I loved this.

The art, writing? Stunning. Major credit to Ward for this, and although I’m quite biased because I have met him, I think he really did Batman justice here.

I love the court of owls and I love Arkham asylum and the Arkham family as a whole, I think it’s quite commendable to take Batman and turn what we know about him completely upside down, (there’s a pun in there somewhere) into a genre I don’t tend to see him in, fighting creatures I don’t see him fight very often.

Ward talked about using ASHOSE as inspiration and I can definitely see a lot of that in this comic, and I think it worked really well. The psychological aspect has always been one of my favourite part of Batman’s character, and I think this comic did an amazing job of being both full of action and still holding onto the mind-gamey aspect of Batman and his villains

I don’t know where to begin with this but I’ll try to be as concise as possible because there were a lot of things about this book I feel like I need to form some sort of review about.

I think this book was brilliant, in an uncomfortable kind of way that you don’t feel when you watch a documentary about the same men this book is written about. I don’t think the media has ever (and will ever) take into consideration the victims, their families, and will continue to focus on the men who commit the crimes. Do I think it’s right? Absolutely not.

Having being based quite heavily on Ted Bundy and his crimes, I don’t think this book can be taken lightly as fiction. I do think the criminal justice system, not only in the US, but in the UK, has failed many victims in many ways. I think the book really focuses on that as well as many other things that affect cases; misogyny, homophobia, jurisdictional errors. It’s important to have these discussions and tell these stories, and I feel like it was done in a way that emphasised that you SHOULD be upset, and pissed off about this.

I can’t say I enjoyed reading this, but I was intrigued nonetheless. I remember being young and seeing the women and young girls in those true crime communities that fawned over these men that committed unspeakable acts of violence toward women, and I think that the author did a brilliant job of emphasising that these men were not what the media and documentary makers and writers made them out to be. They were not intelligent, charming men. They were misogynists, and small, weak-minded individuals who took advantage of women and their kindness, something that most (if not all women) can relate to- the societal pressure when it comes to men and their advances.

This review is all over the place but I feel so strongly about this subject and had to just type whatever I’m feeling after finishing it.