Blood Runs Deep
Written By: Tom King
Art By: Clay Mann, Tomeu Morey
Letters By: Clayton Cowles
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: February 16, 2021
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
The latest series from Tom King has started out actually fairly well. Granted, there are a ton of head-scratching moments. The story constantly switches between different periods of time but since they don’t give any indication as to when they change, you often have to figure it out several panels in. The story has straight up unwritten plot points of the previous issue and moved on like it never happened. However, despite all of these blatant mistakes that shouldn’t be getting approved, I actually am intrigued by this series. All the problems in this book do not dissuade me from wanting to learn more as the storylines are actually very interesting with some great dynamics between all of our characters. I just wish the details were a bit tighter. Anyway, lets jump into this new issue and see where this story takes us.
Our issue begins on the top of the GCPD where a new Bat is meeting with the new Commissioner. I’m pretty sure they don’t give her a proper name in this issue so we will call her Batgirl for now cause it seems as good a name as any. It is revealed in this issue that Dick Grayson is the new Commissioner of the GCPD and he informs her about a death down in Florida and that they expect the man to be identified as The Joker. She shares some doubt but after a quick conversation they move on and we see a scene of Joker in a cell singing a Christmas carol. We then cut to a past interaction between Joker and Catwoman where she beats him up for his latest crime, but being The Joker, he shows no remorse. We cut to the future where Selina is eating dinner with her daughter Helena. Helena shares the information that Dick gave to her earlier about the body in Florida. The conversation seems to go nowhere though as both of them seem to have different ideas of how they want the conversation to go.
We return to the present where another one of Joker’s men dies at the hands of The Phantasm. Batman confronts The Joker about the death as the victim had a message on his lip that Joker was with Batman and Catwoman. He threatens to throw Joker out but Joker calls his bluff, knowing that Batman would never put him in the situation where he would be killed. We cut to the past where Bruce and Selina are sharing an intimate moment. He asks her about new injuries that she has and she brushes them off. Despite his concerns, Selina moves the conversation along until they end the night in each other’s arms. In the future, Helena gets the results and find that The Joker is indeed the man in Florida who died. She reports in to her mother and tells her that she intends to investigate it and considering how close it was to her father’s death, she sees a connection.
We cut to the present where Selina is sleeping only for The Phantasm to attack her. However, Selina isn’t caught so easily and puts up a good fight against her attacker. During this attack we hear a phone call from Bruce informing her about an alert from their home security that he believes was a mistake. However, she doesn’t respond to any of his words and he becomes suspicious. The fight eventually spills out onto the Wayne Manor roof and the two topple off and land in the snow below. We return to the past where Selina opens a safe and suddenly a voice come from inside. The voice belongs to Joker and he tells her about his newest crime ahead of time. That way she can tell Batman, but that would reveal the friendly relationship between her and Joker. It becomes clear that Joker is enjoying inserting himself into Selina’s relationship with Bruce. Joker had even squeezed his whole body into the safe just to deliver this message to her. Back to the Future, Helena tells her mother about her investigation in Florida. She tells her that she found nothing but another panel reveals that isn’t true. This is where the issue leaves us.
So, thankfully, there aren’t any blatant mistakes in this story. It all seems to be in line with the previous issue (though if something is found later, I won’t be surprised) and we move all three storylines along nicely. We are introduced to the future Bat in Helena Wayne and we even catch up with Dick Grayson to get a small glimpse into what he’s been doing. We also get an amazing scene from the past where Selina realizes just how far Joker is willing to go in order to mess with her relationship with Bruce. I think that scene might be the best part of this series up to this point. It’s horrifying and yet completely in character for the Joker. That being said, there is one thing that feel out of character. In the present storyline Batman calls Selina to tell her that there is a “probably” false alarm at the manor. Now, I usually don’t take arguments that say “So and so superhero would never act like that” too seriously because usually there is a very normal explanation and it just doesn’t fit in with some perceived view of the hero. That said, I do find it rather strange that Batman simply brushes this off as a false alarm. At this point, multiple villains have broken into the manor including villains that Tom King himself wrote doing that very thing. So the idea that he gets an alert and thinks “nah it’s probably nothing” seems very strange to me. But it’s a small gripe. Overall, this issue is pretty good but aside from that one scene that I think is super great, the rest of the issue seems to stall horribly. Not that it’s bad, but it’s just kinda there. As usual, there’s some great art though.
Bits and Pieces
The latest issue of Batman/Catwoman brings us some great things as we get one of the best scenes from Tom King in a long time. We also get to see some fan favorite characters and what they are up to in the future. That said, most of this issue did not do much to move the story forward. There are small things that move the story slightly but nothing really that big takes place in this book. It’s a bit disappointing, but overall the book was still very good.
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