Review: Batman, Volume 9: The Tyrant Wing

A weekend leisure reading review…because sometimes Pastors also need a break from heavy theological reading!

 

Tom King.  Batman, Volume 9: The Tyrant Wing. Burbank, CA: DC Comics, March 26th 2019. 152 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Ready for another adventure with Batman?  This title collects Batman comic issue 58 through 60 and also Batman Annual 3 and Batman Secret files 1. While the cover says this is written by Tom King in actually he was the writer for issues 58 to 60 and the rest was written by various other writers.

 

The main story in this issue was the story titled “The Tyrant Wing.”  The illustrations and storytelling did a good job building suspense as the Penguin tells Batman information about a possible plot by Bane, the villain who is famous for breaking Batman’s back at one time.  Even though Bane is in Arkhum’s Asylum according to the Penguin it is actually Bane who is running the show both inside Arkhum and outside the Asylum.  There’s a question of why would Batman believe Penguin and the story reveals there might be a possibly good reason to believe the Penguin which I don’t want to give away.  It seems Batman is taking the information from Penguin as credible given his series of actions afterwards and also because Penguin is putting much of his own life in danger and on the line with the information he revealed.

Here I must add a word of criticism.  For a book which is titled “The Tyrant Wing” it suddenly about half through the book and we are told “To be continued.”  This really through me off as the story was just beginning and I felt since the book is titled “The Tyrant King” it certainly should have has more pages for the story instead of then having the last half of the book be a collection of short stories.  I did feel cheated concerning how short the “Tyrant Wing” story arc was in this volume given the title of the work.

With that being said I enjoy “The Tyrant Wing” story thus far.  I also enjoyed the second half of the short stories and would have enjoyed them more if I wasn’t so thrown off.  Batman Annual 3 in this volume is actually a collection of four short stories, the first titled “The Nature of Fear” that tells us of an officer who have been affected by Scarecrow’s gas that produces fear and psychological effect of imaging one’s worst nightmare come to life.  He was rescued by Batman by the post-trauma angle is interesting.  It definitely touched on the nature of fear and facing fear with Batman and the officer being foils of each other.  The second story is that of a drone that has been stolen from Wayne Corporation to commit crimes and Bruce’s decision to shut it down so it don’t fall in the wrong hand and save the life of a witness who stumbled upon the drone committing a crime.  Third story is about Batman on the hunt of an alleged Bat monster sighting in a rural mountain area and the fourth story is about an interesting gorilla character that enlist the help of Batman to rescue the son of someone who once saved Bobo’s life.  I like the angle of compassion and rescue in this fourth short story.  However my favorite of the short stories in the second half of the book is the last one titled “Father’s Day” which explore the relationship of Bruce Wayne and Alfred from the angle of what motivates Alfred to care for Batman.  You also see how hard it is on Alfred to care for Batman through all the hurt and injuries Batman has to face.  I thought it was a wonderful story and also of Bruce Wayne realizing how hard it is for Alfred to do what he do.  The story telling is so rich and I think it is one of those moments in Batman and DC Comic book history that will have other works and analysis go back to for its richness of showing how Alfred is in a way a father figure for Batman.  I love the human dimension and relationship angle in this story.

Up next: Review of Two Batman Comics Read in September 2020