Death of the Family Conclusion Review

Spoiler. This is it. Snyder's final installment of the Death of the Family story arc and it's quite the doozie. Full of epic moments though not what you may be expecting. This book tends to lean more towards psychological moments than action packed fight scenes between the Joker and Batman. But that is to be expected after all due to the two's relationship.

Was it a bit anti-climatic?
Depends... if you bought into the hype of Alfred dying or at least someone meeting their fate, then you may be a bit let down. But let's look at this logically. Joker, considering he does not know who Alfred is to Batman, has no reason to kill the old man. To him, he thinks Batman views him as just another citizen. It doesn't make sense that Joker would kill Alfred in spite of hurting Batman. Not to mention, even IF Joker knew Alfred's significance to Batman, I still don't think he would kill off Alfred. Because wouldn't that just take the fun out of Joker's never ending game? Now yes, you could pull the "But he killed Jason" card but Jason and Alfred are two different people to Bruce. He loves them both but nonetheless, they play different parts in his life.

Although I'm in love with Snyder's writing and Capullo's art, I have to admit that although I did love the psychological conclusion to the story involving the revelations of why Joker had his face removed and the explanation to 'removing' the whole Bat Family's face, I wish there was a bit more of an action conclusion that added to the psychological part. And Joker falling down the waterfall... Meh. Same song and dance I feel. We've seen it before where the villain just "get's away".

Showing snippets of each of the Bat members at the end of the issue pondering what had just went down was also a nice touch. It made me sit and think about the 5 months that have passed that enclosed this story and the trauma that came with it. I think Damian and Jason's were the most powerful scenes.

All in all, I am very satisfied with the conclusion and I hope this team of Snyder and Capullo stick with us for issues to come. I give this a solid 9.5/10 and am definitely excited for what's to come in the Batman saga