Batman #35 Review and *SPOILERS*

Cat Fight

Written By: Tom King

Art By: Joelle Jones, Jordie Bellaire, Clayton Cowles

Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 15, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's back to the Rules of Engagement, where Batman and Catwoman have traveled to a forbidden city to track down Holly Robinson so that Catwoman can clear her name of 237 murders she confessed to to protect Holly........ You know, a little takesy backsies, but Talia Al Ghul was also there and when doesn't she want to have a sword fight to the death?  Yeah......... I don't know, she wants to sword fight so sword fighting is what Catwoman and her do and with that, you're all caught up.  Let's jump into this issue and see how Catwoman could possibly stand toe to toe with Talia Al Ghul.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Selina Kyle and Talia Al Ghul sword fighting for some reason.......... still not sure about why besides for "No one's good enough for my baby daddy" and while that's going on we see Holly Robinson in the background watching.  During the fight, which Selina is able to handle way better than she ever should, we get an excellent big of dialog between our two female characters here about what it means to love Batman and how no matter what, he'll only ever put you second to a vow that a child made.  I have to give Tom King credit because while we do have the repeated dialog that I hate and the nonsense jokes that go on way too long, this bit of dialog and also, the dialog between Damian and Dick outside, where Dick explains that Batman always gives with everything he has, but asking for happiness is something that would seem selfish to him and that's why he never told them about the engagement........... Well, this is probably the best dialog we've had this whole run of Batman in the Rebirth era.

In the end, Selina bests Talia, which is bullshit and asks Holly to clear her name so that she and Bruce can get married and as we leave this issue we have our heroes walking out of the forbidden city....... where no one is there to kill them like we were originally told and the newly engaged couple walk off with Damian and Dick, where they talk about probably killing another horse.......... without Holly Robinson.......

That's it for this issue of Batman and I gotta tell ya, while I have not been hip on Batman for a long time, there were parts to this book that actually made me sit up and start really paying attention because the dialog between Talia and Selina and also, the dialog between Dick and Damian were probably some of the best writing that we've seen in this run of Batman and they actually added emotion and depth to the characters while talking about the faults of our title character.  The art was really great in this issue and my biggest gripes are that Catwoman could beat Talia with a sword and that our heroes walk off in the end, talk about possibly killing another horse and leave without Holly....... I don't get why this needed to be done, but there was enough to enjoy through the majority of this book to make me think that not all is lost with this series right now...... Yeah, I'm probably just setting myself up for disappoint, but this issue was well written for the most part and it's not everyday that we get that.

Bits and Pieces:

While there are still parts to this issue that don't make any sense to me, the majority of the issue was really well written and gave you a deeper look at how the people closest to Batman see him, all with great art the whole way through.  Hopefully, this can continue so that I can finally feel like I'm a Batman fan again........ Even if it doesn't though, I had a decent time with this issue and what it gave us.

7/10