DC KO: Knightfight #4 – Joshua Williamson, Writer; Dan Mora, Artist; Triona Farrell, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: For three issues, Batman has been put through sadistic tests by the Heart, seeking at first to punish him for cheating in the tournament but then testing him to see if he’s worthy to be brought back in. Each world shows him a toxic vision of the future, led by one of his sons as Batman. Dick Grayson’s world turned Robin into a mass training program. Jason Todd’s saw Jason as the warden of a massive tower prison in a ruined Gotham. And Tim’s world saw him as an overly analytical, tech-driven Batman obsessed with solving his father’s murder. Batman overcame all these visions, but for the final test, the Heart has something new in mind – a world where everything went right. In this world, Damian is Batman part-time, but he’s also raising a son who he keeps far away from violence – a boy named Alfred. The Bat-family works in unison to honor their fallen patriarch.
And in the middle of all this, Bruce comes in – an older version of himself, the grandfather they know and love. The Heart creates a vision of a world Bruce would never want to leave – and then tells him he has to break it in order to return to the tournament. It’s the perfect cruel trap for Bruce and he eventually approaches it the only way he can – by trying to find a solution to the impossible. First, he brings everyone in the loop. Then, they try to create a fail-safe to save the world before Bruce does what he has to – face off against his son in single combat, and see if the student has finally surpassed the master. Things are left ambiguous at the end about the world’s fate, but Bruce is ready for one final leap of faith into the unknown before he returns to the main book. This series might have been an event tie-in, but it managed to pack some serious emotional punch into these four issues.
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