Martha’s pearls

–Spoilers for Batman #84-5 (the final Tom King issues)–

I like endings. I’m fine tuning in at a story at the end and not having all the pieces. A good ending can make you nostalgic for something you’ve never actually seen. It’s a good kind of FOMO.

So I checked out the last couple issues Tom King did at Batman and I saw something I really liked:

That’s Martha Wayne as the Joker, having murdered Alfred in the Flashpoint universe. What pearls, you ask?

See, it’s like a ritual. Every few years The Culture will have to rehash Batman’s origin story for under-the-rock audiences and poor Martha Wayne will have her pearl necklace tangled up with her mugger’s gun, the subsequent blowback thereof will forever scatter the precious white bits of young Master Bruce’s childhood. We kill Martha to get primed for righteous vengeance, quoting verses from the holiest book in the Batman canon:

This Joker turn makes for sinister comeuppance for Martha, who’s been little more than a sacrificial lamb for us over the year. Note I’m not propping up Tom King per se, as he takes the Martha Joker from earlier comics. But I understand the pearls twist is his own invention, and I gather not his only jab at Old Man Miller in these final issues where he surely must have wanted to epitomize his take on Batman after several years on the title. As well as Alan Moore, I’d argue. But I’ll let you figure out these last two on your own.