Batman: White Knight #2 Review

Writer: Sean Murphy / Artist: Sean Murphy / DC Comics So much Batman, so little time. With the arrival of ‘Metal’ there are more than half a dozen Batman-specific titles currently from DC, from Batman: The Red Death to Batman: The Drowned and this week’s new arrival, Batman: The Devastator. Here we have Batman: White Night, separate from ‘Metal,’ but a type of alternate history altogether where Batman has gone too far the Joker is the Gotham’s savior – their White Night opposite the dark one – a switching of roles between the franchise’s two most iconic characters. If the premise weren’t intriguing itself, the execution has you covered. Batman: White Knight is off to an intriguing start, with both notable highs.

To set the scene, the Joker – or Jack Napier – is cured. Newly sane, Napier has the sympathy of the people of Gotham and capitalizes on their distrust of local government and outrage against police brutality and corruption. If it’s a little too close to home for you, one might understand the concern – it’s a tricky line to dance, commenting on today’s racial climate without trivializing it. The main success of Batman: White Knight is setting the narrative the way we have always viewed Batman as a crazy person, unhinged, cracking down on the symptom crime with disregard for its underlying causes, vigilantism that is, while fun in comics, horrible when applied to real society. Thematically, the result is a Batman rendition of the Frank Grimes episode of The Simpsons, i…