November 7: Vera buys the Eye in a pawn shop, who got it from a stewardess, who got it on another flight. And if you are looking for a longer version of what happens in Batman: Killing Time, read on for a much more detailed version of the events as we travel through time. That night, Penguin tells a huge crowd of Gotham gangsters about the meet at the Iceberg Lounge. One of Batman’s informers texts him but is murdered as a result.

Batman: Killing Time The Penguin Tries to Kill [SPOILER] in Batman: Killing Time

One very interesting discussion point on the series centers around how King creates two unique villainous/antagonist characters in this miniseries. Unlike his eighty-five issues of Batman, which very much feels like a deep mining of Batman’s history, with barely any new characters created or used by King (in contrast with the extremely prolific inventor James Tynion, who invented at least one new character per issue in the run immediately following King!), the Help and Agent Nuri Espinoza have distinct personalities and looks. The call for Riddler's head isn't without warrant. In the title's premiere issue, the Riddler/Edward Nygma betrayed the Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot, who had bankrolled a shared job between the two villains, Catwoman and Killer Croc in obtaining the mystery item from the bank. When Penguin requested the item at their meeting spot, Nygma instead beat Oswald with his own umbrella 46 times, leaving him battered and bruised in the hospital. I've been a bit tepid with some of King's recent output—except for his and Bilquis Evely's Supergirl, which is excellent—but reading this reminded me why I love his take on the Batman and Gotham as much as I do. It's very much a Tom King book, with all the poetic narration, semi-untraditional narrative structure, and literary references he's known for at this point, but they're all in top form.Killer Croc kills the guard. Batman arrives and engages, but Riddler has already gotten what he wanted across the city, using Croc and Catwoman as his distractions and leverage. Riddler and Catwoman drive off with a tiny box.

BATMAN: KILLING TIME | DC BATMAN: KILLING TIME | DC

June 18: A monk from Gdansk, Poland, buys the Eye of Christ, sold by the line of nobles who were deposed three years before. Throughout the six issues, whilst you may have the main narrative of these villains trying to resolve this heist that has gone wrong, as well as a plethora of new characters such as the Help, who seems like a formidable foe for everyone he confronts, the story keeps going off in these detours. There’s a whole subplot about Killer Croc’s fiancée, which I don’t think is a big deal, but there’s also sections where we cut to periods of ancient history, which supposedly ties in with the current heist. The final issue does reveal some answers, but reading through the other issues is a chore to get through. Batman: Killing Time is the latest Batman-related project from prolific writer Tom King. The comic book author, who penned The Vision, Mister Miracle, and The Sherriff of Babylon, wrote 85 issues of DC's main Batman title, taking over for Scott Snyder. Following the run's conclusion, he's worked on a follow-up Batman/Catwoman maxiseries alongside Clay Mann, Liam Sharp, Tomeu Morey, and Clayton Cowles. King is also currently writing Supergirl alongside Bilquis Evely, and Human Target with Greg Smallwood. Meanwhile, David Marquez has done the art for Justice League alongside Brian Michael Bendis as well as Batman/Superman with Joshua Williamson. April 17: Batman fights Ra’s, seeking the Help, who vanished, and explains why he kept the Eye Ra’s gave him, tormented by it. There’s a subplot running in parallel to the modern-day one, set in Ancient Greece and revolving around Euripides’ play The Bacchae. We don’t find out the significance of this until the end not only for its connection to the mystery item but also in understanding the point of the story. The play’s end also mirrors the end of the main storyline.It could be that the story is about the transient nature of power, how the item passes from one to another, each briefly empowered before losing it to another, and so on. Or perhaps the stupidity of superstition. Or perhaps it’s simply a story meant to kill time, as the title suggests, and that it’s not really about anything more than what we see on the surface. Maybe it’s a commentary on the nature of superhero comics, that are all middle story and no real conclusion, that gets repeated over and over again ad infinitum. As Riddler intones at the end, “What did we… solve? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.” Maybe it’s a superhero retelling of The Bacchae. April 8: In Morocco, Batman captures Riddler and Catwoman, having been led there by an angry Riddler.

Batman: Killing Time by Tom King | Goodreads Batman: Killing Time by Tom King | Goodreads

BC, April 21: Euripides’ play The Bacchae premiers, about Penthus and his mother. Agave’s father tells her Dionysus drove her and her sisters mad because they denied his deity. There’s a new villain introduced called The Help, who’s like a slightly zombified mash-up of Alfred and Batman. He’s terrifying - some of the scenes put me in mind of Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men - and I liked how his past ties into Batman’s. He’s a very capable match for Bruce too. I think he’s the best new addition to Batman’s rogues gallery we’ve had in a while and hope to see him in more stuff in the future. Killer Croc enters the bank in the rain, and the guard lets him in without challenge. He begins the robbery. New Commissioner Jim Gordon is alerted and turns on the Bat-signal. Riddler approaches Mr. Barrington, bank president.

Success!

None of these explanations though are especially satisfying for me and that’s partly why I found the final act disappointing. It’s also not the most memorable story. A bank heist, a chase, lots of fighting - it’s well done, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen Batman do before numerous times. The hardcover release of Batman: Killing Time uses David Marquez’s main cover for the first issue, a standard but still quite a fun composition featuring Batman looming over Riddler, a slinky Catwoman, Killer Croc, Penguin, a racing car, and an open bank vault. The Direct Market (local comic shops) hardcover has an exclusive variant cover by Marquez, showing Batman surrounded by the breaking glass of a watch face, Riddler, Catwoman, Croc, Penguin, and the Help reflected in flying shards. Despite Batman being the titular character, in which he has been the Caped Crusader for a couple of years, he isn’t really the main character, continuing a recent streak of King not that interested in Batman as a character. King is clearly more interested in the villains who are always double-crossing one another and no doubt there is some fun with the banter between them, but because the comic is so fixated on being non-linear, it’s ultimately hard to care. For the past several years, Tom King has been writing Batman in one way or the other, be it the main title, miniseries, or one-shots featuring Elmer Fudd that stand up as some of the finest Batman content the world has to offer, full stop. King’s presence in the Batman world will continue in 2022, as a new six-issue miniseries titled Batman: Killing Time has been announced. Tom King and David Marquez’s Killing Time is a decent done-in-one Batman book that’s always unpredictable and never boring, with fantastic art throughout, though ultimately the story is a forgettable one with a very underwhelming finale.

Batman: Killing Time by Tom King: 9781779516985 Batman: Killing Time by Tom King: 9781779516985

Five Years Before Year Two: February 11: Ra’s al Ghul trains Bruce with swords, knowing Bruce is leaving that night and giving him the box, the product of great slaughter. The Help does basically feel like the supervillain version of Tom King – obsessed with history, knowing all of Batman’s teachers and allies, but also willing to do serious damage to all of them in pursuit of his mission (I say this as a big fan of a lot of what King does. But even his biggest fans must admit that King’s stories do tend to be very destructive). Nuri Espinoza, not surprisingly, shows off another side of King’s life – the potty-mouthed (in Nuri’s case, ludicrously, even hilariously so) government agent who is passionately committed to solving the world’s problems with the Very Big Hammer she’s been handed by the US government.

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In Batman's second year of his crusade against crime, while he is still changing and perfecting his craft and the art of the vigilante, the cowardly lot of criminals in the city are changing as well—giving rise to darker, specialized rogues. Having made a name for himself at DC as one of the best Batman artists, David Marquez’s work is top-notch here, presenting hyper-realistic, hugely detailed art. When you look at his work of numerous Spider-Man comics, Marquez can illustrate action and that applies here with Batman being a figure of theatrics through his cape. Oh, and David” Let Him Draw Everything” Marquez and Alejandro “Let Him Color Everything” Sánchez are involved too? Yeah, I’m in even more.