March 4: Catwoman (disguised as a blonde) teaches Mrs. Barrington (the bank president’s wife) tennis, has tea with her, then changes into Catwoman and holds her hostage, taking down the guards brutally. 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 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.

Batman: Killing Time on the way from King and Marquez Batman: Killing Time on the way from King and Marquez

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. 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. Editor’s Note: This collected edition includes all six issues of the miniseries Batman: Killing Time, which had its first issue released in March 2022 and the final issue released in August 2022. This review focuses on the story as a whole rather than the individual issues that made up the limited series.Penguin screams at all those who betrayed him. Later, he hires Two-Face’s gang, as well as many others, to avenge himself.

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

Tom King · David Marquez Batman: Killing Time (Volume 1) was a limited series, published by DC Comics. It ran from 2022 until 2022. It starred Batman, Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin, and Killer Croc. 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. 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. 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.

Success!

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. Batman : Killing Time is a story from the Dark Knight's earlier years, written by Tom King with art from David Marquez. The story jumps around moments in time and coincidentally focuses on the same characters who appeared in The Batman (save for Killer Croc), starring actor Robert Pattinson and directed by Matt Reeves. Unlike like King's main Batman run or his limited Batman/Catwoman series, the title is set to be a miniseries that only lasts six issues. The ending is... brave. At first I thought it was just okay and a bit silly but seeing how many people feel INSULTED by it... yeah, i appreciated it more :D

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

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. 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. 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.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. January 18: Catwoman and Riddler, robbing a jewelry store, talk about their frustration with Batman’s constant capturing of them.

Batman: Killing Time Takes Its Title and Makes It Meta - CBR Batman: Killing Time Takes Its Title and Makes It Meta - CBR

Synopsis (spoilers ahead) : There is a lot that happens in Batman: Killing Time, and there really is no way to condense it to a standard-size synopsis without missing elements important to the story. So here is the very short condensed version of what happens first. Tom King vuelve a cambiar de estilo (quien diga que no está ciego) y plantea un cómic lleno de acción e intriga por ver cómo conectan las diferentes idas y venidas en el tiempo. Me ha gustado este recurso, aunque también he de decir que se entenderá mejor todo leído de seguido y no a lo largo de meses, ya que hay detalles que me bailan y convendría tener más frescos.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.