Look who and what the Valdosta Daily Times is fawning over in a short article about recent Batman runs, this one a compilation of a story called “Their Dark Designs”:
Following an excellent run on Detective Comics a couple of years ago, writer James Tynion IV pivoted to the other premier Dark Knight title, “Batman.”
And, man, what a pivot.
In his “Detective Comics” run, Tynion turned the title into a team book, with Batman leading a group of Gotham City vigilantes – a strength in numbers effort to protect the young members as much as having them act as a unified force.
With “Batman,” Tynion followed the smart run of writer Tom King.
Tynion arrived with some smart ideas of his own.
Some of those “smart” ideas were emphasized in books other than what’s cited here: retaining the horrid premise that Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott is suddenly homosexual, along with his son, Obsidian/Todd Rice. And if that’s what Tynion believes is acceptable in every way for the GLs, there’s no reason to assume he wouldn’t do it in the Batbooks, and they certainly have fallen victim to divisive leftist politics in the past decade. It’s not really new Batman could lead any kind of a team book either, considering the Outsiders was one of the earliest he led in the mid-80s, other than the Justice League when Superman wasn’t available.
Also notice how this article obscures the worst works of King, who’s already gained a lot of notoriety for his own divisive politics (and also the repellent Heroes in Crisis), which became quite common well before Dan DiDio left and was replaced by the equally leftist Marie Javins. When a real life J. Jonah Jameson obscures all that, you know something’s wrong.
At the end of the article, it says:
While the story arc is self contained, “Their Dark Designs” sets up Tynion’s next bold story arc which turned into a multiple Bat-title event – “The Joker War Saga.”
In other words, a crossover is the big, oh-so important deal here? Sorry, no way. I’ve lamented how there’s been too much emphasis on Batman in more than a decade that’s turned the franchise into a farce, and that doesn’t help either. Nor does it help that the Joker remains one of the most otherwise overused villains of comicdom.
Originally published here.
