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A review by kevinowenkelly
Batman Vol. 8: Cold Days by Tom King
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.
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.