Review: DC K.O.: Battle Royale trade paperback (DC Comics)

DC K.O.: Battle Royale looked to be among the most important of the DC K.O. tie-in volumes. We’ve got DC K.O.: Knightfight, the only DC K.O. spin-off miniseries, and we’ve got three DC K.O. specials, including the “Kids Are All Fight” story mentioned throughout the other DC K.O. tie-ins, and “Boss Battle,” the much-ballyhooed inter-company crossover book.

In trying to get caught up, I read Battle Royale last, mainly because both DC K.O.: Superman and DC K.O.: Titans intersect with “Kids.” Thus I can say what we have here is really tertiary, or at least its value will largely depend on how much of any of this gets followed up with DC K.O. in the rearview.

[Review contains spoilers]

Writer Joshua Williamson and artist Dan Mora teaming on a Batman miniseries sounds like a certified winner, two of DC’s top talents paired with their top property. Surely, too, having both DC K.O. and then a parallel Batman-only DC K.O. miniseries is DC raking in the same money twice (not to mention it sidesteps the thorny issue of how quickly Batman might or might not be eliminated in the super-powered King Omega tournament).

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

In practice, Knightfight is uneven. Williamson posits four issues in which Batman, by dint of the Heart of Apokolips, encounters each of his four (mainstream) Robins in imaginary futures. But given the need in most issues to write Batman both into and then out of those futures, I’m not sure Williamson gives us quite enough time to care about those futures.

Bruce conflicts with future Batman Dick Grayson and his cadre of Robins over the fact that Bruce apparently killed Jason, Tim, and Damian. But from the start Bruce can tell that Dick is lying, though why he lies about that, other than as a construct of the Heart, is never made clear. Similarly there’s an intriguing locked door mystery with future Tim Drake trying to solve Batman’s murder; Bruce helps Tim solve it, but we’re never clued in to the solution.

Things only begin to come together at their most important, fortunately. Damian Wayne’s future introduces his son, Alfred, as well as future versions of most of the Bat-family, including new iterations of ones we’ve seen elsewhere in Knightfight. Now this has some emotion to it, particularly the single 28-panel page of vignettes of Bruce both training with and hanging out with his grown children. It’s lovely, as are the scenes of Bruce being a grandfather to Alfred, indicative (as we already know) that what Williamson lacks elsewhere in the mini is not the ability to generate emotion, but the room.

Still, it’s all just a dream sequence, and therefore as fleeting as a dream when it ends … or is it? Reading DC K.O. ahead of this, I got the punchline before the setup: Damian and Alfred, at least, survived and are still out there somewhere. If that’s the start of something that will play out in the rumored “Absolute Crisis” or another Williamson/Mora miniseries or something, then that goes a long way toward cementing Knightfight’s value. But if it all goes the way of, say, Flashpoint Beyond, started but never finished, that makes this aspect of DC K.O. seem rather silly.

Mora, I should mention, is outstanding here, DC’s preeminent artist doing preeminent artist things. There’s a few double page spreads packed with panels of miniature action (plus the aforementioned vignette page). It’s subtle, but Mora gets to play in a couple genres here, and I sensed a bit more Jim Lee in the limited-palette Red Hood bit, more Greg Capullo in the Tim Drake detective scene, and manga stylings for Damian. At a time when Batman’s costume is already much in play, Mora designs a variety of new Bat-suits (the kind of thing once partnered with a KnightGallery), and his depiction of the grown-up Bat-family is also very convincing.

With DC K.O.: The Kids Are All Fight, we already know this is a lead in, to Tate Brombel’s New Titans — though this is penned by Jeremy Adams, so how good the continuity is remains to be seen. As it is, John Layman’s DC K.O.: Titans and this story do not match up well. There was a bunch here I didn’t quite buy, including Superman Jon Kent being intimidated by Arsenal, and Batgirl Cassandra Cain bargaining for four super-IOUs to help him. But, quite unexpectedly, the recognition of Superman, Batgirl, and Fairplay PJ Holt’s similar childhood traumas was very affecting, a wise catch by Adams.

The DC K.O.: Boss Battle special does encourage me to check out Patrick Horvath’s IDW comic Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, what with the killer cartoon bear, so that’s something. I do absolutely recognize why this comic is a big deal, though it zigs where for my tastes it would have zagged.

I know-ish the Mortal Kombat characters, but they only end up fighting Plastic Man and Black Lightning (though the “Get over here” moment is a great use of that line). Red Sonja versus Wonder Woman is disappointingly short, and, well, that’s about it for me. For the rest, my familiarity is fleeting, and so for instance that Annabelle just stares at the Joker and does nothing else isn’t particularly funny, and I’d have liked the battle between Superman and Homelander to be based more on their philosophies than Homelander simply being paranoid. Nor, for what’s meant to be an important book, did I think the art was very strong.

Of the five distinct stories in DC K.O.: Battle Royale, only two seem to have relevance beyond this book, Knightfight and “The Kids Are All Fight,” and we’ll have to see to what extent that manifests. “Green Lantern Galactic Slam” I covered in my review of Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2: Lanterns United; both this and the Justice League: The Omega Act special appeared elsewhere (the latter in Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2: The Omega Act), each essentially doing double duty to fill out short trades. So it goes. I liked the DC K.O. event in the main, but possibly Battle Royale is this event at its most unnecessary “event-iest.”

[Includes original and variant covers]

Rating 2.25