Some thoughts about Batman #50

Can Batman be truly happy?

Bruce and Selina's wedding is about to start but things might not go as well as they could have hoped for.

Here it is people, the great conclusion to this eternally build-up plot-point that has been part of this book pretty much since the beginning and if people know something about Tom King's run here, is that the conclusion are rarely satisfying and while the resolution of this whole arc is not bad per se, the execution as a whole fails once again.

There wasn't much surprise here since not only the ending of this story has been revealed by pretty much everyone before the release of the issue but also because this could have only ended in one way, with Batman staying single so he can keep being Batman. Even King himself has been saying this for a while in this book and thus the final pages, while appropriate, are still quite predictable.

Mind you, there are a few surprises here. The idea that this has been the master plan of one Batman's enemies is interesting in and of itself and King seems to be teasing yet another major story coming building-up from this.

And here comes the negatives.

Being the anniversary issue, this chapter has several invited artists and most of them do a really good job. THE PROBLEM is that their respective pages are basically cover images most of the time and thus they break the pace of the story constantly. Sure, a few of them work nicely when they try to tell a story in the past but most of them are just cool pictures that don't contribute much to the plot.

Second, the idea that Batman needs to be unhappy to keep being Batman is something that has been explored for years now (most recently at the end of Scott Snyder's Batman run) and thus, this is not really new territory and King doesn't really offer anything particularly interesting about it. The premise itself is not necessarily bad but I'm getting tired of this aspect of the character.

Finally, the fact that this has been the "master plan" of one of Batman's enemies is something really unrealistic due that it needed several different things to work accordingly to be effective WITHOUT the involvement of the villain. Is not really an interesting twist as much as somebody needed to give this story a big reveal to try to make it seem bigger than it actually is. Once that you think about it, it doesn't really work (Yes, common theme in King's run).

The artists do a good job despite that their works break the pace. Mikel Janin, Frank Miller, David Finch, Joelle Jones, Tim Sale among others make this issue look stellar at least.

Other than that, you know how this goes.