and the US Government in a plot to control a mystical artifact connected to the slaughter of hundreds.