By all accounts, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's take on Batman is the crown jewel in DC's New 52. Keeping the expanded Bat Family of the pre-reboot universe but returning the character to his darker, grittier roots (where he actually solves mysteries to boot), Death Of The Family was the follow-up to the pair's previous crossover, Night of Owls, and saw the big return of the Caped Crusader's arch enemy. To think we all had to wait a year for Kite Man to turn up again! Wait, no, sorry, it was The Joker. Echoing the title of the eighties Death In The Family arc, which saw the death of second Robin Jason Todd, Death Of The Family was a sprawling melodrama that took place in the main Bat books along with Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Suicide Squad and Catwoman. Like the best mysteries, it was a slow burn, as Snyder and the other writers teased at the grand overarching scheme the Clown Prince of Crime was orchestrating, culminating in a disturbing examination of Batman and the Joker's ongoing relationship. With a truly twisted climax and an interesting twist on the Joker's growing madness - even making his decision to cut his own face off slightly less than patently ridiculous, if not actually believable - Death In The Family is one of the big recent successes for DC, a crossover that takes a look at a familiar villain from a new angle and tells an important part of the story in every one of its tie-in issues.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
