Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: jorge jimenez, matt fraction

Crazy Batman #9 Cliffhanger & The Biggest Issue Of Batman Yet To Come

Batman #9 will have the craziest of cliffhangers, an upcoming issue will be the biggest issue Matt Fraction & Jorge Jimenez have done

As we previously mentioned, a recent appearance on the BIFF! BAM! POW! podcast by writer Matt Fraction featured him discussing his current Batman run with Jorge Jimenez, with guest artist Ryan Sook coming on board for Batman #8 as a deliberate breather. "It takes a moment to catch up with a couple of different he explained. "Three parallel conversations happening the same evening… scenes." The issue shifts focus to three key figures—a hero, a villain, and a reporter—whose encounters "will reverberate across their city forever." Fraction says he apologised to Sook for the lighter action load, but promises it sets the stage perfectly.

The real fireworks arrive in Batman #9 (solicits below), subtitled "Operation Peregrine". Fraction warned listeners, "If people freaked out at the end of Batman #6 with Joker in a tube, they're gonna lose their f-cking minds at the end of issue #9. It's a crazy, it's a big crazy cliffhanger that really sets up a whole awful lot of things." Describing it as "balls to the wall," he hinted at escalating chaos involving paramilitarised forces and high-stakes confrontations. "Issue 9 is called Operation Peregrine, and the sh-t absolutely hits the fan, in that one. It's a crazy, a big crazy cliffhanger that really sets up a whole awful lot of things… So you get to see Ryan do two entirely different modes of storytelling, and it's, it's, it's great. And then, and then Jorge's back and away we go."

And it all leads into the run's first major Bat-Family event, Bad Seeds, a concise two-month crossover (I wonder what Tom Brevoort thinks about that) launching in third quarter of 2026, tied to post-DC's K.O. "alpha energy" fallout,  and centres on Mayor Poison Ivy of Gotham "She's doing this kind of storyline about… what happens when the eco-terrorist tries to seize the levers of power in the straight world and what goes wrong there," Fraction said. The conflict explodes when immortal villain Vandal Savage, now Gotham's police commissioner, declares war on the Bat-Family, flooding streets with his private, paramilitarized GCPD army. Ivy, isolated and cornered, makes a "last-ditch power play" that could transform Gotham into a "primaeval world of hostile plant life." Fraction emphasised an anti-mandated-event design: "opt-in" stories allowing readers to follow specific characters, while all link up. And that it was inspired by Robert Altman's Shortcuts ensemble style. "It feels like those old summer annuals… but short, and then we're done… I'd been a part of so many… mandated… How do we build an event that is not that? How do we build the opposite?"

Matt Fraction looked further ahead to the end of the year, hyping Batman #15 as "the biggest issue we've done since issue one or seven". He teased the third major arc as potentially the pitch that secured him the gig writing Batman, a high-stakes evolution building on prior foundations. Long-term, Fraction aims high: endless Gotham stories and a push toward a milestone 100-issue run. "F-cking Batman #15 is gonna be the biggest issue we've done since issue one or seven. The third arc is, I think, the arc that got me the book. I don't know, you have to ask [Editor] Robin Murray, but it was in my, in my kind of initial "this is what my first two years would look like". It really got them going. So it's gonna be an insane year. That's, I'm so excited. Maybe the wheels come off, and it's all over. Maybe people reject Fat Joker, and I'm out of here in two months, whatever, but we'll see. We will see."

• BATMAN #9
  (W) MATT FRACTION
  (A) RYAN SOOK
  Cover (A) JORGE JIMENEZ
  Variant covers by DUSTIN NGUYEN, JORGE MOLINA, and RYAN SOOK
  AAPI Heritage Month variant cover by JOHN GIANG
  DC x Sonic variant cover by MIRKA ANDOLFO
  Foil variant cover by JORGE JIMENEZ
  1:25 variant cover by DAVID AJA
  $4.99 US | 40 pages | Variant $5.99 US (card stock) | Variant $7.99 US (foil)
  On Sale: 5/6/26
  After making a sinister deal with Mayor Isley, Commissioner Vandal Savage initiates "Operation Peregrine," sending his brutal TUCO squads across Gotham City on a singular mission: Bring in the Batman! Batman and his team must destroy and abandon their hideouts, safeguard their data, and escape the long arm of the law… but not everyone will make it safely through the night!

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