This is "From a Different Point of View," a feature where I discuss a comic book series with other people. This time around, due to everyone having to self-isolate, I figured I'd do a special edition where I discuss some crossovers with whichever readers that wanted to chat about them! We started off with Marvel's original Secret Wars and now we're doing Knightfall!

When last we checked in Knightfall, we were in the middle of Chapter 12, in Detective Comics #664's "Who Rules the Night" by Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan and Scott Hanna, with colors by Adrienne Roy and letters by John Costanza. Bane has now broken the bat, and his next step was to take the now-broken Batman and throw him off of a rooftop while declaring that Gotham City was now Bane's.

Gotham City Police Department responds to the scene. They let am ambulance that is somehow at the scene IMMEDIATELY take Batman away. Once the ambulance is gone, Commissioner Gordon is irate that the officers on the scene did not check to see that the ambulance was a real ambulance or not. Then Harvey Bullock points out that the fake ambulance was probably Batman's people and Gordon realize that that's probably true, so he goes along with it.

We then cut to see what Batman's non-Bane villains are up to, as we resolve the outstanding plotlines in Knightfall of the Joker, Scarecrow and Ventriloquist.

First up, we look at how the Scarecrow/Joker partnership is fraying.

Flavio Sette opened up with, "So, are Joker and Scarecrow still hiding out in the exact same amusement park they blew up just a couple days ago?" Tom A. responded, "Gotham has like a dozen abandoned amusement parks," but Flavio noted, "It looks like the exact same one, though. Down to the entrance shaped like a clown's head." I replied, "I think that there are just THAT many amusement parks in Gotham." Flavio responded, "Could've been an amusement park chain." I noted, "As Tom explained in an earlier discussion, though, there was a lot of them in Gotham City, I even did a piece on it." Flavio joked, "Honestly, Bruce should just buy all the abandoned amusement parks in Gotham and turn them into parking lots."

Sean Whitmore pointed out, "The whole Scarecrow/Joker face-off is classic stuff." Dean Hacker added, "I love Graham Nolan's Joker. Just this side of realistic."

Tom A. asked, "So did the Joker no-sell the fear gas because he has no fear, because he's immune to most chemicals due to his own use of them, or just because he's that crazy?" I replied, "I think it's probably the last one, Tom." Flavio agreed, "Yep." I continued, "But the middle one makes some sense, too. That was basically the approach John Byrne used in Batman/Captain America with Joker and Red Skull using their respective gases on each other." Dean went for the middle one. Sean opined, "I’d buy any of them, including that it did work, it did make Joker feel fear, and he just didn’t care." Flavio replied, "Yeah, that probably makes more sense, but I think Dixon and Nolan were going for the 3rd one." Flavio also noted, "It's interesting that Scarecrow went from thinking there was no way his fear gas would work to acting like it's 100% gonna work." I replied, "And that's confusing in and of itself, since we JUST saw Batman shrug off Scarecrow's fear gas, so he has to know that it isn't foolproof." I continued, "All in all, Scarecrow's complaints ring a bit false to me. He didn't get the ransom, but he's still working with Joker. So he can just start a new plan. His problems just didn't ring true and it struck me as more just an excuse to wrap up this plot by using the occurrence that we were all waiting to see - what would happen with Scarecrow's gas on Joker."

Tom noted, "Scarecrow's lucky that Joker seems to have a soft spot for Batman villains and never kills them." I replied, "Yeah, it was nice of Joker to not kill him." Sean replied, "Depends on the day. He did try to kill Freeze before this crossover."

We then also checked in on the conclusion of the Ventriloquist subplot that had been going on throughout the event, where Ventriloquist tries to reunite with his puppet, Scarface, using the temporary replacement, Socko. But what happens when the two go head to head?

Tom noted, "And now we get the epic satisfying conclusion to the Ventriloquist plot that has been going for a dozen issues." I replied, "Right? All of that for THIS?" Tom said, "Poor Socko, he was done dirty." Flavio agreed with me, "Yeah, that sub-plot kinda makes Batman seem totally incompetent. The Ventriloquist just shot himself in both hands, how is he one of your top bad guys?" Sean pointed out, "The Ventriloquist subplot wraps up as best it can without Batman, I think. I like it whenever Batman villains fall victim to their own mania." Tom disagreed, "Nah, it just makes Ventriloquist look even more incompetent than he already looked." I noted, "I mean, it's just comedy filler, right?" Flavio replied, "Yeah, and it is funny, but still. Hard to take the character seriously as a threat after that." I conceded that and then Tom pointed out, "Comedy filler feels out of place in such a supposedly serious issue." I replied, "I think they specifically thought comedy filler was MORE important due to how otherwise serious everything else is." Sean replied, "And comedy beat aside, it’s pretty good character work. I can’t think of Ventriloquist without thinking of this issue." Flavio joked, "Not a lot of bad guys have 'lost by shooting myself in both hands before I ever got a chance at a rematch' on their resumes." Sean replied, "He was technically more successful than Riddler, though." I replied, "That's true, as I guess it was Riddler's turn to wear the idiot cap for most of the crossover."