Review: Batman Volume 8: Cold Days

This book comes out today!  Thanks to DC Comics for the advance review copy.

Tom King.  Batman Volume 8: Cold Days. Burbank, CA: DC Comics, December 24th 2018. 176 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

The adventure with Batman continues!  This eighth volume of Batman collects Batman issues # 51-57 in DC’s Rebirth era.  Being released in December there is a winter theme to the stories collected in this comic book.

There are three stories in this volume.  The first story is the longer story of those in the volume and is titled “Cold Days.”  It is a three part story.  The second story is titled “The better man” and it is a short story (one issue long).   The last story is a three part series titled “Beasts of Burden.”

Reading this work I think I got the sense that the writer Tom King is trying to write in a way that is less formulaic of the typical superhero comicbook narrative.  The first story “Cold Days” is less action and more of a court jury drama involving Bruce Wayne being a jury involving a case of the villain Mr. Freeze.  Like Twelve Angry Men (the short story and the short film) Bruce Wayne is the one juror who goes against the grain of everyone else and upsets everyone.  I thought Tom King ought to be commended for the exploration of vigilantism, social justice and legality in this story.  King did a good of using Bruce Wayne’s dialogue of questioning the assumption of the problem of Gotham of why is it that the police isn’t able to do the work that Batman is doing of investigating and stopping criminals.  Comics have gone a long way from just straight fighting super hero action.

Both the second and third story is an exploration of also father figures and sons.  The third one is more complex and I thought the Russian assassin Anatoli Knyazev with his relationship with his father was a foil with Batman and his relationship with his “son” Nightwing and also in the end with a twist of even Batman’s relationship with his father.   There’s a lot I need to still ponder over with this story such as what’s the point of the Russian famous fable The Animals in the Pit being told and juxtaposition into the story.

The stories in this volume is a bit more different and more drama than straight action.  There’s also a touch on the exploration of even Batman almost as a godlike figure and its rather weird that Bruce Wayne says he is an atheist in the first story.  While I do appreciate comics outside the box and exploration of a person’s deeper psyche I think this one was a little strange for me.

NOTE: This book was provided to me free by DC Comics and Net Galley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.