Reviews

Batman Vol. 8: Cold Days by Tom King

geekwayne's review

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5.0

'Batman, Volume : Cold Days' by Tom King with art by Lee Weeks, Tony S. Daniel, Matt Wagner and Mark Buckingham shows that Tom King is such a good writer for the current Batman book.

In the first story, 'Cold Days', Mr. Freeze is on trial for the murder of three women. Batman found the evidence and got a confession out of him. All but one of the jurors believe he is guilty. That juror is Bruce Wayne. His opinion is that after recent events, Batman may have gone too far.

In the second story, 'Beast of Burden', KGBeast targets someone close to Batman and we see to what lengths Batman will go to get his vengeance.

Both stories are good for their own reasons, but Cold Days was the one I loved. It asks a lot of interesting questions about those who protect us and our willingness to believe them. It's about a broken Batman who just wants to do the right thing.

The art varies, but I didn't mind any of it. The Matt Wagner art for the in-between story of Nightwing and Batman is the best. If Dick Grayson were written more like he is in these stories, I'd like him a lot more.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from DC Entertainment and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

viera's review

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1.0

It feels like the wedding broke Batman. And maybe Tom King. All the fun is gone. He’s hyper-emotional, dainty, and doesn’t read like Batman. Though I guess he was a little off before the wedding too. All the gimmicks can’t save bad characterization.

colindalaska's review

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5.0

Bruce Wayne the juror. I don’t know if this angle had been done before, but it is beautifully done here.

unladylike's review

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5.0

The poetic crescendo Tom King built up to in the previous volume continues into this post-wedding story. The art and script perfectly complement each other to paint a picture of Batman's brutal fall.

12 Angry Men (the 1957 version is the one I loved and remember) is an obvious inspiration for the main plot and setting of these issues. We the readers know from the final pages of the previous volume that Batman is being pulled on strings by
SpoilerBane, who was seen sitting atop a throne of skulls, with The Joker AND The Riddler (who were at war with one another a year ago), as well as Psycho Pirate, Scarface & the Ventriloquist, Gotham Girl, Hugo Strange, Skeets, and the Flashpoint version of Batman aka Thomas Wayne (I had to look up who some of them were from a CBR article about this major reveal.) with Holly Robinson serving as an active agent of their plan.

kiarrasayshi's review

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4.0

So close to five stars! The last two issues didn't hook me as much as the others. But dang, do I love a Dick Grayson story. Bruce is going through some hard times, "cold days" some would say

blairconrad's review

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4.0

Very interesting. I really enjoyed Bruce on the jury, making many through-provoking points about Batman, and essentially using the experience as therapy. Maybe a little preachy at the end, but that's okay. The second half was not quite as good, but still interesting. I enjoyed Bruce and Dick's banter (is it banter if only one person is doing it?), and the world-crossing chase afterward. Keen to see the continuation.

rbreade's review

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King continues his roll, finding new ways to tell Batman stories, all dealing with the emotional fallout of being stood up by Catwoman, if not at the altar, at least on the rooftop. Victor Fries, a.k.a., Mr. Freeze, is on trial, but, as he says while in the dock:
I've fought him many times before. Many times. I do not hesitate to admit that. But this was... He was a different man that night. On the roof, he didn't care that I hadn't done it. That those women had nothing to do with me. He just kept hitting me. Until I... I had to say yes. Or Batman was going to kill me.

This unfurls through an extended courtroom drama that is interleaved with brief flashbacks that expand on or contradict what is happening in the courtroom, with exquisite art by Lee Weeks, Tony S. Daniel, Matt Wagner, and Danny Miki.

luna_rondo's review

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3.0

The first half was excellent, the second half fell short for me.

kevinowenkelly's review

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4.0

Great book, and a real bounce-back into top form after the up-and-down of the past two volumes. This book is all about the aftereffects of the wedding in the previous volume (spoilers for which are ahead, so be warned), brilliantly split into two smaller arcs that each make great use of King's signature parallel storytelling.

In the first arc, Bruce Wayne is called for jury duty on the trial of Mr. Freeze, whose recent arrest was, to the surprise of no one, Batman's doing. But what could be a simple gimmick turns into a really thoughtful and clever device by which Bruce can deconstruct both the mythology of Batman and his own relationship to it. Meanwhile, the process is written much like a detective story, where Bruce and the other jurors interrogate the facts of the case, their own assumptions about those details, Fries, and Batman, all while we the audience get interspersed scenes of Batman's own attempts to solve the mystery that led him to Fries in the first place. The subtlety brilliant part is that, nested in these flashbacks nested in this story, is the unspoken fallout from Bruce being left at the alter. Very little time is spent discussing it, but we see the devastation it has left in the brutal savagery of Batman's takedown of Fries, something that we think we've seen a thousand times before, but which is rendered in frighteningly visceral scenes that elevate it to something so much more. Lee Weeks' art is phenomenal, and a perfect fit for both those scenes of violence and the moody courtroom investigation that wraps envelopes them.

The second half is even sneakier. At first blush, it's another short arc where King gets to examine Bruce/Batman's relationship with another character, mining similarities and differences to unearth some fresh observations. A few previous issues exploring Batman and Superman's relationship are among my favorite that King has ever done. And this arc looked like a winner to, with him tackling Nightwing.

And really, who better than Nightwing to try to pull Bruce out of his funk? We have an issue that mirrors Bruce's attempts at helping Dick over his parents' death as a child with Dick's incessant optimism wearing and offers of friendship wearing away at Bruce's cold demeanor, creating some fun and really heartwarming moments. If that were all this were, it'd still be exceptional. But without spoiling it, King uses this as a trojan horse to introduce a new set of trauma into Batman and Nightwing's lives that the reader won't see coming, as it avoids so many of the more cliche'd setups that typically make such things easy to spot.

Both stories are more about setting up future plots than resolving themselves, but they each have so much good stuff in terms of character development and progression that they still feel like complete stories. Great, great book.

sailorgold_'s review

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5.0

4,5