Batman Vol. 3: Death of the Family By Scott Snyder

Batman Vol. 3: Death of the Family (The New 52)

 Absolutely Amazing!!!! Scott Snyder has done an amazing job with the Batman comics since the New 52 began. Several of the reboots have not lived up to my expectations, but the Batman series has been the best I have seen. DC Comics was kind enough to let me read this collection early for an honest review care of Net Galley. I can’t tell you how excited I was to see this.

I have been a Batman fan all my life and he is by far my favorite superhero. My love for Batman has rubbed of on my 3 year old son and he loves running around in his mask and homemade cap shouting “I’m Batman”. It will be many years before I let him read my comics, but I still get a kick out of seeing what I must have been like as a child. It is also nice to have an excuse to watch my Batman Animated series DVDs because he loves those.

This book starts off after the Court of Owls story line, the Joker has been missing for a year and now he is back. A year ago his face was cut off by the Dollmaker, and he left it for the Gotham PD to hang in evidence as a message, “I will be back”. The book opens with Gordon and his officers caught in a black out, as the back up power returns the joker is standing in the doorway. I got chills at this whole scene. You don’t see his face because he has come to collect it, but it’s how Gordon reacts that you just know. The Joker has always been this horrifying character who kills with no remorse because to him, it is funny. But seeing the Joker wearing his cut off face, held on with a belt and staples was gruesome, horrifying, and at the same time really cool.

Batman has been waiting for this day since the Joker took off and went completely off the grid. Joker’s return was so amazing to read. Joker begins to reenact his first run-ins with Batman. Each one has a slight twist that made it harder for Batman to predict just what was coming even though he knew when and where. Through the whole book Joker is praising Batman and calling him King Bat. There always was this admiration that the Joke had for Batman, but this was over the top. Joker was even more obsessed with Batman this go round and he’s out to destroy the family. Joker feels that having help from Nightwing, Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl, and even the Red Hood make him weak. He isn’t the Batman he once was and Joker is desperately trying to get that Batman back.

I can’t stress enough how much I loved this book. I thought Court of Owls was the best thing I had read this year, but this Death of the Family surpassed that. I love the Joker and his return was thrilling, action packed, and so much fun to read. I don’t usually tell people to rush out and buy a book very often, but if you are a Batman fan you need this book! Pre-order it now because it is worth the read and re-read. I loved this so much I have made it easy for you get.  The link under the cover picture will take you to amazon.com to pre-order this. There are pages of stuff I could say about this book but I don’t want to ruin even one panel for anyone looking to read this.