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renaroo:

I like Scott Snyder okay. Ish. I liked The Black Mirror and Gates of Gotham. I was never a fan of American Vampire and was genuinely shocked when he made the leap from it to ‘Tec. Which…

Oh my god. I am so old. That is what this answer has made me realize. I have vivid memories of when his ‘Tec issues were being slated. I need a moment. This just made me sprout like ten gray hairs. 

Anyway, The Court of Owls was not horrendous in itself. When it was first coming out I thought it was probably one of the best things being offered by any of the main DC staples at the time. Of course, in reflection, I think we all can agree and look back that those first two or so years of the New52 reboot were utter garbage by in large and the fact that a decent story came out of a Bat group isn’t the most surprising thing in the world considering the Bat titles were about half of the entire line and most of them – including Detective Comics where Joker cut off his face for shock value – were dreck. 

The fact that it ran for twelve issues was entirely unforgivable. I’ve seen people accuse Snyder of Purple Prose in the past, which I never felt that much. A lot of the Big Name writers everyone shoves to the mantle of “the best” comic book writers are wordy. But… Snyder’s seeming need to make stories as drawn out as they are just kills me. I think the last time I read The Court all the way through (which I’ll admit has been about two years) there were at least five issues that I felt could have been taken out from the middle part of the story and would have been almost entirely unnoticeable. It drives me nuts. 

But if I was being honest? It was still the best thing coming out at the time. And there in becomes the problem.

The New52 was really divisive among DC’s base, and I think people forget just how many titles came and went in those first couple of years. It was throwing everything at the wall and focusing in on the most successful, least divisive of the stories that came out of it. And The Court of Owls was one of, if not the biggest success of the entire line. Which means it became the new standard for the New52 comics. 

And I’ve come to hate the Owls more for the influences on other characters than I ever have for the story itself. 

Suddenly the answer to everything was the Owls. And most of that isn’t Snyder’s fault… entirely. Dick’s origins being retconned to be a part of this secret society and that the Haly’s Circus, which was always meant to be a fond brightly remembered childhood that was the source of Dick’s inner light and sense of greater community, suddenly became rebranded as child slavers for the Court of Owls??? Like… what? It doesn’t even make logical sense. And then you have it’s not only in control of Gotham but now some international elite crime syndicate across the world? What?

Like it was hard enough for me to believe that Bruce spent years as Batman (or did he, since we never got a full grasp of the timeline anyway) in Gotham and had no idea about the Court of Owls?

Suddenly we have characters getting their own books (Talon) or joining beloved team books (Secret Six) that are fully involved with the Court as their backstory. Those stupid masks are on bookshelves every goddamn timeI go to a comic book rack (literally, one time my sister and I went to a Barnes & Noble and this was like a month or two ago, and she made fun of me because I looked up and saw the Super Triple Deluxe Complete Court of Owls Owling Owl Owl Edition of the story on the top shelf with that stupid plastic Owl mask and I literally flinched back from it).

And then it started this trend of…

Like literally, do you want me to sum up just about every Batman story that has come out since The Court of Owls? The New Status Quo for a detective story now?

There’s a super secret organization. They reach all around the world. They know Bruce Wayne is Batman. They have been plotting for years to either bring him to their ranks, and destroy him if he won’t. There are rumors of this organization, but Batman doesn’t believe in them. One time, years ago, off panel, he followed a tail to see if they were real and.. gave up halfway or something. It’s vague. But he’s sure they aren’t real! And then, SHOCK, they’re REAL. And they’re TERRIBLE. And the whole city is under their attack! He has to gather up all of his allies to stop them. He realizes his own hubris. But that next organization? Total fake news. 

Like. The Court of Owls is responsibe for setting us down this path of Bruce Wayne being the World’s Greatest Doofus who never learns. And that’s almost an interesting direction except every story still has the mandated “BUT BATMAN’S STILL THE COOLEST SUPERHERO EVER AND HE PLANNED FOR EVERYTHING, EVEN THE ASSUMPTION OF HOW THE VILLAIN WOULD REACT”

except for Talia. Guess the one organization he knew was real and was confronting he couldn’t figure out was going to lead to quadruple homicide WHOOPS. 

Anyway, they ruined Dick’s origin and made it simultaneously bland and a dead end. They also started the Certified Trend of Bruce being an idiot. But what people also forget is that Snyder also put it upon himself to, in the middle of the Court of Owls, to “fix” the “problematic” elements of Mister Freeze’s motivations. See, I’m assuming he was working off of this assumption that Nora was a literal woman in a literal refrigerator, and the love story of Victor sacrificing his humanity in order to save his wife only to realize that he can’t bear to be with her after allowing himself to become so monstrous. And so Nora eventually is revived and gets another husband and moves on with her life while Victor finds himself stagnant. 

Like, apparently that’s too problematic. I guess. Which I can see the argument for.

But like. Now Victor is just a creep? And we’re down another female character in the Bat Universe because gasp Nora was never real in the first place! She was just a cryogenically frozen woman and Snyder’s patented Doesn’t-Know-How-to-Respectfully-Portray-Mental-Illness schtick kicks in and the REAL motivations for Mister Freeze are just that he’s crazy and made up his life with his wife and the one string of humanity he had left. bc that’s how delusions work. 

Also they redesigned Mister Freeze’s suit so that his arms are showing. Thereby negating the entire tragedy of his situation and the purpose of the goddamn suit to begin with because he couldn’t survive outside of the suit anymore because his thermal regulation was so off. But I guess we have to show off now that it’s not enhancements of the suit that makes him so powerful and fearful, but that nerdy Doctor Fries got Ripped. ‘Kay. Thanks for that really psychological and feminist motivated retake on a near perfect tragic super villain origin story, Snyder. 

Anyway. The Owls are still around. It’s the new status quo. Batman is the dumbest detective in the world who unscientifically ignores facts that contradict his assumed conclusions like a goddamn climate denier or some parent with Autism Speaks who protests vaccinations. And Dick has yet to escape the Owls because how else would his time as a Spyral Agent end and he return to the Black-and-Blue but to involve the Owls. Because that makes fucking sense. 

I could literally go on for years about how much I feel like this one story has accidentally stagnated the Bat Books but I think this is enough to at least explain why I have my aversions to the stupid, ugly Owl Masks that I can’t escape from in any book store.