We comic book fans love it when our favorite characters hang out or team up. It builds a bigger and fuller world, it provides new avenues for character growth and usually it’s just plain keen. That’s why teams like the Justice League are so popular in the first place. Heck, the entire fate of Hollywood is banking on this very concept when Marvel’s superheroes team up The Avengers movie this May! So it’s no surprise that comic book companies save their biggest stories for crossovers and team ups. And DC Comics’ New 52 initiative has finally announced their first major Event Comic crossover.

And of course, it stars Batman. Because you don’t get much more awesome than Batman. He’s going to be fighting a bunch of owls.

What danger 'hoots' in the night?

Who are the Court of Owls? (see what I did there?) They’re only the hot new bad guys in Scott Snyder’s Batman series. DC announced Monday that all of the comics in the Batman-family will crossover this May for an Event called ‘The Night of Owls’. They also announced that the Batman series will feature back-up stories in its regular issues filling in some of the backstory and history of this enigmatic band of hooters. So this could mean Batman teaming up with Robin, Nighting, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman and whoever else is in the Bat-family of books that I’m forgetting. Sadly, that doesn’t include Tim Drake.

More after the jump!

Scott Snyder has been writing a fantastic Batman for the past few years. He started back when Dick Grayson was wearing the cap and cowl, and he wrote some fantastic stories with Dick as the Dark Knight. Ever since the reboot back in September, Snyder has been working on this epic Court of Owls storyline, and it’s been damn good so far. So basing the first major crossover/team-up on these flying foul fiends is a good idea. I have a few reservations, but to hear Snyder describe it, he’s got a lot of good ideas in mind.

Here’s what Snyder said in the press release:

“The first backup, in issue 8 will give a sense of the terrifying scope of the Court of Owls’ attack on Gotham. This really will be the first shot in a war for the soul of Gotham City. And then, starting in issue nine, we’ll begin a three part story called ‘The Fall of the House of Wayne’ that will investigate the secret history of the Court of Owls and its relationship to the Wayne family – particularly to Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce’s parents. The story will be told from the point of view of Jarvis Pennyworth, Alfred’s father, and offer some big surprises and shocks about the forces that shaped the bat-mythology as we know it.”

I love those titles: ‘The Night of Owls’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Wayne’. They just sound cool.

Just how 'Batman' is Bruce going to have to get to defeat them?

So I’m definitely looking forward to this storyline. But I do have a few reservations about the Court of Owls. For me, at least, they just haven’t really sunk in as memorable bad guys. They’re strong, they’re mysterious and they date back into Gotham City’s history…but I find them lacking.

Here’s what we know so far: The Court of Owls have existed as a secret society in Gotham City for more than 100 years, back to the very founding of the city. Like most secret societies, they operated in the shadows and did all sorts of secret stuff, often with their enforcer, a guy named Talon. In the present day, everyone considers them a myth and an urban legend, with kids even singing a nursey rhyme about them:

“Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadow perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them or they’ll send the Talon for your head.”

That is a very specific nursery rhyme! Snyder couldn’t have come up with something more subtle? ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ is about the Black Death, but you wouldn’t know it unless someone told you. Basically my gripe is that Snyder is forcing down a hard pill to swallow: that this super secret, super important group of powerful citizens has been living and working in the shadows of Gotham City all this time. And only now, in this recent story, have they decided to pop back up and deal with Batman.

What's wrong? Forgot your bat-umbrella?

One cool idea that Snyder came up with deals with the 13th floor of skyscrapers. Have you ever heard the legend that a lot of skyscrapers and hotels simply skip the 13th floor? Well, according to Snyder, they still build a sort of dummy floor between 12 and 14. Batman discovers that the Court of Owls have several secret headquarters in all of these dummy 13th floors, including the dummy floor on Wayne Tower. There’s some big mystery connection between the Court of Owls and the Wane family.

In fact, when he was a kid, Bruce Wayne suspected the Court of Owls had something to do with his parents’ murder and he went about trying to prove that they were real.

So it’s a pretty big retcon to make us all believe that this ‘Court of Owls’ has been a legend in Gotham City all this time, but nobody mentions either it or the nursery rhyme.

Surely somebody noticed the freaky masks

I guess that’s just he peril of trying to create a brand new threat but set it in a comic book’s history. And as hard as it may be, at least Snyder’s giving it the old college try and doing a fairly good job. The story has definitely been fun so far.

But another question is: just how many freakin’ secret societies are there in Gotham City? I couldn’t begin to name them all, but there have to be dozens, if not hundreds. Secret rich people get-togethers. Secret collectors. Secret auctions. Just a ton of secret societies. Gotham City is the sort of place for it, but one has to wonder how many of Gotham’s upper crust were members of multiple secret societies and had to memorize all the dorky rules of each one. And why hasn’t Playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne ever been invited to join?

It’s not like anybody knows he’s secretly Batman.

Unless they do! Dun dun dun!