Suavestar reviews-Batman: Murder at Wayne manor.


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Batman and murder mystery, the world’s greatest detective solving a murder case, it should be fun right?

I mean Batman should be able to solve any crime, and do it with ease, but how great would it be, if you were batman?

How great would it be to actually be in batman's mind when he hears about the clues and seeing the clues, like he is, to hold that one piece of evidence that everyone else missed, to know that only you can solve the crime. Well if you pick up Batman: Murder at Wayne manor, you will feel this first hand.

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Available from most good book and comic shops Batman: Murder at Wayne Manor will set you back $24.99 or £15.99 cover price. The book is written by Duane Swirecnzynski and the book is illustrated by David Lapham.

I called this a book and not a graphic novel, or even a trade paperback, because first it has a hardcover, and also because it is more of a book with pictures of batman thrown in to remind you that you are reading a Batman story.

The story takes place during Bruce’s early years of being a crime fighter and still learning on the job, in fact one of the first pages of the book when Bruce does not know how to react to criminal with a gun and does not take into account all the possible actions the crook could take. Bruce through this mistake learns a lesson and takes his bruises with him and leaves the fight for another day.

The next day Bruce is sleeping and hears the commotion of builders working in his garden that wakes him up, Bruce goes out to see what these men are talking about. Bruce is getting work down stabilising the ground above the bat cave so it is more structurally sound, but when digging the men find something interesting, a skeleton of a woman.

Bruce try’s his best to play the "I don't care" bachelor and takes it all in his stride, while trying to learn about who the person is and why there is a dead body in the grounds of Wayne manor.

The book then plays out with in a sort of murder mystery way with Bruce trying to work out who the body belonged to and why it involves his parents and a party when Bruce was two years old.

The story is padded out with Bruce remembering his childhood and going around and wondering if his father was really the hero he always thought he was, or if he was what Bruce is trying to fight against, a murderer.

The book does go into Bruce's psyche about why he won't kill anyone in the best way I have seen and actually gives a very plausible and thought through reason which there has to be given some credit for.

The art is very film noir when it appears, and it goes with the story, the art when it appears is good, but it is not as good as it could have been.

When I said earlier about you seeing what Batman sees, I mean that if Batman gets a clue, like in what scene when Detective Gordon, gives Batman a copy of the autopsy report, you are given in a panel of the book an actual sheet of paper with the autopsy report on it. The report looks worn and old and feels almost realistic; again to give you the feeling that you are with Batman as this all happens.

It is my belief that batman is still in the early stages of his career as he makes mistakes the later batman would never do, such as at the start falling off the building and failing to catch a criminal in his first attempt.

Like tower of Babel this is meant to show that Batman can seem like he is insensitive and doesn't care about anyone as he knows it will affect the mission, and this is true here, Bruce cannot set aside his personal wondering if his father was the killer of this woman and see the bigger picture and it counts against him during the course of this story.

Bruce is really screwed up in this, you really get a feel of how badly Joe Chill if that was his real name ruined Bruce’s life forever when he killed his parents as Bruce keeps wondering if his father is a killer and remembering when he was a child and what he would do with his parents. Bruce even takes time away from checking leads to remember his parents and where they took him and visit his parent’s gravesite.

Black mask shows up in this story, and frankly I have only heard of him two places, one being the excellent under the hood trades, and the other The Batman TV show. The character that shows up in these two areas is interesting and entertaining; this one is dull and boring and adds nothing to the story. Frankly, you could have used a random goon and it would've made no difference, I still wouldn't have cared.

Yes, I really couldn't care for this, I walked in hoping for a murder mystery story that would leave me on the edge of my seat and at least let me interact to more of an extent than just read a newspaper clipping, most of which is irrelevant to the story. The only interactivity is actually holding the clues, you do not feel like you taking part and helping batman solve the case, you feel like you are reading a terrible Batman story, but you don't have the nice art to look at.

The story does not pace well, and frankly is a bloody chore to read, once I reached Bruce talking about his fall into the cave when he was a child twice, yes this writer says he nearly fell into the bat cave before he was eight years old, but only remembers learning about death. The story was dull and when the writer was talking about how Batman took down a couple of goons with guns, I said to myself I can't wait for the art of these guys being knocked out and batman proudly standing over them with a batarang. What I got was the most boring Batman picture I think I've ever seen, it reminded me of the long Halloween, as if Tim Sale had ripped pages of art out not good enough and binned them and this artist looked at them and decided stealing someone else’s cast off was the sincerest form of flattery.

The clues as I said before are really well thought out and look like they have been in a drawer or hidden away from prying eyes for years, they really set the mood, and the pages are the same, they feel old, and you almost feel like you are reading a piece of history here, and in a way you are, you are reading about one of the "Worlds greatest detectives" first crimes, and it is a personal one, such a shame that this sucks.

I loved the Hush storyline, someone going after Batman and knowing how to get to him and bringing him down was so great to me, I enjoyed watching everything play out, but the ending felt so rushed and so contrived, I was left deflated at the end. Batman: Mystery at Wayne manor suffers the same fate, but with two differences, one the art in hush was amazing to me and I could read it all again and just look at the pictures, Batman: MAWM has only a handful of pages of not great artwork and never gets off the ground. The other being when I finished Hush I had some nice things to say about the story except for the end, this, I can't say anything nice about the story.

The worst part about this is when you reach the payoff as I call it, when a film calls back and pays you for sitting through it; let’s compare two movies that do this, Saw and the Usual Suspects. Saw gives you everything that it forgot to tell you over a ninety minute period in a five minute montage trying to say you are an idiot for not catching these things. The usual suspects says do you remember this and pretty much demands you watch it a second time and notice the little hints given to you throughout the movie and you would be still entertained as the first time you watched it, perhaps more now watching the film more intently than you did before.

This book is like a cheap saw. This book pays off certain clues, but is convoluted with them that your left wondering "What" and sitting scratching your head and throwing this across the room in disgust. the book also makes up its own clues right at the end with one giant one that reminded me a little too much of Saw, in fact I was ready to hear "hello Zepp" play when I read it. This twist may have worked if it were an actual comic, or even a movie, live action or other, such as in Ocean’s eleven when you are shown something you couldn't see the first time, like George Clooney slipping Julia Roberts character the phone. You are shown it from a different angle as if you are watching it for a second time, whereas this twist is just told to you and you really couldn't care less.

The clues are then rammed down your throat by a smug sounding Batman who is almost telling you like a child, this is what you missed and that he knows it all from the start. The climax is terrible and the ending dire.

I really wanted to enjoy this, I saw it in the bookshop and said "Wow, an interactive Batman story, nice." and thought it would be fun, me helping batman, what I got was a light feeling in my pocket and the need to get my hour of reading this back.

This is not interactive, this is not fun, I'm not even sure it's Batman, you change Batman for generic detective who is a whiny bitch number four and really you wouldn't notice the difference, though if you do, you probably got too disinterested in the story to care.

When I said Hush paid off badly I meant it, they spent the whole last chapter telling you why Hush hated Bruce, but at least it was only trying to pay off that one character, the last "Secret" i.e. sealed so that you'd have to either buy it, or be really careful with the seal in the shop, to see what the hell is going on, and even then there’s like five characters being fleshed out pretty horribly in five pages.

This is a terrible waste of time and money.

Is it Wednesday yet, has a rating of buy, borrow, flip through and skip; I would like to add one to that list specifically for this thing:

Open your window, through it as far as you can, set it on fire, let it burn as much as it will, record it and upload the footage of the fire to YouTube because I guarantee that's a hell of a lot more entertaining than reading this garbage!

This is available to throw away now.

I've been Suavestar this has been Suavestar reviews and you have just saved yourself one hour and $24.99 so I can't be all bad.

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