Drilling The Plot Hole: Batman #16 Review

Plotwise, Batman #16 doesn’t hold up too well if you stop and think about it for too long. The idea that a single inmate, no matter how ruthless or deranged, could not only take over an entire insane asylum under the nose of law enforcement (not to mention the inevitable cavalcade of starfuckers and psycho groupies that would surround Arkham like flies on shit. Don’t believe me? Ask Carole Anne Boone), but would somehow have the resources to modify and booby trap the place in the way Joker does in this issue is implausible on a good day. Throw on top of that that the ending of the whole thing is gonna seem a little familiar if you’ve seen The Vanishing, and this is a story that could swirl the tubes pretty quickly, if you spend too much time contemplating the particulars behind it.

So on that basis, I’m going to recommend – and I don’t do this very often – that you just don’t stop and think about Batman #16 too much.

Seriously, don’t think about it. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the logistics of how Joker could have gotten his hands on the sheer number of victims he has on hand without anyone missing them, or where he found the team of contractors to build the carefully machined and electrified death traps without mentioning to anyone what they were working on, or how he had the time to wait on craftsmen to build that Batman Throne… even though, seriously: I ordered a custom-made bed about two months ago, and I’m still waiting on that Goddamned thing, but Joker gets a throne on demand? I’m seriously thinking about going back to that furniture store and filling it with gas… or at least a different kind of gas than I did last time. Maybe that’s why it’s taking so long. But I digress.

So yeah: try not to get bogged down in all that nitpicking, unrealistic shit. Because if you do, you’re gonna miss one hell of an atmospheric story that shows just how driven and plain old badassed Batman is, and which uses really pretty extreme violence and disturbing situations to show just how dangerous and committed Joker is.

Batman #16 picks up where the last issue left off, with Batman entering Arkham Asylum to face whatever traps and situations Joker has built for him. And he has one hell of a set of snares set: guards stuck in electrical deathtraps, scores of armored and armed inmates, and some of Batman’s more deadly rogues, looking to exact a little one-on-one revenge. And at the end of it all is Joker, with the top tier of Batman’s Rogues Gallery and an intimate group of hostages, to present Batman with a choice: take Joker into custody, or submit to his final plans if he ever wants to find out what Joker has done to the rest of the Batman Family…

Okay, the idea that Joker could put together the sheer volume of tricks and traps and people and machinery into place in any public institution for any amount of money is pretty ridiculous on its face. But this obstacle course isn’t here to be realistic, it’s here to do two things: show how formidable Batman is, and how dangerous Batman is. There are obstacles here that exercise every part of Batman’s skillset. You wanna see Batman think his way through a two-pronged lethal snare with multiple redundancies? There’s a trap for that. You wanna see Batman face a situation where he’s outnumbered, outgunned and outarmed? There’s a trap for that. You wanna see Batman go one-on-one with some of his greatest enemies when time is a factor? Yeah, I’m not doing that shiteating pun again, but suffice it to say: it’s in the story. This scenario allows the reader to see Batman just be Batman at his most dangerous… and frankly, after writer Scott Snyder’s opening Court of The Owls arc where Batman got kicked around a lot, and a lot of setup in this arc with more Joker action than Batman action, it is more refreshing than I expected to just see Batman cut the hell loose.

But this scenario also shows just how deranged and thoroughly depraved Joker is. Sure, some of the stuff is along the lines of his standard old deathtraps, but there is a level of disturbing violence here that really demonstrates just what Joker is capable of. We’ve got things like horses being set on fire and summarily killed. People sewn into human tapestries. People forced to do… things… just to have half a chance at staying alive. There is a level of overt violence and cruelty to Joker’s actions and plans here that we’ve rarely seen from him, and which amp up the sense of menace and foreboding about the character. But on top of the overt violence, Snyder does something very clever and subtle in the closing part of the scenario: if Joker has done all of these obvious and visible terrible things, what the hell is he hiding in that throne room that is drawing all of those Goddamned flies? It’s a creepy cherry on top of a sundae of disturbing violence, and it shows Joker at the top of his game as well as it does Batman.

The overall arc of this issue comes to a satisfying conclusion in Snyder’s and James Tynion IV’s written and Jock drawn backup story. Ostensibly a confrontation between Joker and the rogues in the throne room, it actually demonstrates a couple of things: that, no matter how devious Batman’s other rogues might be, Joker is on a completely different level… and that Joker does, in fact, have something horrible he was hiding in that room. Something we’re not gonna see for a month, but the overall effect is to continue to increase the deadly mystique around Joker, and make it nigh impossible to wait a month to see what is on that fucking platter.

Greg Capullo’s art in this issue is about as good as I’ve seen him be on Batman. His general style continues to be a mix of McFarlane and Breyfogle, with a fine line and copious use of shadows to enhance mood. So it looks much as it always does, but the strongest part of his art here is the pacing. This is, after all, a journey where we’re waiting for Batman to get to the Joker, and Capullo does a fine job of controlling pacing to slow us down when Batman is in danger or trying to remain unseen, and speeding things up as Batman, and we, get closer to Joker. Further, Capullo does something really clever during the big battle with the hoarde of inmates: as the battle goes on, Capullo pulls the camera back, and back, and further back. The effect is to show the huge number of antagonists Batman is facing, and by pulling us away from the action, it makes Batman appear smaller and more vulnerable in the center of this mob… only to pull back in as he starts to overcome. It makes the sequence really exciting… and he ends it with Batman punching out a horse. How are you gonna beat that? In short, Capullo does some clever and interesting work to make the book suspenseful and exciting, and is some of the best visual storytelling I’ve seen in a while.

The events of Batman #16 don’t stand up to scrutiny. Joker accomplishes feats of planning and engineering in a public building with dozens of potential witnesses that Rube Goldberg couldn’t accomplish with a blank cashier’s check, a ten-year schedule, Disney’s Imagineers on retainer and a vatful of mescaline. And even if we accept those feats, for Batman to overcome them would require a belt of flashbang grenades, a flamethrower, the Army Corps of Engineers and an airstrike. But if that’s what you take from the issue, you’re thinking too Goddamned much. Because where the rubber hits the road, this is one hell of a performance by both Batman and Joker. It features some of the best action from both characters in recent memory, and to get at that? I’d accept if the plot that gave it to me involved Tom Green talking shit about Rip Torn. This one’s highly recommended, kids.