Ra’s al Ghul has a plan to remove Batman out of the picture for good so he can create a new world in his vision. Set decades into the future, Bane is a washed-up wrestler, beating up people dressed up as Batman everyday in the ring. However, he’s given new purpose in life when he discovers that someone is developing venom – the poison that powered him. He’ll do whatever he can to stop it so it doesn’t ruin more lives. If you wanna yank this story out of continuity, call it an Elseworlds, consider it a parallel Earth where Batman and the Riddler basically decide not to be Batman and Riddler, go for it. At an eight-dollar cover price, that's a long road for a flight of fanfiction fantasy and speculation that cannot reasonably work in a shared continuity. The Riddler. Two-Face. The Penguin. Mr. Freeze. Catwoman. Bane. Clayface. Ra’s al Ghul. Each villain has their reasons for opposing the Caped Crusader. But were they victims of circumstance who were pushed over the edge, or were they always drawn to darkness? The regular version of Batman: One Bad Day – Catwoman was released on 24th January, 2023. A hardcover edition will be released on 18th July, 2023.

Ra’s’ motivations have had a environmental angle to them for a long time. In his initial appearances he had more of a vague “cleansing the Earth” rhetoric, but it makes sense for writers to tap into the growing ecological concerns to make his motives more sympathetic. What can become a problem with this approach, however, is when the writer gets so lost in the sympathetic aspect of the motive that they forget about or completely disregard the actual villainous part. There’s a sort of retcon that happens where all negative elements of their actions are whitewashed so that they can become heroic. It’s something that I see sometimes happen with another one of Batman’s environmentally-themed villains, Poison Ivy. The regular version of Batman: One Bad Day – Mr. Freeze was released on 15th November, 2022. A hardcover edition will be released on 18th July, 2023. Each One Bad Day one-shot is standalone. Each tells a self-contained story that doesn’t have any connection narrative connections with one another. They only connected on a thematic level, with each of them based around Batman taking on a classic villain. At first glance, not doing a Batman: One Bad Day – The Jokerseems like a glaring omission. However, as I mentioned earlier, DC has essentially done it already in Batman: The Killing Joke– the classic one-shot that the One Bad Day one-shots are modelled on. Batman: One Bad Day boxed set In Batman – One Bad Day #1: The Riddler , a world-class creative team takes the Riddler from being a punchline to looking like the monster terrifying you in the dark. Unfortunately, this powerful, done-in-one is bound by its own central conceit and inadvertently pulls its punch just as the final bell rings. Cover to Batman – One Bad Day #1: The Riddler. Credit: DC ComicsHowever, that’s explicitly how Tom Taylor writes him here. It would be hard to agree with the bad guy whose plan involves wiping out the population of the Eastern Seaboard, so instead he’s only killing 30 people. Only the very heads of the organizations which are causing the damage to the planet, and that’s it. This both oversimplifies the important, complex problems Ra’s wants to solve so that they can be fixed by killing a tiny handful of people at the top, and lessens the narrative and rhetorical impact of one of Batman’s most iconic foes. What all of this does is create a comic that feels less like a story and more like a soapbox for the author to air his grievances using Ra’s as a mouthpiece. Some of those grievances don’t even really make sense within the framework constructed. Apparently the 30 people most damaging to the planet’s ecosystem include social media influencers and fake news? That feels like a stretch. One of the major consequences of writing with that kind of intention is that it often necessitates completely changing the behavior of the villain in question. Whatever his motivations might be, Ra’s’ plans have always involved grand, sweeping goals that include wiping out most of, if not all of humanity. He is a character born out of the vein of Batman’s James Bond-esque globetrotting stories, and as such always has a grandiose master plan fit for a James Bond villain. These can range from launching missiles at major cities or unleashing a plague on the population. Whatever it is, “restrained” is not a word you use to describe him.

It appears that DC Comics is trying to catch lightning in the bottle again with Batman: One Bad Day. While DC might not be trying to replicate a story of the same extremes, DC is using The Killing Joke as inspiration. Not to get too political, but the destruction of the environment is a fundamentally systemic issue that not simply a result of having a few of the wrong people running things. Exxon Mobil doesn’t pollute the planet because the CEO is a jerk. They do it because the global capitalist forces which dominate the planet drive any company to behave in a way which will most benefit its shareholders by generating the largest return on investment. Get rid of one and another will take its place. Ra’s knows this. The fact that he is faced with such an overwhelming force like the global human political economic system is exactly why he feels the need to constantly resort to such catastrophic, drastic measures. If it were so easy, then he wouldn’t be doing the things he does. In this scene, we get a similar confrontation between Ra’s and Batman. Batman wants to tell the world what Ra’s has done, which would undo the utopia built on a lie that he’s created. Here, the question is ludicrously weighted in favor of Ra’s. He didn’t kill millions, he only killed 30. He didn’t spend the entire book coming to terms with the innocence of his victims, his victims were all awful and deserved it. In the best case scenario, Batman would be equated to the character of Rorschach, who is clearly mentally unstable and so enamored with his own righteousness and absolutist morals that he would doom the planet. Except, in this circumstance, Batman would be even more unreasonable if he didn’t let Ra’s get away with it. Finally, capping off the run of one-shot issues is Tom Taylor and Ivan Reis on Ra's al Ghul's ONE BAD DAY story in March! You know his name, the Bat will know his wrath! The One Bad Day comics will feature The Riddler, Two-Face, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Bane, Clayface and Ra’s al Ghul. See the full solicitations below:

When the Penguin’s criminal empire is stolen by a former associate, Batman faces both Cobblepot and THE UMBRELLA MAN on the burning streets of Gotham! John Ridley and Giuseppe Camuncoli’s ONE BAD DAY one-shot arrives this October! The regular version of Batman: One Bad Day – Bane was released on 17th January, 2023. A hardcover edition will be released on 1st August, 2023. DC ANNOUNCES ‘BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY’ SERIES OF ONE-SHOT COMICS The Dark Knight’s Worst Enemies Star in Definitive, Ultimate Tales! Read on to learn all about Batman: One Bad Day. This includes the villains involved, how to read the one-shots, and much more. What is Batman: One Bad Day?

All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.” Batman: One Bad Day logo. Are these one-shots connected? DC shows off Riddler: Year One and Static: Up All Night art as EIC Marie Javins receives Inkpot AwardThe regular version of Batman: One Bad Day – Clayface was released on 21st February, 2023. A hardcover edition will be released on 1st August, 2023.

There are eight one-shots under the “ One Bad Day” banner. Take a look below to find out more about each one, including the focal villains, creator credits, release dates, and more. Clayface has always had dreams of stardom. So he heads west out to Hollywood to make his dreams come true under a new identity. However, when he find outs that the City of Angels is not much better than Gotham, he’ll return to his villainous ways. Selina Kyle’s mother once owned a brooch that she was forced to pawn for pennies. However, years later, it’s now part of a high-auction bid. Catwoman will now try to steal it in one of her most personal heists yet. Save your sympathies, Batman and Robin! Years ago, Gotham City experienced a winter so icy that Mr. Freeze could live without his containment suit! Gerry Duggan and Matteo Scalera deliver a cold new take on Mr. Freeze this November! When Damian eventually revives Bruce with a Lazarus Pit, he informs him that Ra’s succeeded and that he (Damian) chose not to interfere because of how morally correct his actions were. Throughout the story Damian is used as a mouthpiece to defend the actions of Ra’s. By the end of it, even Batman is implicitly told to begrudgingly approve of his actions, because after Ra’s is temporarily killed, we learn that Batman chose not to reveal what had happened, lest he undo the good that was done.Batman: One Bad Day – Ra’s al Ghul is available on 21st March. A hardcover edition will be released on 15th August, 2023. So how do you highlight this menagerie of villains? DC Comicshas found a way through a series of one-shots known as Batman: One Bad Day.