Batman - War Games

[Spitfire]

Anyone read this series yet? I just picked up the trades for it and I gotta say I like it quite a bit. The first selling point is the whole series is collected, including the prelude and the aftermath. I haven't read the aftermath yet but the fact I can get to it at some point is nice. What I also love is instead of leaving us lost and confused because we haven't followed the Batman mythos for the past 50 years it gives us a nice introduction page that explains everything we need to know before the story starts up. Not to say it didn't help that I've read most of the stories it refers to but it's a nice reminder either way.

Basically the story is about The Spoiler an annoying 15 year old twat who is super cocky and for some reason unknown to anyone but Batman is allowed to be Robin for a short period of time. Tim Drake is forced to quite as Robin and lead a normal life so when he finds out his girlfriend has taken his place he obviously gets a little butt hurt. Also Nightwing is dealing with some issues as well. He's all mad because he helped a partner of his Tarantula, an annoying Mexican stereotype, kill Blockbuster. His moral problem is he doesn't know how to break the news to Batman. Oracle is present too, her problem is she feels like she's just Batman's operator and gets all pissy when he refuses to pay attention to her. Batgirl is in it as well, she's been taking lesions from Batman though and acts like a bitch 90% of the time. Last time I read an issue with her in it she couldn't talk but she has her own series so I guess it wouldn't be very interesting to have a main character who can't speak.

Batman is a complete ass in it and that's what I like about him. He's a seriously flawed character but he still thinks he's right no matter what he does or how bad he messes things up. He never apologizes for being a dick to the people who want to help him and shows not even a shred of emotion no matter what happens, except when someone dies you see a bit of concern there. That's another thing about this story, they kill off a main character. They always make character death a big deal in comics which is neat and all but we can all probably guess at some point they will find some half ass'd way to bring them back into the story.

Anyways the plot is about this shoot out that happened at the docks. All the major gang leaders were there for a meeting and they brought bodyguards. Someone pulled a lighter and they all mistook it for a gun and started blasting. Almost everyone died and because of this there's territory up for grab so everyone's out for blood and the whole city is thrown into chaos.The main villain of the story is revealed in the 2nd book and I must say I like him quite a bit. Even though anyone who saw the cover could figure it out I'll put a spoiler tag.

Spoiler:

It's Black Mask and he's as insane and as masochistic as ever. There's several scenes of him torturing people to death. In one he pours pepper into someones eyes. Honestly I think he's even more insane then the Joker and some of his lines are just funny as hell.

The art is another selling point for me on books. The art is the same for pretty much the whole thing, not a cluster **** mess like No Man's Land was. Though there are some issues that have some odd looking bubbly shaped character designs that look like something out of a Japanese anime. Only the Batgirl issues sport it and a few of the ones featuring The Spoiler as Robin so it's not to bad. Other then that it's standard gritty art.

So if your looking for something to read to kill a little time or you ant a good Batman story I'd highly recommend this. It's probably my favorite storyline I've read thus far.