Yes guys, another comic book review from me to you! And this time its the first twelve issues of ScottSnyder’s run on Batman, the two story arcs reviewed here are called The Court of Owls (1-7#) and The City of Owls (8-12#), I hope you enjoy it!
Many of you have been hearing about Scott Snyder, the new guy on the block who made himself known for his fantastic stories on Detective Comics, then during the New 52 on Batman and Swamp Thing. Like his Gates of Gotham mini series, this story line details the past of Gotham city and of the Wayne family itself. Trough the twelve issue story we meet several new characters who are all pivotal at some point in one way or another and will deeply effect the established Batman universe.
The story is also about a man who wants to have control over everything, and this is what happens when a man like that completely losses control over everything, the Courts very existence already proves to Bruce that he doesn’t know this city and it has indeed belonged to something long before he even showed up as Batman. The Court makes Batman more and more paranoid while constantly bringing him to the brink of death, then they finally bring him to the Labyrinth and underground complex where the Court kills its most worthy adversaries.
In the Labyrinth, Batman spends 8 days without any food or sleep, a Court assassins with super human strength and a healing factor constantly hunting him, forced to drink poisoned water that only brings him closer to madness. This is single handedly one of the best issues ive ever read in my life, it is so disturbing as to what the Court does to Batman and for a new reader like me, it was really messed up to see Batman be brought down to that level.
That’s only when things get really good, later on when Batman captures a Talon, this assassins is revealed to the great grandfather of Dick Grayson/Nightwing and Nightwing was supposed to become a Talon himself. This is another great twist and it perfectly goes into the Night of the Owls, this was an event in may through all the Bat titles, the Court launched an all out assault on Batman and his allies with hundreds of Talons attacking Wayne Manor and every member of the Bat-family.
As the story progresses the mystery gets deeper, so much so that even the Court just becomes a tool for the real enemy, Thomas Wayne Jr. Now Snyder’s run is a lot like Morrisons, he drives Batman crazy, he uses an old long lost story from Batman’s past and modernizes it for his own purposes and weaves a great mystery around it. The difference between Snyder and Morrison is that Snyder is very new reader friendly, as the first DC tittle I had ever read, I needed no prior knowledge of Batman and this made me an instant fan of the character.
Another great element is that Snyder combines all of the Batmen into this one, you have the TAS detective style Batman, the tech heavy Nolan Batman, the dark avenger Batman and even a little bit of the Miller Batman with his arrogance and slight obsession. But all of these are perfectly balanced and it truly makes this probably the most rounded out Batman ive read so far.
Snyder has a great voice for everyone, while most of the story is about Bruce and Alfred, Nightwing as I said plays an important role and Snyder even writes Damian like a pro with his trademark A-hole personality. He also does an interesting take on Freeze, in the Batman Annual #1, we see things from two perspectives, one from Victors and one that’s reality.
In Freezes mind his mom feel in the ice while they were going to a festival, in truth he himself threw her in the ice and killed her. Nora is apparently Victors wife, however she is actually a women who was frozen in cryogenic suspension more than 50 years ago, Victor doesn’t even know her and she doesn’t know him. So Victor thinks in his head that hes the victim of life and that everyone is against him while in reality he is just as insane as some one like the Joker, he just cant accept it and this really creeped me out.
Now on the matter of Thomas Wayne Jr. Snyder obviously sint done with this character as we have plenty ofevidence that says he is Bruce’s brother, but plenty that he isn’t, and Snyder has already confirmed that there are more Court stories to come. The art by Greg Capullo is amazing, some characters looked too much alike at first however this was for story purposes and Capullo perfectly uses the art to leave hints at futureshorelines and to current ones.
The bad of the book is that some might argue WELL WHERE WAS THE COURT DURING NO MANS LAND?!?!?!?! And yes, I can see this being a problem for people, however we are getting Batman #0 again by the same creative team and I expect it to be explained there along with the DCnU continuity in general. The 12th issue is about this new character Harper Row who’s internet and tech skills mean she’s probably the next Oracle,she’s great and so is her story but Capullo doesn’t do the 12th issue and there are two artists on it that’sreally jarring.
But all in all Batman by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo is a master piece, it is the best Batman story ive ever told and both veteran and new readers can easily jump into this one and have a blast, I cant recommendthis story anymore, buy it now!
FINAL SCORE: A+
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