Throwback Thursday Review: Batman and Robin #23.4 - Killer Croc

Killer Croc 4:  This Time It's Personal

Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Francis Portela
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: September 25, 2013

Cover Price: $3.99

Holy hell it's the end of Villain's Month and we got through it relatively unscathed.  But before we can close the book on this DC Event, we have a few more stories to look at and remark over.  Right now it's Killer Croc.


This story jumps throughout time as a lot of the other Villain's Month issues have done, but this one makes you care a little bit more.  A handful of GCPD's dirtier cops make their way down into the Gotham sewers, looking for a supposed key that will open a safe deposit box with evidence against them in it.  We travel back a few weeks to a not so dirty cop who is refusing to take a bribe from his fellow officers.  So the cops do the only thing that a crooked cop could do in this instance.  They shoot him in the head and dump his body below the docks.  Well, they were seen, and a note was sent to them telling about the key, and to go to the sewers to retrieve it, also bring money.  

Killer Croc devastates the team once they're far enough in the tunnels, leaving two survivors.  They think they have found help when they notice children down one of the tunnels, but instead of help, a child with an old ore breaks the one officer's leg, and then the children scatter down the tunnels.  But the kids aren't done yet.  Nope let's make this even more terrifying.  Let's turn out the lights.  Alright, let's get up to speed.  We have two cops left, one with a broken leg, and they are in the dark with only a single pair of night vision goggles.  Oh, and they're still planning on getting the key.  

At the end of the tunnel they come to a service door, and inside is the decaying body of the cop they killed weeks ago.  The officer gets the key and turns around right in time to see his partner killed by Killer Croc.  The officer tries to get away but falls into a trap filled with stakes.  He's stuck.  Oh yeah, Croc kills him too.  In the end, we see Croc as a boy, and the only person who was ever nice to him happened to be the officer that this team of cops killed.  So Croc got his revenge for his first friend.  The story closes with Killer Croc giving a Viking funeral to his friend surrounded by the downtrodden of society, that he has taken in.  Who refers to our scaly friend as King Croc.

Bits and Pieces:

Not really an origin story, but had the qualities of one, and not a bad one at that.  But what we're really looking at is a revenge story, and it was fun seeing Killer Croc in this kind of role.  Also, we finally see Jason Todd wearing the Robin costume in flashback which was fun, and the beginning of a new storyline which should have been the real storyline in that awful Gotham Underground going on in Cat Woman.  This was a solid issue with a good story and solid art, and I hope we get to see more of Killer Croc in the future now that he seems to be done in Bat Woman.  (or not who knows anymore)  Great issue, check it out.

9/10