3 out of 5

I was of mixed emotions when it was announced that Tom King would be writing Batman.  I have well-founded views on good writers on big properties: that, unless you’re given Morrison-like reign over the direction of the line (meaning YOU’RE writing the crossovers), good ideas and skills will ride out one or two good arcs before being subsumed by the editorial machine.

There’s actually very little King material out there as a comparison so far, and I haven’t liked Grayson, but I’ve been able to blame that on Tim Seeley.  King’s Vision, meanwhile, has remained original, but that’s just enough of an off-brand character (despite his Avengers MCU appearance) to allow for some creative wrangling.

We’ll still be left wondering for a bit how King on Bats plays out, as Rebirth is more your typical ‘passing of the torch’ issue from one writer to another.  I haven’t read Snyder’s stuff, so I don’t know what’s being wrapped up here, but regardless, that’s what it reads like.  Bats pitches a vague “new” idea to one of the robins from Robin War (part of the whole Grayson deal), and a rejiggered Calendar Man shows up to give us something to do between torch-passing expositions.  The book features some of my least favorite “Batman is a badass!” stuff, like one-armed sweaty pull-ups while hanging off the side of a building, because certainly that’s the most sensible way to train, but it also gives us a sense for how King’s writing can work for the title, as the writer excels at churning a plot in the background while letting the fore settle on smaller character moments, and the flashes of that in Rebirth are satisfying.

Michael Janin’s art blends Freddie Williams III paneling with a dynamic sense of movement, though his character positioning is sometimes a bit action-figure wonky.  Overall, as someone who’s just jumping on for King’s run, the issue has some possible hints of the tone to expect, but is otherwise unimpactful.  A fine use of pages if you’re in need of something to read, but not required if your weekly stack is already too high.