Batman #46 Review

Writer: Tom King

Artist: Tony S. Daniel

Inkers: Tony S. Daniel and Sandu Florea

Colourist: Tomeu Morey

Letterer: Clayton Cowles

I've been thinking long and hard about this, and I think this is one of the worst comics I've ever read, if not the worst. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities about this issue other than the art, which isn't even that good by Tony S. Daniel standards.

Booster Gold is stuck in this alternate timeline after foolishly doing what he did in the previous issue, which I hope I'll manage not to get into since Tom King does not fundamentally understand who Booster Gold is. Skeets isn't a time machine, Tom. Read up on a character before writing them. Apparently Booster has been stuck in this timeline for a number of weeks, judging by the length of the beard he's sporting. Booster looks like he went insane during this time period between issues, as he's talking to a meow-spouting Catwoman as if she's answering his questions or starting a dialogue with him, despite the fact that she only says the word "meow" throughout the entire issue. I'm not sure if King is screwing with us now. Booster's plan is to reunite Bruce Wayne with Catwoman, despite them never having met in this timeline. Booster thinks that if Bruce sees Catwoman again, then he'll fall in love with her and all is right in the world. This makes absolutely no sense, and I have no idea how King got this story past any reputable editor, of which I don't think King deals with at this point.

Daniel's art is a little down for me. Some of his faces are off but his action is clear and gorgeous. He's even able to inject some neat emotion into the smaller panels, but it looks a lot less sharp than it normally does.

This is just awful. Awful dialogue, awful plotting, and less-than-usually-stellar art makes for probably the worse Batman issue of the last few years. I've said this before but King reaches an entirely new level of low quality.