There’s a new villain introduced called The Help, who’s like a slightly zombified mash-up of Alfred and Batman. He’s terrifying - some of the scenes put me in mind of Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men - and I liked how his past ties into Batman’s. He’s a very capable match for Bruce too. I think he’s the best new addition to Batman’s rogues gallery we’ve had in a while and hope to see him in more stuff in the future. In Batman’s second year of his crusade against crime, while he is still changing and perfecting his craft and the art of the vigilante, the cowardly lot of criminals in the city are changing as well—giving rise to darker, specialized rogues. It seems to be set in the early days of Batman’s career for no real reason. It definitely doesn’t follow King’s Batman run as the Batman/Catwoman relationship is completely non-existent here. In fact Catwoman is written very differently from the Cat in King’s run - here she’s very vicious and quite mad.

Having made a name for himself at DC as one of the best Batman artists, David Marquez’s work is top-notch here, presenting hyper-realistic, hugely detailed art. When you look at his work of numerous Spider-Man comics, Marquez can illustrate action and that applies here with Batman being a figure of theatrics through his cape.

Batman : Killing Time is a story from the Dark Knight's earlier years, written by Tom King with art from David Marquez. The story jumps around moments in time and coincidentally focuses on the same characters who appeared in The Batman (save for Killer Croc), starring actor Robert Pattinson and directed by Matt Reeves. Unlike like King's main Batman run or his limited Batman/Catwoman series, the title is set to be a miniseries that only lasts six issues.

The second thing that I find really detrimental to this narrative is the frankly cloying use of narration. It sets a tone for the book, and immediately gets your brain in heist mode, but there’s just too much of it. As I mentioned, King tells us the exact time and place of everything going on, every time the scene changes. In some instances, this is genuinely helpful, while in others it feels a little insulting. For instance, there is a scene with Selina where she mentions it’s going to rain soon, the next time we see her they’ve moved inside ahead of the rain. It’s a natural shift for the characters, yet the story still takes time to point out the time and new location. I've been a bit tepid with some of King's recent output—except for his and Bilquis Evely's Supergirl, which is excellent—but reading this reminded me why I love his take on the Batman and Gotham as much as I do. It's very much a Tom King book, with all the poetic narration, semi-untraditional narrative structure, and literary references he's known for at this point, but they're all in top form. Furthermore, I’m not really a fan of the tone of the comic. While it gets you in heist mode, Matina, I feel like I’m reading a really dry, boring police report about a crime that took place. To me, the comic is very monotone. It’s almost like every sentence in the narration boxes has the same rhythm and pace, and like we’re just getting the writer’s notes for the narration, instead of the narration itself. It keeps me at arm’s length and it makes reading this comic a bit of a chore. Tom King and David Marquez’s Killing Time is a decent done-in-one Batman book that’s always unpredictable and never boring, with fantastic art throughout, though ultimately the story is a forgettable one with a very underwhelming finale. Yep! I actually like quite a few King comics, although he certainly has missed the mark with several of his works. Hopefully this will be good–let’s have a look!Exactly. The problem is that King gets too specific with little details. I don’t think we need to know the exact times when things happened, and I don’t think we even need this nonlinear narrative at all. It just makes it seem so much more complicated than it really is, and that’s never a good thing in my book. Constantly jumping around through time and getting time stamps as well as various names and locations thrown at you is indeed making me feel kind of dizzy. As a result, I find it hard to connect with the story and focus on the plot, because I keep getting distracted by my frustration with all these unnecessary details. After the disappointing Batman/Catwoman, which served as King’s conclusion to his ongoing narrative during the main Batman title whilst playing with non-linear storytelling, Batman: Killing Time is basically a repeat of that storytelling. When Catwoman, The Riddler and The Penguin join forces to pull off the greatest robbery in the history of Gotham City, Batman investigates the deadly heist that goes wrong.