Batman #36 Review

Writer: Tom King / Artists: Clay Mann, Seth Mann / DC Comics One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from my grandfather was about friendship. “Grandson, you’ll have a lot of acquaintances. But if you look back and you have a couple genuine friends in life, you’re fortunate.” That conversation played in my head constantly as I read Batman #36 as friendship was the most prominent theme. Batman is recently engaged to someone most people recognize as a super villain. As you’d expect, this is one of the multiple factors putting a damper on the usual post-engagement celebrations one would expect. The other is the fact that Bruce never really made time for friends. He’s had plenty of partners, but friends? People who you don’t necessarily need anything from outside of their company? That’s a lot harder to come by. [As Selina hilariously points out, Commissioner Gordon doesn’t even know his name and Alfred is technically an employee.]

On the other side of this two-for-one story—which I must say, is a great story-telling audible—we’ve got Superman. A man who’s been ostracized by most of the world and deified by the rest, is in a similar situation. Finding out that Bruce is engaged puts him in a tough spot. If they’re friends, should he reach out to offer his congratulations? Or is he mostly a work-friend and would overstep if he did so? The intricacies of the relationship between Batman and Superman reminds us that they deal with the same awkward social dilemmas that we do. The …