Batman #17
There really isn’t any reason for you to read this review. By now you already know about Scott Snyder’s beyond awesome run on Batman and his Joker storyline “Death of the Family.” Any comic book fan should already have their comic read through twice by now and have it sealed away somewhere so that their grandkids can sell it for material wealth. So this review isn’t about whether or not you should buy this comic. That answer is a simple YES!!! But this review instead will be about the validation of how great the conclusion is to the best Joker storyline since Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke.”
Issue seventeen begins pretty much where the last one left off with Batman and his family captured and held at the mercy of the Joker. And while Batman and Joker held hostages are about as common as bad Michael Bay movies, there is a level of tension that ninety-nine percent of comics fail to achieve. I literally had to stop reading this issue twice because it was so bloody intense. And this speaks tons about Snyder’s level of writing. There honestly isn’t anything better out there that brings as much emotional impact and depth to a well structured story. However despite the fact that I could praise this book until Judgment Day, there is one gaping flaw that comes with a minor spoiler alert. No one dies. Sure the Joker disappears with the idea that he is dead, but we all know he’ll be back. I just can’t walk away from this comic without thinking it could have been more if it wasn’t a part of a larger continuum. For example Snyder couldn’t kill off Batgirl because they would have to cancel her comic and put Gail Simone in the unemployment line. I understand why the cop outs are there, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are there. Good news is that there is a dynamic shift in the Batman family and I’m eager to see where Snyder takes it. Hopefully we’ll be reading great Batman stories like this from Snyder for a very long time.
