The Batman Who Laughs #7 - DC Comics

THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #7, September 2019

Featuring an utterly bizarre final confrontation between the Caped Crusader, his Earth-22 counterpart, a shotgun-wielding Alfred Pennyworth and an adolescent Bruce Wayne from yet another realm of the multiverse, Scott Snyder’s narrative for Issue Seven of “The Batman Who Laughs” arguably makes something of a mockery of the American author’s claim that this (extra) publication was “the best way to… give ourselves more room to really land it right.” For whilst the twenty-five page periodical certainly lives up to its promise of delivering the titular character a resounding defeat at the hands of his “brother”, as well as a gratuitously bloody demise to the Grim Knight, the New Yorker’s pedestrian-paced plot doesn’t debatably involve any events so overly complicated that they couldn’t easily have been contained within this mini-series’ originally conceived over-sized sixth instalment.

Indeed, this particular publication debatably runs out of steam before it is even halfway through, as the World’s Greatest Detective repeatedly smashes his spikily-dressed nemesis about the head with several stone grave markers the serum-infected vigilant just happens to find lying around, and James Gordon supposedly rescues his father from becoming the first of Gotham City’s inhabitants to embrace their “darkest selves.” However, rather than stop the story there the Eisner Award-winner instead insists on making this book’s long-suffering 88,012 readers frustratingly wade through some seriously padded out scenes, packed full of some of Snyder’s most gobbledegook-laden, dialogue-heavy panels imaginable; “That demon, what he says is that there is no meaning in your actions, therefore the only meaningful act is to win. He is the fear that we’re both right, Joker and I.”

Mark “Jock” Simpson’s layouts also appear to succumb to this all-pervading, palpable desire to just stuff the misguided magazine with as many meaningless meanderings as possible, with his pencilling of the Batman Who Laughs proving especially undisciplined and rushed. Admittedly, the British cartoonist does imbue the occasional sketch with a noticeable nice touch, such as when Batman uses Martha Wayne’s headstone to batter his ghoulish-looking opponent to the ground. But once the action is over, and this comic is devoid of any need to continue, the artist simply begins producing a seemingly endless production line of debatably poorly-drawn pictures consisting of a badly-bandaged Bruce, and an all-forgiving Commissioner Gordon.

The regular cover art of "THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS" No. 7 by Jock