This week’s Batman #77 saw the death of a major Batman family character, at the hands of one of his most formidable villains. The fault fell squarely on the shoulder of another major member of the Batfamily.
Or, at least, their apparent death, because this is comics, after all, and the work of Tom King and his collaborators has taken a decided turn towards the dream-like in these late-game Batman arcs. But let’s dig in to exactly what happened.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Batman #77.]
With #77, we’re fully in the swing of King’s final arc on the Batman series, “City of Bane,” in which the eponymous villain has teamed up with Thomas Wayne — that is, Bruce Wayne’s dad from a dead alternate universe in which Bruce was killed in the alley and his father became Batman and his mother became the Joker — to take control of Gotham City and rule it with an iron fist.
In order to keep pesky world-class vigilantes from trying to disrupt this operation, Bane and Thomas have a hostage that they’ve promised to kill if any superhero sets a single foot in Gotham. That is, the one character whose life no member of the Batfamily would toy with: Alfred.
At least, until Batman #77, when Bruce Wayne’s most stubborn and hot-headed child, Damian Wayne, decided that he would personally take the fight to Gotham’s new Batman on his own.
And, to make a long story short, Damian’s fight with his alternate universe grandpa doesn’t go as well as he’d hoped. Thomas Wayne captures Robin and takes him to Wayne Manor. Then, in some of the final pages of the issue, the villains force Damian to watch as Bane snaps Alfred’s neck, all while the Batfamily’s loyal surrogate father figure begs the villain to at least not do it in front of his youngest surrogate child.
As Thomas makes clear on the page following Alfred’s demise, Damian will now take his place as the hostage preventing the rest of the Batfamily from saving Gotham.
Where’s the real Batman in all of this? Physically and mentally recovering from having his own physical and mental deal rocked off its axis by his alternate universe dad. How will he react to the news of his son’s predicament and his surrogate father’s death? Is Alfred really dead, or is this all the machinations of one villain with a mind controller under his thumb and another who knows a bunch of Lazarus Pit locations?
We’ll find out in September, with the next few issues of Batman.
Comments
OH SNAP!
By CinW on 08.21.19 11:01am
Too soon! The story of this tragedy just broke, after all
By Ignismadax20 on 08.21.19 11:17am
That’s one twist I did not see coming!
By Narfle the Garthok on 08.21.19 1:13pm
These puns are spine-tingling.
By FaustsHausUK on 08.21.19 1:52pm
Jeeves that pun was bad.
By Dark Jaguar on 08.22.19 7:46pm
These puns are cracking me up!
By Sloar Volguus on 08.23.19 2:51am
I was curious to read the article … I have just lost 5 minutes – never thought it would have been as ridiculous as this – evil dad from a parallel universe teaming up with another caricatural bad guy, prohibiting super heroes to trespass, like my daughter does when she plays at the kindergarten …
By goodcitizen1984 on 08.21.19 11:49am
Usually one has to have fuller context to judge art, but you seem to have developed a preternatural ability to prejudge things you don’t know much about. Teach us your ways, wise one.
By Xicon329 on 08.21.19 12:28pm
Comics are dumb until proven otherwise.
By DannoHung on 08.21.19 2:05pm
too late.
By Redd88 on 08.22.19 10:12pm
What you (and all defensive people in denial who can’t handle when people criticize art) are mockingly calling a supernatural ability to prejudge without warrant is what normal people call…literacy. And taste.
Comic book lovers (at a certain point of maturity) know the story lines are ridiculous. You might think you’re defending an art form but what you’re really doing is showing us how shallow and reflexive your appreciation of it is. The cheapest fans are quick to mock a critic while the deepest fans share the criticism themselves or at least engage with it.
The article said the plot line. The comment judged the plot line. If you really cared then you should be relaying the merits of the comic, or making the case that the article is inaccurate, not stopping at a generic dismissal of that person’s comment.
By YoohooKangaroo on 08.22.19 11:44pm
I’d be happy to argue the merits of the issue. But I haven’t read it, and I am unable to judge the relative merits of art without the fuller context of having experienced it.
I suppose I could mount a generous defense of the concept in question, invoking Damian Wayne’s maternal grandfather Ra’s al Ghul being a genocidal cult leader and pointing out that such a detail dovetails tragically with the revelation to Damian that this hypothetical version of his paternal grandfather is also bent on mass murder, and how that paternal grandfather murdering a figure that has acted as a grandfather to him has a certain heartbreaking, dark poetry to it.
But that would all be an ass pull, because I haven’t read it, and don’t know if those are themes or character psychology that the comic in question actually grapples with. And neither does goodcitizen1984. A casual dismissal of a comic is fairly met with a casual dismissal of empty "criticism;" what he did wasn’t critical, and if you can’t tell the difference between criticism and empty posturing based on minimal information, then this isn’t worth either of our time.
By Xicon329 on 08.23.19 3:02pm
Hi, welcome to comic books.
By BillClam on 08.22.19 12:36pm
oh, it’s super easy once you’ve read the comics that started these plot threads!
so all you have to do is find, purchase and read: all of flashpoint, DC Universe Reborn, dark knights metal, Batman and Son, Knightfall, probably 3-4 other Bane comics, i’m guessing there’s a thomas wayne comic series out there, im gonna guess Superman ties into this somehow, as well as some other minor-league hero whose comics wouldn’t sell without this tie-in (maybe plastic man? yeah, definitely plastic-man)
yeah, easy!
By harrylane4 on 08.22.19 3:03pm
So, I’ve never been into comics, but I love Young Justice enough that I’ve been ponying up for a DC Universe subscription for a few months now… And I’m surprised at how much I’ve been using the comics library. I’ve enjoyed and understood a lot of storylines/series’ even jumping in with no real context.
That said, there are also a lot that I won’t touch because they clearly DO require all the previous reading you listed haha
By Shabaab Kamal on 08.23.19 12:37am
DC has lately been pretty good about letting you get by with just an understanding of the characters. The 2000s and the New 52 era were often burdened by continuity in a way that they’ve helpfully diverged from a bit lately.
By Xicon329 on 08.23.19 3:04pm
Superhero comics are complete nonsense.
By elkwesi on 08.22.19 4:31pm
COMICS! ARE! WEIRD!
By CamelAttack on 08.22.19 4:40pm
By Charles Cox on 08.21.19 1:21pm
methinks that was Clayface, not Alfred.
By heynowjesse on 08.21.19 4:10pm
Alfred will probably end up with a robot body.
By BillClam on 08.22.19 12:36pm
How many times has Alfred died in the last 10 years of Batman comics?
By JOhn1010101 on 08.21.19 7:04pm
The only time I can think of is in White Knight, where Alfred dies of illness fairly early on, and that’s a separate, self-contained story.
By Somberbrero on 08.22.19 6:18am
He dies in the excelent Injustice comic adaption, then is revived in the Lasuris pit but then eventually dies again. Also didn’t he get his hand cut off then die, come back to life then die again? I think there were more.
By JOhn1010101 on 08.22.19 7:33pm
I feel like Alfred is auxiliary enough that he won’t be brought back if he is dead but just important enough to have an impact, like Gwen Stacy.
Also it’d just feel weird for Bruce to move heaven and earth to bring back his butler the way he did Damien, especially when he’s never gone through the trouble to bring back his parents.
By electric_sheep on 08.22.19 4:11pm