BATMAN #33

[ CELEBRATE BATMAN'S 75TH ]

Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. I have a song in my heart. I have a girl by my side. And I have the following comic book in my hand. You know. That one Created by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, and Published by: DC Comics, in August, 2014.

To QUOTE Hunter S. Thompson: "Crazy' is a term of art; 'Insane' is a term of law. Remember that, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble".

THE STORY:

'I'm going to kicking your f*cking ass in' says Batman to the Ridder. 'No you won't' says the Riddler in turn. 'Not unless you can answer my twelve devilish riddles, each one set to blow up Gotham city unless you answer them correctly'. 'Sh*t' replies the Batman, 'Although I suppose things could be a lot worse, eh? I could be in Jim Gordon's and Lucius Fox's shoes. Trying my best to stop a hoard of airplanes from dropping a nuclear warhead on us...'.

BOOOM!

THE GOOD:

And so after all these months it has finally come to an end. Savage City is no more and Gotham City has been reborn anew. Or has it though?

Well, in my opinion -- yes -- yes it has. Kind of. Ish. More or less. Thanks to Greg's amazing artwork and Scott's suspenseful story-line, once more a brand new status quo has filled this title with unanswered questions and dynamic characters. Now one of the stand outs for me was how there was a real sense of suspense looming over this issue. Going so far as to say that I was completely engrossed in those scenes where Batman pit his wits against the Riddler.

Also, another aspect about this adventure I rather enjoyed was how Alfred, Lucius, and Jim Gordon, were treated with some proper respect throughout. From my point of view it was about bloody time these characters were given some kudos for what they've done. Because it isn't every day that we see this type of erstwhile archetype shown some much needed love and closure.

Oh! And while I'm on the topic of closure, wasn't it nice that Bruce and Jim had some sort of implied personal closure?  What do you mean 'No'? Tut-tut-tut! Spoil sports.

THE BAD:

The only slight complaint I have with this comic is that I kind of knew from the get go that Batman was going to save the day, and, yadda-yadda-yadda. Now please don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against the actual story-line in itself. It's the foreshadowing aspect I personally wasn't too keen on. It was as though you knew what was going to happen afterwards, beforehand, even though to reach that stage was a fairly riveting thrill.

THE MUSIC:

No matter what way you look at it, folks, one of the main themes running through this entire issue is about people finding happiness in the most unorthodox situations. So with that in mind, how could I not pair it up with the Beatles classic, 'Happiness is a Warm Gun'?

THE COMPARISON:

In Japan there used to be a quiz show called 'Endurance', where a group of idiots -- sorry, I mean 'contestants' -- had to try their best to fight off a number of hazardous obstacles barring their path. Sometimes these obstacles inflected pain upon themselves. Where as at other times these obstacles inflicted pain on others.

So simply put, that is exactly what this comic book reminded me of -- Endurance. Here, check out this clip to see what I mean.

THE CONCLUSION:

At the very end of this concluding chapter there was a 'One Month Later' sequence which I myself found quite difficult to swallow. Without giving too much away it implied two things in retrospect. Firstly, it implied that Bruce's relationship with Julie Madison happened when they were kid's -- which isn't true -- as it actually happened when he first became Batman. And secondly it implied that Bruce did something... errr... 'procedural' to himself so he could forget a certain aspect of his past.

No. I'm not buying it at all. Personally speaking I wasn't too keen on either of these two scenarios, because: (A) Julie has always been a linchpin to Bruce's early years. And (B): For the sake of sounding too judgmental, I think it's completely out of character for Bruce to tamper with himself to dampen a motivational component of his own psyche.

Nuff said.