A review by tshepiso
Batman: War Games Book Two by Chuck Dixon, Ed Brubaker
2.0
This thoroughly miserable slog of a read as firmly reminded me why I avoid omnibus' i don't begrudge collectors for their love of them and while I don't read weekly single issues like some comic readers I can say with confidence that I am not designed to consumed story arcs is such heavy doses.
I do have to admit though that while a LOT of my distaste for this series comes from the way I read it. often beats in the story felt painfully redundant as authors retreat points in case a reader missed certain things or skipped over certain issues.
the story itself felt overstuffed. this is partly the fault of collection editors who may have been too generous in the back half of the narrative by including related but unessential threads of the story. but the main story itself also felt necessarily drawn out. in part because of the aforementioned redundancies
there was also an obvious fixation on writing and art quality as dozens of writers and artists works to create a single cohesive story. in particular, I disliked Paul Gulacy's let's say.... one-handed art style in Catwoman issues and four Devin Greyson's writing in Nightwing issues painfully repetitive and stale
but over and above all war game's biggest flaws were ultimately thematic. It's a story about the city of Gotham turning its back on its heroes that asks if capes exacerbate crime but truly wasn't up to the task of actually answering those questions. for one it doesn't present a conflict that lends itself to the question. gang wars and created largely by gangs and regardless of the inciting incident involving spoiler and batman because the violence was meted out by criminal elements that existed long before superheroes or supervillains existed
the literal and figurative character assassinations were also pretty hard to stomach. I know they get retconned but the brutality of spoiler's torture especially got to me given the excellent moments with her earlier in the run. I also found batman as a character to be pretty exhausting to read. the writers here generally went for violent and cold in terms of his main personality and his lack of empathy especially and kindness made him a very unlikable character throughout. The narrative's attachment to only seeing bruce express anger or cold solemnity undermined the impact of a lot of central moments. it didn't help that he was frequently an unrepentant jerk
overall batman war games was exhausting. while I have plans to read more batman crossover events in the future I'll be giving myself the appropriate grace and space over diving into them again
I do have to admit though that while a LOT of my distaste for this series comes from the way I read it. often beats in the story felt painfully redundant as authors retreat points in case a reader missed certain things or skipped over certain issues.
the story itself felt overstuffed. this is partly the fault of collection editors who may have been too generous in the back half of the narrative by including related but unessential threads of the story. but the main story itself also felt necessarily drawn out. in part because of the aforementioned redundancies
there was also an obvious fixation on writing and art quality as dozens of writers and artists works to create a single cohesive story. in particular, I disliked Paul Gulacy's let's say.... one-handed art style in Catwoman issues and four Devin Greyson's writing in Nightwing issues painfully repetitive and stale
but over and above all war game's biggest flaws were ultimately thematic. It's a story about the city of Gotham turning its back on its heroes that asks if capes exacerbate crime but truly wasn't up to the task of actually answering those questions. for one it doesn't present a conflict that lends itself to the question. gang wars and created largely by gangs and regardless of the inciting incident involving spoiler and batman because the violence was meted out by criminal elements that existed long before superheroes or supervillains existed
the literal and figurative character assassinations were also pretty hard to stomach. I know they get retconned but the brutality of spoiler's torture especially got to me given the excellent moments with her earlier in the run. I also found batman as a character to be pretty exhausting to read. the writers here generally went for violent and cold in terms of his main personality and his lack of empathy especially and kindness made him a very unlikable character throughout. The narrative's attachment to only seeing bruce express anger or cold solemnity undermined the impact of a lot of central moments. it didn't help that he was frequently an unrepentant jerk
overall batman war games was exhausting. while I have plans to read more batman crossover events in the future I'll be giving myself the appropriate grace and space over diving into them again