TBU Collected Review: Batman: Killing Time

Overview: In Batman: Killing Time, during year two of Batman’s career, Batman stands against Catwoman, Riddler, the newly created villain, the Help, and the US Government in a plot to control a mystical artifact connected to the slaughter of hundreds.

Editor’s Note: This collected edition includes all six issues of the miniseries Batman: Killing Time, which had its first issue released in March 2022 and the final issue released in August 2022. This review focuses on the story as a whole rather than the individual issues that made up the limited series. 

Synopsis (spoilers ahead): There is a lot that happens in Batman: Killing Time, and there really is no way to condense it to a standard-size synopsis without missing elements important to the story. So here is the very short condensed version of what happens first. 

For 3000 years, the Eye of God traveled from Ancient Greece to Gotham, surrounded by the legend that if you held it, you controlled the world. But in reality, it held the power to unleash the bloodiest, most depraved frenzy on those around it.

In Year Two, facing the new threat of Batman, the group of Catwoman, Riddler, Clock King, and Penguin conspire to steal the Eye of God from Bruce Wayne and sell it to the government, interfacing with ludicrously foul-mouthed agent Nuri Espinoza. Riddler and Catwoman betray Penguin, leading to Penguin sending an ancient but absolutely deadly villain, the Help, after them. The Help and Batman team up reluctantly to chase Catwoman and Riddler but cannot stop a complete bloodbath when the US Government forces meet with hundreds of Penguin’s hired goons, leading to well over a hundred murders. Batman captures all the criminals responsible, but Clock King gives the Eye of God away since it was all just a way for him to kill time.

And if you are looking for a longer version of what happens in Batman: Killing Time, read on for a much more detailed version of the events as we travel through time. 

1157 BC, April 8: King Pentheus of Thebes, after speaking with the god Dionysus, believes he must bring order and justice to the world, stopping the fury of the insane Maenads. However, he is ripped to pieces by the Maenads, which include his loving aunts and mother. His mother violently stabs his head onto a stick and presents it to the god Dionysus. She meets her own father (Penthus’ grandfather) and thinks she has a lion’s head on a stick. Dionysus laughs as she weeps, realizing what she’s done.

405 BC, April 21: Euripides’ play The Bacchae premiers, about Penthus and his mother. Agave’s father tells her Dionysus drove her and her sisters mad because they denied his deity.

404 BC, May 3: The Priestess of Athena cuts out the Eye of God from the mask in the Parthenon.

May 5: Sparta crushes Athens, and the Priestess of Athena gives the Spartan general the Eye.

337 AD, May 23: Emperor Constantine dies raving about the Eye of Christ.

1263, June 18: A monk from Gdansk, Poland, buys the Eye of Christ, sold by the line of nobles who were deposed three years before.

1372, May 5: In St. Catherine’s Church in Gdansk, Poland, Jon Protva steals the so-called “Eye of Christ” to try to heal his sister. She dies.

May 9: Jon places the box with the “Eye” in her coffin.

May 18: Jon dies of starvation at her grave, waiting for her to rise.

1873, May 24: The box is found, and Ra’s al Ghul slaughters all the men he hired to find it.

Seven Years Before Year Two: The Help watches Batman fight the League alongside Ra’s.

Five Years Before Year Two: February 11: Ra’s al Ghul trains Bruce with swords, knowing Bruce is leaving that night and giving him the box, the product of great slaughter.

February 18, Bruce almost throws away the tiny box given to him by Ra’s al Ghul but keeps it.

Batman: Killing Time now takes place during Year Two:

December 26: Joker captures Batman and injects him with truth serum

December 29: Catwoman and Joker talk on the roof.

January 18: Catwoman and Riddler, robbing a jewelry store, talk about their frustration with Batman’s constant capturing of them.

January 22: In Arkham, Riddler plans the job, saying it needs four people – Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin (money), and a Coordinator who makes the trains run on time.

February 1: Catwoman and Riddler meet outside the narrator (Clock King)’s door, presenting their plan.

February 2: Riddler approaches Penguin, who murders his five-year bartender for privacy.

February 26: Croc, motivated by his former girlfriend Vera Angleton’s disgust at his current form, decides to be the patsy for Riddler’s plan.

March 1: Penguin uses one of his pole dancers to seduce the bank guard.

March 2: Riddler, Catwoman, and Clock King meet in a safe house to arrange the buy.

March 3: Penguin and the guard plan his part in the robbery.

March 4: Catwoman (disguised as a blonde) teaches Mrs. Barrington (the bank president’s wife) tennis, has tea with her, then changes into Catwoman and holds her hostage, taking down the guards brutally.

Killer Croc enters the bank in the rain, and the guard lets him in without challenge. He begins the robbery. New Commissioner Jim Gordon is alerted and turns on the Bat-signal. Riddler approaches Mr. Barrington, bank president.

Killer Croc kills the guard. Batman arrives and engages, but Riddler has already gotten what he wanted across the city, using Croc and Catwoman as his distractions and leverage. Riddler and Catwoman drive off with a tiny box.

The Help gives Vera (Croc’s flame) the money for being Penguin’s patsy, telling her not to spend it.

Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman meet in Central Park that night; Riddler beats Penguin savagely with his own umbrella, leaving an address in Morse code in the bruises. Batman and Gordon meet, and Batman learns what Riddler and Catwoman stole.

March 5: Penguin awakens and orders the Help to kill them all.

Catwoman and Riddler, miles from Gotham, wonder how Batman will react to their robbery.

Batman interrogates Killer Croc violently in Arkham, contrary to the agreement he had with Gordon, discovers his past address, and starts investigating the building residents.

Vera buys a diamond necklace. Batman confronts Vera at her new apartment after her spending spree. She points him at Penguin, and he rampages through the Iceberg Lounge. He finds Penguin, beaten half to death by Riddler, and reads the code Riddler left.

Riddler and Catwoman avoid the mail carrier at their stolen house. Riddler catches a fish, enraging Catwoman, but they get a notification that their secret employer will pay. They wait nervously for payment. Instead of their buyer, the Help arrives and shoots Riddler. Batman arrives 1.5 seconds earlier and attacks the Help, who analyzes all his moves, then beats him with his own techniques, learned from Canary. He leaves Batman his card for training, then meets the buyer as he arrives some minutes later. He tortures the buyer to death for information and declares he’s going into business for himself.

Vera goes to spend more of Croc’s money.

Catwoman and Riddler, the latter grievously shot, race away in the Batmobile, Catwoman demanding the name of their buyer. Catwoman ditches the car to avoid Batman’s trackers and remote control, and they steal an orange truck, pushing the Batmobile off a cliff. Catwoman takes Riddler to a vet, violently demanding he treats the Riddler. She looks into the box as the tigers prowl around her, nuzzling her.

Batman wakes, finds a bar, takes a bike, leaving nearly $100,000 on the ground in its place, finds the wreckage of his car, and continues on.

March 6: The Help kills Penguin’s guards and demands to know what is in the box.

Batman faces the tigers that Catwoman found, trying to get them back into their cages.

The Help kills a rude gas station attendant for his phone, tracking Catwoman and Riddler. He finds Batman and the tigers, assisting him with the knockout toxin on his sword cane. Batman agrees to work with the Help until they recover the box and capture the criminals, but vows to stop the Help immediately after. The Help admires him but is completely unbothered. He tells Batman that Ra’s showed him the box seventy-five years prior, bragging that by owning it, he’d conquered the world.

Riddler and Catwoman steal a new car from another civilian.

Riddler meets with Nuri Espinoza, a ludicrously foul-mouthed US government agent, his buyer, who bought out the cafe, but he doesn’t have the box, causing her to slap him many times, and Riddler vows to kill her. Catwoman attacks from her hiding place in the kitchen as Riddler breaks Nuri’s fingers. Having beaten all her agents, Catwoman meets Nuri, who swears at her, leading Catwoman to slam her head into the table. Riddler and Catwoman dictate double payment tomorrow night to Nuri.

Penguin screams at all those who betrayed him. Later, he hires Two-Face’s gang, as well as many others, to avenge himself.

Batman and the Help visit the cafe where Nuri met Riddler and Catwoman on their trail.

Riddler and Catwoman give Nuri the meet details, having kidnapped a family for leverage. Nuri tries to get a bomb from the US President. They call Clock King, who betrays their plan to Penguin.

That night, Penguin tells a huge crowd of Gotham gangsters about the meet at the Iceberg Lounge. One of Batman’s informers texts him but is murdered as a result.

March 7: Nuri orders her air support to be ready to bomb the handoff location if she fails to secure the Eye.

Catwoman is furious at Riddler, knowing they won’t get paid and will be caught. Again. Agent Nuri arrives, telling her snipers to hold until she has the box. Three buses pull up with 240 gangsters. Batman and the Help arrive. Catwoman kicks Riddler down, trying to get the money before Batman arrives in seconds, but Nuri hesitates. She pulls out her gun, saying she doesn’t have any more money, but Batman tackles her from the air as she fires at Catwoman.

Holdoff Park, 600 miles west of Gotham. A complete slaughter of Gotham gangs and US agents.

The Help trips Catwoman, and she loses the Eye as they fight, and it rolls down the hill, picked up by Clock King, the Fourth Man in Riddler’s plan, and he holds the world.

Batman hears Nuri order the bomb strike from her helicopter support. Batman grapples up to the helicopter, knocks out the two crew, flies it high enough, then jumps away as it explodes with the two agents.

Riddler shoots Nuri in the head. Batman scatters knockout gas pellets over the field, bringing the carnage to a tragic end. Clock King leaves with the Eye on the bike Batman brought. Batman saves the few injured he can.

March 8: Batman captures Penguin at the Iceberg Lounge. Clock King gives the stewardess the Eye.

April 8: In Morocco, Batman captures Riddler and Catwoman, having been led there by an angry Riddler.

April 11: Nuri in physical therapy can only swear and say the word Batman.

April 17: Batman fights Ra’s, seeking the Help, who vanished, and explains why he kept the Eye Ra’s gave him, tormented by it.

Today, April 21: Clock King sits at the Parthenon in Athens, and Batman arrives. One hundred thirty-seven people died, and Clock King deliberately lost the Eye. He quotes Euripides’ play about Pentheus and his mother, and Batman knocks him out. In Arkham, Catwoman and Riddler sit apprehended.

November 7: Vera buys the Eye in a pawn shop, who got it from a stewardess, who got it on another flight.

Analysis: In 2022, two and a half years after he completed his 85-issue run on the main Batman title (though just overlapping the conclusion of his 13-issue Batman/Catwoman series), Tom King returned to Batman for Batman: Killing Time. Probably commissioned as part of the promotion of The Batman film released in March 2022, King focuses heavily on Batman as a solo crimefighter, Catwoman and Riddler as the main visible antagonists with a strong Penguin presence, all elements directly mirroring the film.

Unlike his Batman run and Batman/Catwoman, King didn’t focus on the romance between Batman and Catwoman at all. Indeed, this miniseries is narrated by Clock King, highlighting the focus on the villains, and Batman’s impact on them, instead of the deep dive into Batman’s psychology and themes. The theme of Batman: Killing Time is found in the title – what is the meaning of everything we do? Killing time until we die.

Despite the beautiful, incredibly sexy, and energetic art by veteran superstar artist David Marquez (a new collaborator with King), the message of this miniseries is much, much more nihilistic than the messages of both his main Batman run and his Batman/Catwoman run, both of which try to show the meaning and help that love and family can bring to a life of trauma (A small link between Catwoman and the Joker early in the chronology of the run provides an Easter egg for fans of King’s Batman/Catwoman series, which shows that relationship developing throughout their lifetimes.). This story has none of that to levan the flat misery that the four villains unleash on Gotham – but King and Marquez’s brilliant storytelling makes the dark pill slide home much more easily.

The convoluted chronological storyline chosen by King and justified by the use of Clock King as the narrator (and the reveal in issue five of exactly WHO is narrating is one of King’s best-constructed reveals) moves brilliantly from second to second, hammering home emotions and information with polished skill. One thing that does signal King’s commitment to Batman as a hero is the way he focuses on the lives that the villains destroy – like his casualty lists in The War of Jokes and Riddles; King spends a sentence or two on many of those killed in the final battle, making them more than just fodder for exciting violence. And the way he highlights Batman moving on the battlefield, saving the few he can, shows that King’s Batman is, above all, someone who became a hero to save people. That pure idealism shines even in darker stories like Batman: Killing Time and One Bad Day: Riddler (where Batman spends a crucial, beautiful page comforting the widow of a man slaughtered for no reason by the Riddler).

One very interesting discussion point on the series centers around how King creates two unique villainous/antagonist characters in this miniseries. Unlike his eighty-five issues of Batman, which very much feels like a deep mining of Batman’s history, with barely any new characters created or used by King (in contrast with the extremely prolific inventor James Tynion, who invented at least one new character per issue in the run immediately following King!), the Help and Agent Nuri Espinoza have distinct personalities and looks.

The Help does basically feel like the supervillain version of Tom King – obsessed with history, knowing all of Batman’s teachers and allies, but also willing to do serious damage to all of them in pursuit of his mission (I say this as a big fan of a lot of what King does. But even his biggest fans must admit that King’s stories do tend to be very destructive). Nuri Espinoza, not surprisingly, shows off another side of King’s life – the potty-mouthed (in Nuri’s case, ludicrously, even hilariously so) government agent who is passionately committed to solving the world’s problems with the Very Big Hammer she’s been handed by the US government.

The dives into Batman’s history in conjunction with the Help specifically are fascinating when read against Zdarsky’s The Knight’s take on the exact same period in Bruce Wayne’s life. It will be quite interesting to see if King has any takers on his new characters. While Zdarsky’s clearly been working hard with writer Ed Brisson to bring out the importance of what he wrote in The Knight to the latest volume of Batman Incorporated, there doesn’t seem to be anyone picking up Espinoza or the Help in the current Gotham books. The most likely candidate to pick up these threads for King, his old Grayson writing partner Tim Seeley, isn’t working regularly for DC, so it doesn’t seem that likely in the near future. But someday, maybe someone will pick them up, and we’ll see a renaissance of the Help and Espinoza! (Very unlikely, but a Tom King fan can dream!)

There are a few weird editorial/writing errors: the plot kicks off on March 4, but issue #2 should happen on March 5. The same thing happens in issue #4, where what should be March 6 becomes March 5. Additionally, Killer Croc’s ex, Vera’s last name – Angleton or Miles? But perhaps it is an alias she buys with the money she steals from Croc.

The hardcover release of Batman: Killing Time uses David Marquez’s main cover for the first issue, a standard but still quite a fun composition featuring Batman looming over Riddler, a slinky Catwoman, Killer Croc, Penguin, a racing car, and an open bank vault. The Direct Market (local comic shops) hardcover has an exclusive variant cover by Marquez, showing Batman surrounded by the breaking glass of a watch face, Riddler, Catwoman, Croc, Penguin, and the Help reflected in flying shards.

Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with copies of the original issues of this series as they were released but not of this new edition. You can find this collected edition and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this edition digitally either for Comixology through Amazon or as a physical copy in a hardcover form at Amazon or from Things from Another World.