 Hey everybody, welcome back to another installment of A Week in Geekdom and today we're going to be talking Sean Murphy's Batman White Knight part of the DC Black label. Let's do this. Welcome back to the channel, Geo here and yeah, I finally took a crack at this, finally reviewing Batman White Knight in a nutshell. Without over complicating things, this is a story about what happens when the Joker goes sane. You see, after a rather brutal confrontation between the two characters, Joker ingests sort of this, they never really mentioned what kind of drug it was, but sort of this experimental medication where it sort of reverts or it neutralizes his mental condition and we get a sane Jack Napier and what soon follows is a very, very cool interesting take on not only what makes Joker tick, but also his relationship with Gotham City and Batman and how the three of them, how these three elements nurture off each other and when one is thrown out of balance, it, how it affects the cycle and how the city reacts to a sane character. Joker is quite insane of course, for many years we have known this fact. So what happens when you take this insane criminal and you give him a sane voice and a sane state of being? Well, the character of Jack Napier proclaims himself to be Gotham's White Knight as he is not only going to prove that Batman is a danger to society and a danger to Gotham itself because of his recklessness, because of his actions, because of the concept of a vigilante and he is going to set about a revolution and what I find really fascinating about this book is that Sean Murphy is injecting a lot of social commentary, a lot of tongue-in-cheek references to things that happen in the real world with terminology that, with terminology that I'm not even going to bother mentioning here because it usually brings about some very interesting connotations and discussions that I really don't take part of when it comes to comic book, YouTube and writing, if you get what I mean. But the references are there, you know, from the SJWs to the gatekeepers, all that stuff is thrown into this book. The story of Batman and Joker and Gotham City and all these wonderful characters for many years in my honest opinion has been a very cyclical story. The same things keep happening over and over with little progress and what progress is made is etched out whenever you have a new writer and the story repeats itself again, again, and again. So I like the idea of a black label series that is able to present a story in an alternate timeline, alternate world, an else world if you will and give us a commentary on the nature of this character that for so many years has been fighting the Joker and you come to realize a few things about, you know, vigilantes and their line of work and how truly effective that can be and there have been countless philosophical debates about this, about the nature of crime fighting and, you know, punishing criminals and the justice system and all that stuff. So this book seeks to sort of nudge itself right into that discussion by talking about the collateral damage that the fighting that these two characters are constantly in, how that affects the citizens of Gotham and the repercussions of such destruction because Batman in this book is edgier and grittier than normal. There is a specific reason for that. There is a catalyst causing him to sort of be on edge and I'm not going to reveal what that is because I want you to find out but it makes sense that it would throw him off his synergy if you will. So out of that we get a much more reckless and violent Batman where you have back girl and night wing questioning like you're starting to get out of hand, you're starting to not listen and be reckless and driving the Batmobile across rooftops, damaging households and potentially harming citizens all in the name of catching this insane clown. So when Joker becomes sane and becomes Jack Napier he sets about, because he has his wits again and his smarts, he sets about to prove that he is worthy of being a savior to Gotham unlike Batman who is relying on intimidation, fear and, you know, the underbelly of law enforcement and all that stuff. So I found it freaking fantastic. It had very cool hints of Batman stuff that we've seen before like overall the book just read to me like a proto early dark night returns type story. You even had callbacks to that stuff like when Frank Miller used the news reporters as sort of oracles and explaining and doing the the philosophical questioning and the exposition dumps for the reader here you have it as well with two journalists debating back and forth about you know can we trust this character who was up until recently this criminal this insane criminal can we trust that he has reform and is trying to do good and why should we believe him even though the things that he's saying are actually true like jack goes on this epic speech which was probably one of my favorite parts of this book you know telling sort of how he became deranged his take on how he lost his sanity and the problem that Batman poses for the city and the schemes and laundering and corruption that has taken place in modern Gotham city because of vigilante you know running around in Gotham you see all these politicians and banks and all that stuff are exploiting the city like something out of you know real life that we was that we would see with uh money laundering schemes when it comes to relief funds and all that stuff using Batman as sort of a disaster relief if you will and a collateral and you know they're earning hundreds of millions of billions of dollars doing this and that is one of the things that gets explored in this book i don't want to ruin the surprises because it's eight issues there's a ton of stuff in here that i do think is worthy of another video later on probably like a more uh spoiler-ific in-depth discussion because it is super interesting there's a lot of stuff that Sean sort of tries to reinvent the wheel of sorts when it comes to character origins and motivations and all that stuff also in this book there is a huge unsung quote unquote hero if you've read the book you probably know what i'm referring to this book to me is that character's story and it is probably one of that character's best stories simply for what that character does in the long run when it comes to this book the final reveals in this story are fantastic even though the beginning is very unorthodox because you have the story like i said dealing with politics and the nature of crime fighting and the stance of these characters the end reveal even though it's a bit more fantastical very comic book-esque you know with certain event happening and all these characters going to solve a you know a super villain threat if you will and it's more reminiscent of what we've read before when it comes to superhero comics still the ending of it really puts a spotlight on a certain character and sort of the mediator between the eternal duality of batman versus joker which i thought it was just fantastic i loved it the art in this book top-notch Sean Murphy one of my favorite modern artists he has this lovely scratchy uh manga-esque sensibility that just looks great on paper the way he draws the characters and the facial expressions on the on this book is just fantastic Sean really knocked it out of the park and in my opinion when it comes to his work i think this is probably one of his best works ever you know he's also writing the story and i think he had a good grasp and i do believe this form sort of his own murphy batman verse i'm very much looking forward to reading this side this elseworld's tale of batman if you will where it's not just about crime fighting but it is also a conscious effort to realize that a character like batman running around and doing the things that he's doing can have repercussions in a normal citizens life and how a character is you know he's bat the joker is a bad character he's a bad guy but he through a series of unfortunate events turns out to be a good guy and seeking redemption is a story that a lot of people will gravitate towards and will like so i do wholeheartedly recommend this book if you want something completely out of the norm if you've been falling out of the you know big two craze and you want to go back in or you want to read something different with a beloved franchise this might be the perfect book i i genuinely enjoyed everything from start to finish and the path to jack napier goes through throughout the whole story is fantastic and lovely to read just from a storytelling point it's pretty fantastic you know the book also examines a lot of what makes batman who he is and self examines his rage and frustrations with not only the scourge of god them city with its super villains but on a personal level with obviously dealing with his trauma and how he is trying to mold the people that are close to him in this case nightwing and back girl how he is in his own way trying to set an example and lead in a very troubling time because again there is something unhinged about bruce in this story and it sort of just makes that bat family relation just crack under pressure so it's a wonderful examination of the batman family in a different setting so yeah if you're looking for a fantastic else world's black label series book on dc and you love batman this i think is a must own a must read for your collection i wholeheartedly recommend it and i know i'm extremely late with this practically everybody on youtube has already reviewed the damn book but i don't care i got to it and i and it's fantastic it's a shame that you know there's three different editions for this but i'm comfortable with enough with this trade paper bag have you read batman white knight let me know in the comment section down below and if not recommend me your favorite batman else world title very interested in finding out guys as always thank you for liking commenting subscribing being a part of a weekend geek them here on youtube click the notification bell so you know when new videos pop up and of course follow me on social media facebook twitter instagram all that fun stuff i've got to go i will catch all of you on our next episode