The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

[LOLtron]

A review of the Night of the Owls tie ins as a whole.


I honestly don't understand why publishers feel the need to plan crossovers between all their books so frequently. While crossovers do offer the prospect of temporarily increased sales and exposure to smaller titles, they often interrupt the flow of an ongoing story, force writers to come up ludicrous and ridiculous scenarios with which to tie their book into the main plot and are rarely necessary to advance the plot of the main title.

Take, for instance, DC's Night of the Owls, a Batman crossover which has been featured in almost every Batbook this month. For those unfamiliar with the event, Batman has been battling a secret society called the Court of Owls over the metaphorical heart of Gotham. The Court initially sent out a Talon, a dangerous, steampunk assassin, to break/assassinate the Caped Crusader. The Talon nearly succeeded several times before finally being dispatched by a weary and ragged Batman. Soon after, the Court revealed that the Talon was just one of a large number of undead assassins gathered throughout decades to serve as the Court's foot soldiers. They unleash multiple Talons throughout Gotham to kill as many of the city's prominent citizens and power brokers as they can, forcing Batman to counter with his own army of allies.

The main event, written by Scott Snyder, is the culmination of an eight month arc that has garnered high marks from just about every reviewer and website imaginable. However, the tie-in books, all of which are written by writers not named Scott Snyder, range from enjoyably light to mundane and forgettable and really cheapen the effect of Snyder's main arc. For instance, while Batman struggled to defeat just one Talon early on, his allies have been able to dispatch the Talons with relative ease. Watching the Red Hood or Batwing take down a Talon in twenty-two pages (admittedly using information provided by Batman) cheapens the threat of the Talons and turns them from credible threats to standard footsoldiers.

Almost every tie in follows a near identical plot: the characters hear Alfred's call to arms, fight a Talon, discover some odd connection to the Talon (either by blood, backstory or gender) and ultimately defeat them using electricity, ice, or dismemberment. Often, we get a glimpse of the Talon's origins, which are also nearly identical and add nothing but a couple pages of fluff to the issue.  Usually, the characters mention (for the purpose of filling in new readers) what connection they have to Batman and all of them get to showcase that they have sharp Batarangs in their arsenal. When reading the books one right after another, you can't help but feel that the Batwriters were given a standard plot to follow and basically filled in the blanks when writing the issue.

That's not to say that all the tie-ins are awful. Batman and Robin was a great character study on Damien Wayne and highlighted what a little badass the ten year old Robin is. However, the rest of the books were mediocre and forgettable at best. Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Batgirl, Birds of Prey and Batwing are nearly identical and leave the reader why they wasted their time on the book. However, the worst offender is Justice League #8 which, while not formally a tie in, cheapens the event even further by showing the Justice League easily defeating a plane full of Talons. Why couldn't Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern or the Flash arrive at Gotham to help prevent a culling of the city's citizens?

All in all, the Night of the Owls tie ins were largely disastrous and only highlighted how weak the rest of the Batbooks are compared to Snyder's Batman series. The only plus side to the Night of the Owls tie ins is that they are completely superfluous to the main plot. Choosing to pass on all of them won't affect your enjoyment of Snyder's Batman series nor will they add any insight or enjoyment to the arc. If you're looking to read a unique and inventive issue this month, read Batman instead of these dialed in, half-assed tie ins.

Written or Contributed by: Christian Hoffer


http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/reviews/comics-reviews/19515-night-of-the-owls-tie-ins-unnecessary-fluff.html/

[chap22]

I disagree with you on one point, Blue: the Nightwing stuff has been pretty great, and rather than interrupting the flow of that book's ongoing narrative as has happened in the other tie-ins, has flowed directly from much of what that book's first arc was about, just as the whole Court mega-story has filled Batman's first arc. If the other tie-ins are "indistinguishable" to you, that's probably b/c they're copying that template in Nightwing.

[BlueStreak]

I disagree with you on one point, Blue: the Nightwing stuff has been pretty great, and rather than interrupting the flow of that book's ongoing narrative as has happened in the other tie-ins, has flowed directly from much of what that book's first arc was about, just as the whole Court mega-story has filled Batman's first arc. If the other tie-ins are "indistinguishable" to you, that's probably b/c they're copying that template in Nightwing.

I'll give you that it doesn't interrupt the flow like the rest of them has. Honestly, though, I felt that the tie ins were a big let down from the first seven issues, which were pretty spectacular. Maybe it's because the story suffered from the fact that it's identical to the other tie ins, regardless of which came first.

[MoneyMelon]

I don't know why anybody would spend ever money on Red Hood & The Outlaws.

[******]

I disagree with you on one point, Blue: the Nightwing stuff has been pretty great, and rather than interrupting the flow of that book's ongoing narrative as has happened in the other tie-ins, has flowed directly from much of what that book's first arc was about, just as the whole Court mega-story has filled Batman's first arc. If the other tie-ins are "indistinguishable" to you, that's probably b/c they're copying that template in Nightwing.

Totes. I read Nightwing straight through before Snyder's Batman and the "crossover" issues felt like a natural progression of the story.

[bkthomson]

I don't know why anybody would spend ever money on Red Hood & The Outlaws.

It has moments.

[BlueStreak]

Totes. I read Nightwing straight through before Snyder's Batman and the "crossover" issues felt like a natural progression of the story.

Fine, since both of you have such high opinions of it, I'll give it a reread and adjust my opinions accordingly.

The rest of them (save Batman and Robin) were crap though.

[chap22]

I'll give you that it doesn't interrupt the flow like the rest of them has. Honestly, though, I felt that the tie ins were a big let down from the first seven issues, which were pretty spectacular. Maybe it's because the story suffered from the fact that it's identical to the other tie ins, regardless of which came first.

Well, again, that's the fault of the other books, not Nightwing.

Personally I agree with you that this is as needless a crossover as you'll find; that's why the only ones I'm reading are the ones I was reading before: Batman, Nightwing, B&R, and Birds of Prey (the only one I really felt cheated on, and dropped like a bag of dirt now tat Foreman's on art). I really think it could've been confined to Batman and Nightwing and been much better for it.

[IvCNuB4]

I don't know why anybody would spend ever money on Red Hood & The Outlaws.

Fan-boy lust over Starfire ?

I haven't read the other tie-ins but the Batgirl issue didn't seem forced. At least we got to see Barbara finally stop monologuing about her injuries and get into some tough action. Heck, she barely took down her Talon.

[chap22]

It has moments.

I absolutely refuse to believe this is true.

[chap22]

The rest of them (save Batman and Robin) were crap though.

Undisputed.

[draco x]

I never was sold on the Court Of Owls organization as they added nothing new to the Bat mythos. We already saw similar villains in the form of the League Of Assassins and the Black Glove-plus Ra's Al Ghul, Simon Hurt, Bane and Hush did pretty much the same thing that the Court Of Owls did by taking Batman to his limits. The one thing I would love to see though is the Joker show up unexpectedly and save the day by killing off the Court Of Owls and their Talons-this would be a golden moment in the bat-books.

[******]

Fine, since both of you have such high opinions of it, I'll give it a reread and adjust my opinions accordingly.

The rest of them (save Batman and Robin) were crap though.

The problem might not be the crossover, the problem might be that you're reading Batwing, Red Hood, Batgirl and Justice League.

[BlueStreak]

The problem might not be the crossover, the problem might be that you're reading Batwing, Red Hood, Batgirl and Justice League.

My wife reads two of them. I'll let you guess which ones...

[GHERU]

a crossover with useless tie-ins?
say it ain't so!