Tom King has been writing “Batman,” the comic, for two years now, and he gets better with every arc. “Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles,” issue 25 through 32, is an example of that ascension of quality.

As King’s fourth arc in his current run, he’s decided to ramp up the storytelling, twists and emotion for his biggest project yet.

Taking place in Bruce Wayne’s early years as Batman comes an all-new story. Don’t worry, there’s no spoilers.

After proposing to Selina Kyle, Catwoman, Batman must tell her his greatest failure to show her what kind of man he is before she says yes. Batman recounts his past with The Joker, who didn’t find anything funny anymore. Joker believed killing Batman was the key to regaining his laughter. The funny thing is, Riddler also wanted to solve the riddle “What is Batman?” This resulted in a trail of the two villains forming teams of Batman’s rogues’ gallery and splitting them up amongst themselves. Fights between all villainy break out into the streets and Batman needs to find a way to stop all of this by using one of the forgotten rogues: Kite Man.

Tom King is a magnificent writer. He knows when to pull heart strings, has readers fueled, and sometimes even has them feeling hopeless with the amount of emotion he writes into his characters. Batman feels broken, Catwoman is snarky, Riddler is creepy and Joker is downright terrifying.

This is a Batman title, but the real star of the story is Kite Man. King shapes a forgotten Batman rogue and turns him into a tragic villain that the reader actually feels sorry for. As the story progresses, you notice which characters are pivotal to the story, but even then, you still don’t know where this story is going. Sparingly, King uses other Batman rogues to show how much this “war” is taking a toll on Batman; he also uses these villains to show how important Kite Man is. Little cameos and appearances showing The Mad Hatter or Killer Croc improve the story and give you something to laugh at every once in awhile.

Let’s get to the art. Mikel Janin fires on all cylinders by giving us his best work of his career. Throughout the eight issues of the story arc, he draws everything like you’ve never seen in the shortest amount of time. Janin draws atmosphere, places and human faces like I’ve never seen. It’s almost too real. What he does with the characters and how they look are super impressive, and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves.

Overall, this arc was King and Janin at their finest. Batman has officially reached an all-time high; and this just further proves that what Tom King has for us in the future, is going to be absolutely great.