Batman: Arkham- Killer Croc

I'll admit- when I first encountered Killer Croc on an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, I really thought that the villain was created strictly for the cartoon. I learned later that I was wrong. But my error was due to the limited number appearances of the character during his first decade of creation.

I've read 3 or 4 volumes in the Batman: Arkham series thus far. And of those, Killer Croc has got to be the most unknown entity of those I've encountered. But of all of these books, Killer Croc's collection is the only one that reads like an Arkham Asylum case file. 

In this book, you see Croc's earliest appearances as just a man with an unfortunate skin condition and massive strength, attempting to squeeze into the ranks of Gotham's underground in the middle of a power vacuum. Sadly, over time, Croc's physical abnormalities also affect his mind as constant mutations, both natural and man-made, causes the Batman enemy to devolve into a human crocodile!

While Croc is a sympathetic character, he also gets repetitive quickly. In almost every story of this collection Killer Croc reminds us that he used to wrestle crocs for a living down in Florida. Maybe that's part of his loss of intelligence as he regresses. But it got old fast.

I also had a problem with the selection of stories. We seem to get a pretty good run of Croc's chronological life. And maybe being an underused character helps for this to occur compared to someone like The Riddler; who has probably been in a couple hundred Batman comics. However, there's a big cliffhanger that appears to involve Killer Croc that resolution is not included. Maybe Croc didn't play as big of a role in that follow-up story. But his presence definitely has to do with the tragic outcome we later find out about. 

I enjoyed reading this. But I feel like Killer Croc is an uneven character. Sure, he's a heavy. But he's got a depth thanks to his tragic origin story. I just don't think all of the writers who tackle the character properly acknowledges that Waylon Jones is more than just muscle. At least Batman: Arkham- Killer Croc succeeds in painting a progressive, yet incomplete history of the evolution of a cold blooded killer.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.