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A review by kevinowenkelly
Batman #86 by James Tynion IV
2.0
An underwhelming start for a writer I had higher hopes for coming out of the gate.
There's a little bit of a hitch in the tonal transition from the end of King's run, but Tynion does a solid job incorporating the most important events into this start and bending some of the themes to his preferred setup, so no real complaints there.
But the issue doesn't really give you much sense of identity or direction. More than just following up on King's run, this issue starts with some plot setup that it felt like we already covered in Scott Snyder's run, with Bruce focused on building a better Gotham. And then at the end, we have a pretty straight riff on the opening of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. And in between all of that, I'm not sure what actually stands out other than Tynion making it clear that this is going to be a grim, dark, and relatively violent story, with some particularly gruesome deaths happening in the background.
I'm still onboard to see where it goes (there's a promising lead-in with Catwoman getting an unknown callback to some alleged past plot she may have forgotten about), but despite Tynion's great run on Detective Comics, this issue reads like he doesn't yet have a solid grip on how to write his own Batman story. Right now, it all just seems kind of generic. How bizarre.
There's a little bit of a hitch in the tonal transition from the end of King's run, but Tynion does a solid job incorporating the most important events into this start and bending some of the themes to his preferred setup, so no real complaints there.
But the issue doesn't really give you much sense of identity or direction. More than just following up on King's run, this issue starts with some plot setup that it felt like we already covered in Scott Snyder's run, with Bruce focused on building a better Gotham. And then at the end, we have a pretty straight riff on the opening of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. And in between all of that, I'm not sure what actually stands out other than Tynion making it clear that this is going to be a grim, dark, and relatively violent story, with some particularly gruesome deaths happening in the background.
I'm still onboard to see where it goes (there's a promising lead-in with Catwoman getting an unknown callback to some alleged past plot she may have forgotten about), but despite Tynion's great run on Detective Comics, this issue reads like he doesn't yet have a solid grip on how to write his own Batman story. Right now, it all just seems kind of generic. How bizarre.