Riddler and Catwoman take to the road, both weighing how long they can go before they need to take the other out. And as they move about the city they’re hunted by an inexperienced Batman who knows two things: One, he’ll need to be better than he’s ever been to catch these two psychopaths; two, Penguin survived and if he gets to them first, it’ll be a bloodbath like Gotham’s never seen. 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. I like the twist as well, although it doesn’t surprise me at all, so it doesn’t feel like that much of a plot twist to me. More like a natural answer to the mystery of the narrator. I also agree that I’ll want to reread this story when it’s finished. I have a feeling that once you know the ending, it’s easier to appreciate the story, because you’ll know why King’s making all these “weird” narrative choices. This issue of Killing Time pushes action over plot, but in a balanced way. The story presses forward less because the characters are talking and more because events demand it. King juggles the cast of characters well, keeping everyone true to their motivations, and readers entertained throughout. It’s another strong entry into this series.

The second thing that I find really detrimental to this narrative is the frankly cloying use of narration. It sets a tone for the book, and immediately gets your brain in heist mode, but there’s just too much of it. As I mentioned, King tells us the exact time and place of everything going on, every time the scene changes. In some instances, this is genuinely helpful, while in others it feels a little insulting. For instance, there is a scene with Selina where she mentions it’s going to rain soon, the next time we see her they’ve moved inside ahead of the rain. It’s a natural shift for the characters, yet the story still takes time to point out the time and new location. 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. 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. Yep! I actually like quite a few King comics, although he certainly has missed the mark with several of his works. Hopefully this will be good–let’s have a look!

Exactly. The problem is that King gets too specific with little details. I don’t think we need to know the exact times when things happened, and I don’t think we even need this nonlinear narrative at all. It just makes it seem so much more complicated than it really is, and that’s never a good thing in my book. Constantly jumping around through time and getting time stamps as well as various names and locations thrown at you is indeed making me feel kind of dizzy. As a result, I find it hard to connect with the story and focus on the plot, because I keep getting distracted by my frustration with all these unnecessary details. The plot is fairly simple: Catwoman gets a tip from the Joker about the MacGuffin. She recruits the Riddler to set up a buy for the MacGuffin. Batman catches wind of the heist and is especially upset the MacGuffin has been stolen. Penguin, who has been double-crossed in the midst of all this, calls in reinforcements in the form of The Help, who also becomes interested in the MacGuffin. These narratives converge in a big kerfuffle. Before we close, I do want to critique one aspect of this book, and that’s the fact that Batman feels more like a supporting character than the main hero. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because the story works well enough as it is, I do think that Batman doesn’t get enough moments to shine. There are even times that I forget Batman entirely because I’m so tuned into the other parts of this story. So far Batman has just been running after Riddler and Catwoman, and he’s been punching people. Long story short, I think Batman is underused. Take him out of the story, and it wouldn’t even change that much. Hopefully King will show why Batman is needed in this comic from a narrative point.

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. Oh, and David” Let Him Draw Everything” Marquez and Alejandro “Let Him Color Everything” Sánchez are involved too? Yeah, I’m in even more. It seems to be set in the early days of Batman’s career for no real reason. It definitely doesn’t follow King’s Batman run as the Batman/Catwoman relationship is completely non-existent here. In fact Catwoman is written very differently from the Cat in King’s run - here she’s very vicious and quite mad. Catwoman, the Riddler, and the Penguin join forces to pull off the greatest robbery in the history of Gotham City. And their prize? A mysterious and priceless artifact in the secret possession of Bruce Wayne! But, as the events unfold, what fun is a heist without a bloody double cross or two? 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.After the disappointing Batman/Catwoman, which served as King’s conclusion to his ongoing narrative during the main Batman title whilst playing with non-linear storytelling, Batman: Killing Time is basically a repeat of that storytelling. When Catwoman, The Riddler and The Penguin join forces to pull off the greatest robbery in the history of Gotham City, Batman investigates the deadly heist that goes wrong.