A review by booksnarks
Batman, Volume 7: Endgame by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV

2.0

"The story of Batman is, and always will be, a tragedy."

Well let's start with that statement shall we?

Sigh. It's sad that so many writers chose that approach to Batman. I really thought in his run Snyder might deviate from that, especially since we had the introduction of Damien, and having Bruce form a strong bond with his son. Although he did take his son on as a sidekick while fighting crime so maybe the 'happy ending' ship sailed a long time ago.

My 'happy ending' want for Batman aside, that really wasn't even the true problem with this volume. The true problem with this storyline was the Joker! And just how much the storyline appeared to get away from Snyder.

And Yes, there will be some spoilers in the discussion below. No, I won't put them under a tag. Why? Because I need to vent and rant. You have been warned.

So, it turns out that the Joker is a super healing... person with powers, who has always had powers and who has been around since the beginning of Gotham. Oh, and he can't die apparently. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What has always made the Joker such a great character and villain was that he was simply a man. An insane, broken man who illustrated just how how miserable and terrifying human nature can get to be. That's what made him so scary; the fact that being human he was capable of so much evil. Take that away and you take away the essence of who the Joker is as a character. It's unfortunate that this volume turned out the way it did, because Snyder had such a great handle on the character in Volume 3.

The silver lining though of the volume was the writing, and by that I mean the actually dialogue between the characters, which was as great as always. Snyder could always convey great emotions through the actual written word on the page itself, so even if the story got away the way it did, we were at least left with that.