Batman: Killing Time (2022-) #1

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W) Tom King (A) David Marquez Catwoman, the Riddler and the Penguin join forces to pull off the greatest robbery in the history of Gotham City. As the character is wont to do, he asks a riddle: "What does the cheap man have and the frivolous man spend? Mostly, this is a heist story with Riddler and Catwoman stealing a MacGuffin from Batman and going on the run as they try to sell it to the mysterious mastermind behind the whole affair.

Graphic Novels Batgirl (comic) Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Rebirth (comic) Batman (comic) Batman ’66 (comic) Batman ’66 Meets the Man From U. It still hits the "greatest hits" notes but mixes them with a compelling mystery that contextualizes the way King plays with the timeline. That feels like a sweet spot for King to effectively tell his story without stretching it out andwasting time. I didn’t expect to ever want to see Clock King riding off on a motorcycle looking very cool, but he gave us that and so much more.AND if Batman was confident enough to beat him, why would he not attempt to beat him to put another threat behind bars? Killing Time takes Batman’s well established haunts and imbues them with the atmosphere and structure of classic hollywood films. All throughout, captions and narration make meticulous note of the time, as the story flashes back and forth between the heist's planning, execution and fallout.

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! Still, Catwoman and Riddler's back and forth is fun, the Help -- a new villain with deep retcon roots -- is cool, and the art of David Marquez is magnificent. 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. I’m always eager to see what the villains are up to, though, and this mini-series by Tom King focuses mainly on two of them, a pair we don’t see too often: The Riddler and Catwoman.

Aun así es un tebeo espectacular en cuanto a dibujo y color, y ojalá David Marquez y Alejandro Sánchez repitan pronto con King.

At their heart, superhero comics are power fantasies and so when characters like Batman shine, they need to be careful of what exactly they inspire in us. You have larger portions of the narrative focused in the same time frame, and the scenes spent in the past are placed in such a way that it all makes sense and tracks well.One very interesting discussion point on the series centers around how King creates two unique villainous/antagonist characters in this miniseries. In a new mini-series, by Tom King, David Marquez, Alejandro Sánchez, and Clayton Cowles, the Dark Knight is put into a classic hollywood heist, facing down Riddler, Catwoman and Penguin during his early years operating in Gotham City. Whilst the younger Batman isn't quite so easy to pick up on as a character yet, due to not speaking much, it is through the villains in which the passage of time has rewound. But nope, as soon as he’s brought into the story, King finds a way to exit him quickly, and it wraps up.