Sean Murphy ’s Batman : White Knight is the form of Elseworlds - esque story that has the potential difference to essentially change our ideas about the Dark Knight in a path that ’s bigger than any one comical book , TV show , or picture show . Now that the series has do to a stopping point , we take a look back at what made it great and where it took some big missteps .
While Bruce Wayne is a specific part who appears in many of DC Comics ’ titles , Batman has become something far more interesting : a malleable and ever - changing idea about justice , vehemence , top executive , disfunction , and all the ways in which those things interact with one another . In his fictional adventures , Batman ’s a billionaire , crack detective , and one of the most brilliant minds in the multiverse . Here in the real earth , though , he ’s a symbol that represents the fantasies we all have about the people we could become and the things that we could do if given the good resource and chance .
It ’s that desire to be like Batman that ’s always made it well-heeled to identify with and chirk up for him . That stays truthful , even when different creators have taken the Dark Knight to shadowy , questionable places meant to make you reconsider just how heroic ( and sane ) he actually is . The theme of Batman being the true source of Gotham ’s complaint is not new , but Batman : White Knight elevates it by taking that premise and make it expressed where most other stories have just involve it .
White Knight is gear up into motion when , after Batman and the Joker tear through Gotham on a in particular violent car following , a number of masses watch and record as a seemingly - mad Batman nearly beats the Joker to demise .
As Batman beats him to a bloody flesh , the Joker insists he can give up his villainous ways if given the prospect to take a fresh medication that can keep his saneness in check . The crest hero begrudgingly agrees to give his archnemesis a opportunity … by forcing handful of the pills into the Joker ’s mouthpiece . It ’s clear that Batman ’s trying to vote out the Joker because while he ’s choke on the anovulant , the baddie manages to say that he ca n’t breathe , a moment mean to echo Eric Garner ’s death in 2014 . Videos of Batman and the Joker ’s fracas chop-chop pass around across the cyberspace , creating a groundswell of support for Jack Napier , the reform Joker who quickly gets down to business with his latest plan : becoming Gotham ’s newest city council member and finally putting Batman behind bars .
Narratively , this has all the making for a nifty , but intimate variety of Batman report , but White Knight pivot man by making it well-defined that Napier ’s programme is n’t just another one of the Joker ’s ploys . His reform and desire to restore Gotham is sincere and while the public is initially skeptical of him , in time , they come to see Napier as the sort of mavin that they ’ve always ask . In his neverending pursuance to carry through Gotham , Batman ’s fight became a campaign against supervillains , but Napier take in the compelling parameter that the substantial problem plague the city is its rearing degeneracy . It ’s with the promise of a Gotham where the police are n’t crooked and the politicians actually do their chore that Napier is able to win pith and minds — and Batman ’s stop is , in its agency , the cherry on top .
It ’s Napier ’s need to land Gotham ’s citizen over to his side that makes White Knight such an interesting estimation for a comedian , but the mode it ’s depicted in the level is ultimately where it really fail to stick the landing place . Napier knows that even with his Joker days behind him , there ’s no way for him to drum up political support among Gotham ’s rich elite who he once regularly jeopardize for diddly and giggle . So , he turns to Backport , the preponderantly black , working - category borough that Gotham PD has a story of disregard .
Napier allies himself with Duke Thomas , a former military officer turned pig who organise a pseudo - reserves of his own , composed of former gangs that now maintain an uneasy peace treaty in Backport . From Napier ’s view , his and Duke ’s foeman are one and the same , because Batman is basically an unofficial extension of the GCPD who ’ve failed Backport — and Duke ca n’t disagree . With his mount , Napier ’s able to successfully launch his bid for the urban center council and White Knight moves along , not really incommode to take out just what Napier ’s political calling means both within the context of the account and for the comedian as a piece of social comment .
Napier goes to Backport because he see an chance to appeal to be the de facto drawing card of Gotham ’s minority population and fix their votes . He meets a community leader , move over a speech , and even builds a young library ( which he later destroys in secret — it ’s a retentive story ) , and White Knight paint a picture that ’s more than enough to see him as a sub . This does n’t really make sentience . Though the Joker ’s harum-scarum Salmon P. Chase with Batman might not have bring him into places like Backport as often as they did downtown Gotham , it ’s not as if the masses living in Backport were completely unmoved by baddie like the Joker . One speech from Duke and a library should n’t really be enough to win over an integral biotic community of people who once survive in unceasing threat of the Joker that they should suddenly see him as their Jesus Christ .
White Knight is very much a comic that ’s trying to comment on the ways that corruption and police brutality harm people from communities that necessitate protection the most . Here , Batman is depicted as the out - of - ascendancy blunt instrument that Gotham PD knowingly let operate in the urban center , even though he poses a substantial threat all on his own .
Having Napier travel into a ignominious neighborhood to get down his crusade against Gotham ’s unofficial symbolic representation for the constabulary ’s evil is a knowing , purposeful option , but it belies the reality of how grim citizenry actually relate to authority figures who ’ve been in positions to exchange our lives , particularly in a political sense . If a white humanity with a 10 - tenacious history of terrorise a city attempted to convince that city ’s black universe to vote for him in an upcoming election , he ’d be express mirth right off his campaign rallying stage . White Knight presumes a variety of forgiveness from the the great unwashed of Backport that ’s at odds with the reality of how multitude actually think and act , which would be fine , were it not for the fact that the comedian is trying to tap into the realities of our humanity on some level .
All of these issues are compounded by the fact that the net progeny of White Knight is an uncharacteristically rushed serial of events that direct to a deeply unsatisfying end . As the series draw to a conclusion , Batman and Napier are wedge to team up up with one anotherin order to stop Neo Joker . She dissemble as a variety of Harley stand - in in the serial until she supercede the literal deal . She winds up using the brainsick Hatter ’s mind control headband to force Clayface ’s discorporate head to keep in line all of Gotham ’s villains , who just pass to each have a piece of his remains inside them . Besides that — which is a lot on its own — Batman and Napier must stop her large plan , freezing Gotham , which she will do unless her requirement to see the Joker again are met .
The pair meets her at her base of operations , and because she ’s so surprised to see her dear Joker , the buffoon is able-bodied to get an early potshot on her that break her control over all of Gotham ’s scoundrel . Free from Neo Joker ’s influence , Clayface go to destroy everything around him , prompting everyone to hop into the close vehicle and endeavor to fly the coop through a narrow stretching of road that the Batmobile ca n’t fit through . As Napier and Harley come to the realization that one of them ’s going to die , Neo Joker pulls up alongside them and offers one of them a drive on her rocket , which can meet through the transit . It ’s all silly and dramatic and high octane , but it feels very much like a last - minute idea that was tacked on for perforate up an otherwise savorless denouement .
Harley end up being the one to rag shotgun with the Neo Joker , leaving Napier to ostensibly crash to his death in the Batmobile . And when the two women are light from Clayface , they duke it out because , of course , everyone wants to see OG Harley fight her imitator . In an entirely unsurprising twist of event , Harley outdo Neo Joker and stab her before bringing her back to Gordon where she ’s enjoyably surprised to hear that ( shocker ) Napier is also still alive .
As a reward for his assistance in stopping Neo Joker , Gordon places Napier into a more comfortable prison cell in Arkham and agree to legally wed him to Harley before he needs regress to his one-time Joker image . After the Joker ’s shut up out once again , Batman reveals to Harley that he knew that she was the person who evolve the drug that temporarily cured the Joker and that the entire scheme — Napier ’s recovery , his political campaign , the staged attempt — was actually her melodic theme . Rather than ingest her in right then and there , Batman makes the most out - of - character reference decision of all and chooses to lastly work with the Gotham police in an prescribed capacity . After handing over the keys to multiple Batmobiles for the GCPD to utilise , the Dark Knight pulls off his masque in front of Gordon , reveals his identity , and says that he ’s ready to join him in the fight against crime .
What ’s telling is that even with these vital and confusing flaws , White Knight is still an interesting taradiddle apart from the very last issue . There are subtle dark glasses and nuances to Napier and Harley ’s human relationship that , candidly , we ’ve just never really seen in Batman comedian before . In Bruce ’s dingy line of descent into his own sort of madness , White Knight finds a heartrending tenderness that , pay off in a satisfying way when you learn Alfred ’s last words to Bruce .
For all of its promise to go down as one of the more fascinating tales about Batman ’s life , White Knight ’s failure to stick its landing hold the series back in a pregnant way ; its inability to meaningfully engage with the real world politics it was trying to tip into did n’t facilitate matters . Batman : White Knight might not be a arrant story in the end , but it was certainly a fun one .
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