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It's gonna be Carrie Kelley, obviously. But no yeah, fingers crossed that it's Bluebird. She was a fantastic original character that basically nobody did anything with outside of the utterly regrettable Batman Eternal, so here's hoping she gets brought back. Revol posted:
Well to be fair it could be a whole host of things from a rogue Monitor to a New God to some agent of Darkseid to a wholly original "god" character like Pandora, but it's almost certainly the Watchmen connection because DC can't leave that awful little plot thread well enough alone. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 22:37
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Travis343 posted:Eh it's already out there, I'd rather at least get a good writer like Tynion the chance to play around with it and maybe do something cool. I mean, yeah, it's basically only Tynion, King, and maaaaybe Tomasi (although he doesn't seem really that interested in stories of that scale, and it's why I love his work as much as I do) that could even possibly silk purse the sow's ear that is that aspect of Rebirth 1, but I'd rather they just have dropped the thing entirely. That aspect of Rebirth 1 was the by-far worst part of it, and unless they get some huge sort of "big idea" creative to set in on some sort of overarching creative path (like Hickman or someone who really goes for big, overarcing epic stories of that scale), it's probably not gonna go anywhere, and if it's the usual Johns/DiDio/Lee trinity it most certainly isn't gonna go anywhere good.
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Sep 14, 2016 22:59
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catlord posted:Wasn't it James Jr.? I thought that the baby in Year One was a boy. Yeah, Bronze Age Batman had Barbara Gordon actually be Gordon's adopted daughter, in fact.
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Sep 14, 2016 23:08
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catlord posted:Oh? That was going to be a second part of that, I thought I'd heard she was a niece or something. She was Gordon's niece in Post-Crisis pre-Flashpoint DCU, yes. Ironically, Year One is why the change was made in the first place - or, rather, it's the only reasonable explanation, considering that she was Gordon's daughter pre-Crisis and only had the "adopted daughter" explanation included after Year One became big, since Gordon's son being born (with no Barbara Gordon around) was such a huge plot point of Year One (which was considered the new permanent canon Batman origin pre-N52). So, assumingly, they made her his niece so she'd be old enough to still be able to fight crime when Bats was at least relatively young over a minimum of 19 years after whenever Year One happened. Since N52 has Zero Year, the definitive origin story, and they firmly establish Bruce Wayne's age (25) and Barbara Gordon's age (16 at the absolute youngest, but probably closer to 18) within that arc, that's probably why they re-retconned her to being his biological daughter again.
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Sep 14, 2016 23:19
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To me the entire crux of Rebirth was bringing "real" Wally West back, considering it was a Wally story with a Wally framing narrative and he was the pov character with all the narration. Everything else - Watchmen, three Jokers, gay Aqualad, reinvention of Blue Beetle's powers, "time was stolen", etc - was subordinate to reintegrating Wally West.
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Sep 15, 2016 01:39
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:
Actually he doesn't kill anyone because Batman is a fake nonreal person so he's able to fight people and then they don't die because that's what the story says. Sorry you're unable to grasp the very basic foundation of how fiction works. Also you're literally right, he's doesn't kill people because it's a fiction, because he's fictional and not real. He's fake. He's a make-em-up. Literally anything can happen, because he has no agency. Because he's fake. Because nothing he does actually has happened or is bound by what I like to refer to as "reality". Also, of course he's a violent vigilante dressed as a bat. Any idiot would admit that. He's just a violent vigilante dressed as a bat who doesn't kill people. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Sep 16, 2016 |
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Sep 16, 2016 06:58
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I played the first episode of the Batman telltale game. It's pretty fun, although I'm massively disappointed they're basically doing a Year One redux in the sense that it's loner Batman with lieutenant Gordon getting a feel for the city. As people mention all the time the most compelling aspect of Batman is his Family, so it sucks we're missing out on all of that.
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Sep 25, 2016 18:41
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I disagree: 1) Batman has possibly the most memetically, culturally understood backstory and beginning of any superhero ever besides maybe Spider-Man and probably Superman. Everybody knows about his early years as Batman, and the word "Robin" has entered popular lexicon as a synonym for the word "sidekick". Everybody knows about Batman and Robin. 2) If there's any part of Batman that's overdone, it's Batman's beginnings, from Year One (probably the single most popular comic book story of all time) to Zero Year to Batman Begins to BTAS and on and on and on. It is well-trodden and I would say fairly tired ground. 3) I'm gonna guess the vast, vast majority of people buying a Batman point-and-click adventure game are already Batman fans, or are at least aware enough of Batman to understand that he has sidekicks. Now, obviously there's definitely a middle ground that should be reached between "no sidekicks" and "include everyone", because I don't expect the vast majority of the video game buying public would be aware of who like Bluebird and Lark are, but I think the story could've been a lot better or more interesting if it had, say, Robin, Batgirl, and maybe even Nightwing. Because as it stands I'm pretty tired of stories revolving around when Gordon's a lieutenant and not Commissioner (because it's usually based around how impotent he is/how corrupt his department is), Batman being considered a public menace, Batman doing solo stuff, etc. I dunno. Plus I always feel like the very best Telltale games revolve around how the character reacts and interacts with the people around them, which is kinda the whole premise of Batman's extended family. To me, I'd like to get into arguments with Robin about the unnecessary risks he's putting himself in or hector Nightwing on morality and so on, and seeing their reactions to that.
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Sep 25, 2016 21:42
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Julia and Bluebird?! gently caress YES THE ONLY GOOD PARTS OF THE TIRE FIRE THAT IS BATMAN ETERNAL
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Oct 4, 2016 04:50
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I loving love Nightwing so goddamn much, poo poo. This post Monster Men arc is so, so, SO loving good. And I like that it makes a brand new antagonist who is somehow ludicrously powerful while not feeling like a dumb Mary sue.
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Oct 20, 2016 07:16
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Sorry for double posting but how exactly did Selina end up in arkham? I didn't read N52 Catwoman, so I am only aware of what she did when it crossed over with the other books in major storylines. So I am vaguely aware that she became a mob boss and tried to unseat Penguin or something right? Did she just get taken down by RICO or something? Also I am of the opinion that Bane is a villain who only works once, like Doomsday. He was created to serve a purpose and every subsequent appearance since that purpose was fulfilled is almost always just a series of callbacks because he's a lethally crippled character. So it's with all that bring said and a testament to the strength of King's writing how personally invested I am in his Bane, because basically every other post-Nightfall Bane appearance has no there there.
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Oct 20, 2016 07:30
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purple death ray posted:Selina being on Death Row is a mystery that presumably will be revealed in the course of the story. It was one heck of a way to end an issue though. Oh okay, it wasn't a reference to the N52 Catwoman series. Good to know, thanks.
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Oct 20, 2016 16:53
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Turning Luke Fox into a self-involved playboy shithead is maybe the single best interpretation of the character I've ever seen over "generic nice guy" or "world's most boring dude ever who Barbara Gordon falls for for no adequately explained reason that Fletcher then character assassinates Dick Grayson to strengthen their Totes For Reals Relationship". Seriously we see so many Batman sidekicks try to be some aspect of Batman, but nobody trying to be an aspect of Bruce Wayne. Especially the persona of Bruce Wayne that he presents to the world over the actual character. But yeah, Tynion's Luke Fox is maybe the only time I've ever been interested in the character.
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Oct 26, 2016 23:22
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Actually Batman loving ruled and was probably the best issue so far.
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Nov 2, 2016 21:04
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I refuse to pretend that an issue wherein Batman punches holes in a wall so he can re-break his back into position could be anything other than the greatest poo poo ever.
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Nov 2, 2016 23:43
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I caught up on King Batman, and War of Jokes and Riddles is probs a top 3 Batman story to me, behind R.I.P. and Zero Year. That was a loving incredible arc - the Kite Man interludes especially, but gently caress that loving dinner issue was so goddamn good.
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Dec 21, 2017 03:57
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Madkal posted:War of joke and riddles was a comic that shouldn't have worked but King's outside the box style really made it special. I'm still sort of split over the ending, but with time I've come to accept that its meant to reflect a green, unsure Batman, and isn't meant to reflect that Joker and Batman are loving dark mirrors or whatever the gently caress - Joker saved him because its funny dark irony that he did so and he needs Batman to exist, not because he's the only one who truly understands Batman or whatever. Also the fact that the entire framing story is itself a confessional makes it land.
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Dec 21, 2017 20:14
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Detective Comics is good, definitely, but I feel REAL loving UNCOMFORTABLE they had to bring in Zatanna for a story dealing with Batman's memories having been wiped. I don't need reminders or callbacks to Identity Crisis, thanks.
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Dec 25, 2017 03:38
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Mr Hootington posted:What issue did that? Because if there was anything to erase from continunity. It was the Zatanna story where Batman gets the orb thing. The entire story hinges on Bruce having been told information that he then got his mind wiped for knowing as Zatanna just sort of looked on and shrugged.
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Dec 25, 2017 03:51
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I mean, I'm pretty sure JTIV didn't, but that's the association that happens as a matter of course if you have a story based around Batman's memories being removed, and Zatanna is directly involved in the memory-removing (even if she doesn't actually do anything specifically, she looks on as her dad wipes teen Bruce's memories and comes to accept that as the cost of maintaining a secret). That's the first thing you jump to. That's how utterly ruinous IC is, and especially when you have a bunch of different elements of IC happen all at once, it immediately calls to mind IC.
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Dec 25, 2017 04:16
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How "no background" are we talking here? Like, have you seen the Nolan movies? Have you seen the animated series? Do you not know the general conceit of Batman? Have you literally never read a comic in your life?
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Dec 26, 2017 19:37
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OscarDiggs posted:Sorry,should have been more specific. I have seen the animated series and the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher movies so I know about the conciet. Never read a Batman comic though. I have read comics before, but we're talking Tintin and Asterix and obelix from years ago; nothing this side of the millennium. Okay, regardless you should read Year One first no matter what. Then you have options. You can read the more self-contained singular stories - Killing Joke, Long Halloween, TDKR, Death in the Family, etc, and get a feel for what Batman comics are. OR you can jump straight into the deep end and read Morrison's Batman run. As long as you read The Black Casebook first, you'll get it, and it's also probably the best single run of comics ever. It's, however, extremely convoluted and long and especially to a new reader is a bit overwhelming, but that's Batman at his absolute best and doesn't rely on a ton of Bat-Family knowledge because Morrison introduces and basically solely uses Damian as the main Robin, so you won't have to be super familiar with all the Batgirls and the various Robins. OR you can do a readthrough of Snyder's Batman run. It's the N52 version, so it's almost entirely self-contained; HOWEVER, it has a major section that's virtually incomprehensible if you haven't read Morrison's run and specifically Batman, Inc volume 2, which is, unfortunately, the end of Morrison's run and will make no sense. Here's what I advise you do. Read Year One first. Then I'd read Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, and Death in the Family - probably in that order - because they're the three most "important" stories for Batman comics readers to read behind Year One in the sense of how they influence Batman comics moving forward. If you need an explanation for who Jason Todd is for DitF, someone here will give you that - it's fairly important to know who Jason Todd was and why DitF was important for the tone of Batman comics, and he's constantly brought up and brought in to major comics in this decade. Then I'd read a Jeph Loeb Batman comic - they're all really loving bad, but they're great for new readers because it brings in everyone you want and all the iconic scenes, so you'll get a sampler of what Batman comics "are" from it. I'd advise either Long Halloween, because it's the least worst Loeb comic, or Hush, which is awful, but Hush is important, as it sets up a major character and foreshadows a major moment for Bat-comics moving on from it. It's also, again, basically a Greatest Hits of everything you'd ever want to get from Batman. Then I'd probably read Morrison's run of Batman comics, but it's so long and crisscrosses so many different comics (and Final Crisis is basically essential to read during it), that you need a reading order. Then I'd probably read Snyder's run of Batman at the tail end of Morrison's run, with Batman, Inc vol. 2 placed in its appropriate section.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:22
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OscarDiggs posted:Thanks a lot, that does clear up a lot of my questions about where to start; that was a pretty large road block in it's own right. As an aside, it likely won't matter for a while but when I'm finished with your suggestions, will that leave me up to speed with the "Modern" stuff, or is most of this stuff out of date with canon? I may not read comics but I know reboots and what have you are a thing. Morrison and Snyder are the two guys with the most influence on Batman as singular creative voices that have worked on Batman in this century, and yes,if you do a Morrison to Snyder read through - some, like, 500 comics - you will be more or less completely caught up with Batman to the point you can start from Rebirth and be fine. King's run on Batman is shaping up to be an all-time classic, but if you've literally never read a Batman comic before I wouldn't start with it. purple death ray posted:It's tough because you want to recommend the best stories to people who haven't read them yet, but at the same time you want to give people an idea of what Batman comics are usually like, which is not usually the best stories. For the record I agree with most of this,except for the recommendation to read Zero Year right now. Its my second favorite overall Batman story but it's a story that asks a lot of the reader, and asks the reader to sort of know the contextual tone and ideas it riffs off of,the sort of metastory around Batman that has formed especially in the last two decades to form its own thing as Zero Year. In essence, it's a very demanding story. Basically if you are brand new I would argue the two biggest things, in order, to get into Batman comics are if they're accessible and if they're coherent to the overall informed backstory that is Batman now. Luckily, one of the best Batman stories of all time - Year One - is both. Its super easy to understand and no single comic has had a greater impact on Batman than that. Then we get to Killing Joke, which is also both, then TDKR, which by its nature of being an out of continuity story is really self contained and therefore very accessible. And its also a story that has sort of poisoned the next 30 years of Batman comics and is really the tone they used in Batman comics continuing on from it. For better or force worse, mostly for worse,Jason Todd IS the tone of modern-day Batman,and you therefore have to read DitF. Finally,this is why Jeph Loeb's comics are so good for new readers. They are super, duper accessible, because all they are are snapshots and greatest hits of every other Batman story. If you wanna know What Batman Comics Are About, read a Jeph Loeb Batman story. To that end, even though its way worse than Long Halloween and a genuinely bad story, I'd almost argue you should read Hush simply because over Long Halloween it has more significant impact on Batman moving forward and that Jim Lee art makes it feel like the coolest poo poo ever. Also re: purple death ray: I would probably have more affection for Long Halloween if it isn't the exact same loving story he uses in Dark Victory or Hush. As it stands I consider all of Loeb's Batman work to be one gigantic hoodwink that all starts with LH, where he sets up a dumb mystery that dominates the work that ends really unsatisfyingly, that he distracts from with "cool Batman poo poo".
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Dec 27, 2017 02:06
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Lightning Lord posted:
The most devious trick of Loeb comics is that they're not lovely when you read them, especially if you've never read a Batman comic before. If you've literally never read Batman before and you read, say, Hush for the first time you'll think it's the sickest poo poo ever, because it's got this "awesome" crazy brand new villain and every single iconic villain ever and Batman joking around with Robin and flirting with Catwoman and swordfighting in the desert and even a little bit of Batman fighting Superman and and and. Like, if you read Hush and you've never read Batman before you'll think it's incredible because it works completely on its own merits with no prior knowledge, has a zillion SUPER iconic Batman scenes and sequences, has everyone you'd ever want to see in the Bat-canon, has a whole bunch of twists including and especially a super-secret final one that recontextualizes the entire story, and has a long-running central mystery you want to see solved. The problem with Hush is twofold: the story falls apart if you think for even one second about anything that happens during it. In the moment everything that happens is so fresh and exciting you don't realize that the central plot doesn't really make any sense and is the barest of possible excuses to constantly put in cameos or "cool poo poo" sequences, but even worse is when you realize that, say, Hush doesn't do anything in Hush. The entirety of the overall plan of the story Hush works absolutely fine if Hush is not in it. Secondly, and this is the larger issue Loeb Batman comics has, all his stories do is just almost literally steal moments and sequences from other, better stories, throw them all into a blender, then call it a day. They don't work as stories; they're vehicles for scenes, and you realize that as you read more Batman comics that there's nothing Jeph Loeb does in any story he writes that isn't better done in the stories he's ripping off. He just combines every single cool moment from those other stories all into one product you can buy; that's his appeal. But if you're brand new those two problems don't matter. To get someone into Batman you should show them why Batman is a cool, appealing character, and Hush, despite all of its flaws and being a bad loving comic book, gets you excited to read Batman. It has all the iconic moments, it has his iconic villains, it has the romance, it has the comedy, it has the Batman and Robin relationship. It has it all. It's dumb nonsense, sure, but it's exciting dumb nonsense, and it reads super easily and has REALLY REALLY great art. If you want someone to get into Batman, you don't want to give them a comic that reads like homework; you want them to read something that gives a glimpse as to how awesome of a character Batman is and can be, and despite all of its problems Loeb's Batman totally does that. And unlike, say, RIP, which is everything I love and want out of Batman combined with an incredible story that pays off literally 70 years of stories in a super satisfying and profound way, it's a story that is entirely self-contained. Like, if you were to ask me right now what the three best Batman stories are of all time, I'd say it's RIP, then Zero Year, then War of Jokes and Riddles, in that order. But I wouldn't recommend any of those stories besides arguably the last one, and even that sort of relies on you knowing about N52 Joker specifically and how Batman usually works and the metanarrative importance of Kite Man for its final, incredible issue to land. Basically, my point is there's a whole gently caress of a lot better Batman stories for a new person to read than anything Loeb writes, but usually they're homework assignments. They're stories that build or pay off other stories or previous canon. For better or for worse Loeb Batman is the dumb action movie version of a Batman story, they're entirely self-contained, and more than anything else they're fun and super breezy.
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Dec 28, 2017 02:09
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I seem to remember N52 Det Comics being supremely mediocre instead of outright bad. I read the whole run iirc and never thought it was amazing, but never outright bad (besides the first issue because HOLY loving poo poo) and iirc it had a really really good Zero Year tie-in?
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Dec 28, 2017 18:46
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AlternateNu posted:So what you're saying is Loeb is the Michael Bay of comics? ....sssssssort of? I think Bay is a lot more successful than Loeb is, and has created some legitimately good and entertaining works within his chosen medium. Loeb's Batman comics are all really bad in my opinion; even Long Halloween is a story that doesn't really make much sense when you start analyzing it as a story, and I always felt like the central premise of it - the titular Long Halloween - happens just to happen, it has no real purpose and doesn't help the story as written. Like I legit think TLH works better as a constructed narrative if it happens over the space of a couple of weeks instead of an entire loving year because of the dumb Holiday gimmick. And that's just one example; I would agree TLH is probs his best work, especially considering it's the first time he uses the exact same plot he eventually uses in Dark Victory and Hush, but I wouldn't really call it good per se. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Dec 30, 2017 |
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Dec 30, 2017 04:38
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I mean I love The Rock, but even beyond that there's a lot of things in TLH that are just nonsensical. Why does like every single one of Batman's villains show up in it? And no, "because it takes place over a year and also the story is about how Gotham went from supercrime to supervillain crime" doesn't really count. That's the excuse Jeph Loeb uses to add the Joker and Poison Ivy and Scarecrow and the Riddler and Solomon Grundy into it, but it's not like the story is strengthened by their inclusion. If it had, like, the Riddler in it, and Calendar Man as the sort of point of reference Batman uses in Arkham, and was otherwise a story about the creation of Two-Face intercut with the Holiday story, the comic is a lot cleaner and more coherent, and imparts the same overall idea. Hell, the idea of it being a Two-Face origin story more or less completely gets across it being a story about the change from organized crime to supervillainy. But all that other poo poo is just crowbarred in there, well, just cause. Honestly Jeph Loeb is the progenitor for the Rocksteady Batman games, which we can all agree are just...just loving terrible Batman stories. Just the absolute worst. They're fun, especially in the moment, but jeezer creezer do they take Loeb's kitchen sink approach to Batman storytelling and just turn every dial to 11.
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Dec 30, 2017 05:06
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I just remember how fuckin' terrible the Arkham Knight storyline was. In a fuckin'...they made Jason MOTHER loving Todd worse. They took, one of the worst characters in DC Comics history, and Rocksteady made him loving WORSE. And then he becomes the Red Hood again anyways. Anyways!
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Dec 30, 2017 05:22
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If you're talking about the head/psychology stuff I guess but I think Rocksteady gets way way way too close to trying to present Joker as an essential part of/dark half of/necessary to the functioning of Batman which is the worst and laziest way to present Joker ever.
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Dec 30, 2017 05:29
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Spider-Man v. Batman rogues sounds awesome in an extremely dumb way (Batman v. Spidey rogues seems Extremely Bad, largely because Spider-Man works in basically any situation you put him in but Batman only really functions in a world that accommodates Batman. By that, I mean Batman has to fight The Worst People Ever and still win, and a lot of his stories are built around the idea that him and the people within his employ are the only ones able to prevent Gotham from turning into even more of a shithole than it already is. There's obviously stories with him not in Gotham (notably most-to-all JL stories) but a story of him fighting like the Vulture in Earth-616 don't seem to really work because it ignores that Spidey doesn't get help mostly because Spider-Man's villains don't really rate. Most of them are total losers (in much the same way Spider-Man is kind of a total loser), they're mostly all B-list or worse, and a LOT of them are sympathetic and most of them are empathetic. In contrast, again, Batman's villains are the Worst People Ever, and he's the only one who can effectively fight them because of the way that Gotham is structured, neither of which are problems present in Marvel's Manhattan.) It also helps that Spidey is basically the most flexible hero probably of all time, so he can fight anyone, basically, and it's believable that he would. In contrast I would argue that Batman is almost as flexible but there's a sense of him being an overt, in-world A-lister (especially how DC's heroes are painted more as gods who walk among us, which Bruce partially dodges but not completely) and he'd be slumming it fighting the fuckin' Hobgoblin or some poo poo. You can see this especially whenever there's a story where the Big Bad is some Z-list Batman villain and the conceit of the story is "Z-list Batman villain decides to tire Batman out by sending in the Real Threats and getting the killshot on Batman". Either way yeah it's indicative of Jeph Loeb's complete inability to write more than one story. But, gently caress, Spider-Man fighting like Clayface and The Penguin loving sounds cool.
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Dec 30, 2017 20:06
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Roth posted:Is Jeph Loeb still writing comics? Not really. There's not really a tactful way of saying this, but back in 2005-ish his son Sam died at 17 from bone cancer, and this tailspinned Loeb into a dramatic creative downturn even for him. He kept getting work on bad comics largely because people wouldn't say no to him for obvious reasons, and he kept trying to memorialize his son in increasingly hamfisted and extremely uncomfortable ways - there's one story where a kid named Sam literally makes Clark Kent decide to be Superman and it's exactly as poorly executed a concept as you think it would be. Anyways that creative period continued for like 5 years or so until he came up with the idea for the newest Nova for Marvel, Sam Alexander, which is weirdly enough probably the best thing Jeph Loeb's ever done. He wrote the first arc of the new Nova series and despite it being most overtly Jeph working through the feelings he has for his dead son besides the Superman thing, which is just loving regrettable, it all works really really well. Anyways after that he was doing Marvel comics off and on until Marvel Entertainment signed him on for their television division, which he currently is a VP of. If you watch any Marvel show you see his name in the EP bylines which probably means he gives overall nonspecific creative advice, which is probably the best position for him to be in anyways. For reference, he apparently came up with the idea behind the story "Must There Be a Superman?", one of Superman's best Silver Age stories and stories in general. He's really good at articulating a high concept and less good to outright bad at constructing an actual narrative around it.
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Dec 30, 2017 20:19
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Mr Hootington posted:Harper Row is good. Does she appear in other books besides Snyder's Batman? Do not read Batman Eternal. Do read Batman and Robin Eternal.
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Jan 1, 2018 03:25
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The Clown at Midnight is unbelievably loving terrible on virtually every level, but especially with decompression, Morrison imparts like literally an arc's worth of story in the space of a single issue. He puts across the red/black poison, introduces then immediately writes out his Harley, he has the funeral, he brings up the dead Joker cronies...there's a loving ton of poo poo that happens in Clown at Midnight, a lot of it basically record-keeping so Morrison can focus on other poo poo and set up various elements of Batman RIP. That, I imagine, is how he got away with a loving prose issue, especially so early in his loving run - he is able to resolve a whole bunch of ultimately minor but necessary plot points all at once, so DC let him do his dumbass, loving terrible, purple and pretentiously written prose issue. That's the only conclusion I can gather - Morrison was pretty big before he got on Batman, but his most notable (as in generally popular) DC comic he had done before his Batman was...what, JLA? He had been on a couple of issues of the Flash, but before he got on Batman he was pretty notable for doing Vertigo-level cult favorite books like Doom Patrol or Animal Man. By the time his Batman run had started he had only done, at most, a couple of issues of All-Star Superman, which itself was, at the time, an OOC series. And he was still less than a year into his Batman run by the time 663 came out. I don't think he necessarily had the cultural cachet that post- Final Crisis-writing, Multiversity-writing, guy on Action Comics, All-Star Superman-writing Morrison now has, so it's the only way I can see him overriding editorial with this comic (because if any editor in the loving world took a look at his script and approved it in the state it got published in, they shouldn't be an editor any more). It's an extremely useful issue in the sense that it's able to resolve a bunch of plot threads all at once, and it's realistically the only way I can see an editor giving it the okay, especially with the atrocious 3d art. Or, maybe, Morrison was super behind on his scripts and basically banged out 20k words or however long that loving prose script is of some real fuckin' pablum (because, boy, is that some purple as poo poo prose that would feel like too much in a dime store noir novel) and called up some 3d artist who generated 20 3d images in Maya or something with some character models he colored white and threw into Joker and Harley Quinn outfits, got it all done in like a week, and the Batman office was so behind they signed off without a second glance. Cause either 663 was super duper intentionally written or super duper lazily written, and I literally can't tell which. People say the Internet 2.0 issue is Morrison's worst, but it's just a boring story. At least it is an issue of comics, just a bad one that wastes its conceit and the idea of Oracle as a digital Batgirl. Clown at Midnight is literally just a bad novella with worse, barely-associated images alongside it.
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Jan 2, 2018 05:39
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Then man, gently caress, I dunno. Whichever editor approved that script in the state it got published in should have been fired.
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Jan 2, 2018 05:47
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I forgot about 1 Million, yeah, that's fair. Was rear end really that big early on? It wouldn't end for like three years and it's barely after that comic started that his Batman run started. I thought it took a while for rear end to become like the definitive Superman story and weren't they stressing early on how it was definitively out of continuity just in case it was a flop?
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Jan 2, 2018 06:03
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Doctor Spaceman posted:
I dunno how people can say that when Superheavy is right there. In other news I caught up on Dark Nights: Metal and that's the loving craziest crossover event I think I've ever read. I don't think I've ever read a crossover event that is so continuity and lore-heavy, that references so many different stories. Like, this event is loving nuts: it uses as specific plot points Final Crisis, CoIE, ROBW, The fuckin' Multiversity, most of Snyder's run, the most iconic Batman scene in history...I really thought this was gonna be some disposable action event and it's so, so steeped in the lore of both Batman and DC in general it's loving astounding.
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Jan 2, 2018 18:22
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I hate Superheavy because everything, everything about Bat-Gordon felt like the worst and most boring wheel spinning waiting for Batman to come back, and to me Snyder clearly had no heart in or commitment to writing Bat-Gordon. At no point did I believe or buy Gordon as Batman, just as an imposter who Batman tried to make feel better with the "that guy was your villain" line like Snyder just threw his hands up in the air and gave up but on the way out decided to assure everyone that Gordon was no really for reals a real Batman you guys. Like, to me, the good parts of Superheavy are the Bruce Wayne parts, and the reformed Joker parts, because they're the only emotionally resonant or built with care sections of the arc. They're the only parts that communicate the author's clear desire to write them, and are the only fully formed as a result. Everything about Bat-Gordon was regrettable and forgettable, and that's speaking as someone who considers Dickbat the best Batman. To me Snyder's biggest failure as a Batman writer is that he's really only comfortable writing Batman and even more specifically Bruce Wayne. People point to Black Mirror, but to me that's basically a Bruce Wayne Batman story with the names filed off; at no point during it outside of some of his interactions with Red Robin did that feel like Dick Grayson wearing the cowl. Like, Dick's super Bruce Wayne-y during that story; he's super harried and serious and stressed out and paranoid over how he is in Batman and Robin, where he's Damian's goofy fun older brother. Snyder's clear distaste for writing Damian Wayne both as character and as concept is pretty well-documented, considering his entire N52 run has Damian showing up in barely a half-dozen issues, and never as the focus. Zero Year is Snyder's best story and as a matter of course it sweeps the entire Bat-Family off the table. I really like Death of the Family, but it's more about Batman trying to save his adopted kids than the actual adopted kids themselves unless you read the tie-ins, which weren't written by him. He came up with and implemented Duke Thomas and Harper Row, but even then they only really get fleshed out in Batman/Batman and Robin Eternal, which it isn't clear how much actual writing he did on each series (my guess is, not much; the both seem way more like Tynion stories than Snyder stories). Harper Row, especially, suffers from being a super dynamic character that ends up more or less as a completely dropped ball moving forward because Snyder didn't give Bluebird time on the main book and, uh, Tynion isn't using her. Duke Thomas got an essentially solo series because of We Are Robin and seems only really relevant moving forward because of a combination of that, his role as some human-shaped macguffin depending on where Metal goes, and an attempt at some actual racial diversity with the Bat-books moving forward. Duke's probably the closest to interested Snyder has been in writing a major ancillary heroic character who isn't Batman in a Bat-book but even then he feels kind of half-assed. Fnally we're at Snyder's Rebirth stuff, which ASB has as its first arc a Batman paired solely with a villain story (I'm not current on ASB) and Dark Nights: Metal, which I am current with, in which the Bat-Family plays no significant role in the issues that Snyder wrote. There's a big reference to The Signal being a Super Important Dude in the beginning, but Snyder basically has not revisited anyone at all related directly to Batman outside of Duke Thomas in prelude issues and one scene with Damian/Nightwing in a bar before immediately pivoting to something else. The one throughline through Snyder's near-decade of Batman books is his lack of any real interest in writing anything besides Batman and specifically Bruce Wayne as Batman. It's why I really hate Superheavy as much as I do, because to me it reads as an author who came up with a really insane and cool idea (Iron Man Batman piloted by Jim Gordon!) that he immediately backed away from because of a subconscious desire to continually write Bruce Wayne Batman no matter what, and you can see it in how once amnesiac Bruce Wayne arrives in the arc, BOOM, it's immediately and suddenly way more of a dynamic and interesting comic. Like, Bruce Wayne's throughline about being nervous about, wanting desperately not to, then finally, sadly deciding to become Batman again - over the Joker's stringent objections - is much, much more interesting than anything Gord-Bats does. Like, I think Snyder on the whole is a really good to outright great - like, pantheon great - Batman writer, but if there's one constant thing I keep returning to in his Batman bibliography it's that he's at his best when writing the character of Bruce Wayne in the Batman cowl and absolutely nothing else, as Zero Year/Metal/All-Star Batman prove. He seems unwilling to uncomfortable writing Batman's supporting characters and seems wishy-washy at best at implementing them within his stories in a way that they can command equal screentime to Batman. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jan 3, 2018 |
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Jan 3, 2018 04:40
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That's my issue with Superheavy. It's all about how Jim Gordon never believes in himself and thinks he's a fuckup and an imposter and he's a failure, and he's mired with a super dark and nasty mass murderer, and then it ends with Batman taking over and going "but no, seriously, good job kid, thanks for keeping the car warm". Like it ends before Gordon even has a chance to actually be Batman and especially Batman in success. I honestly think if they Tony Stark-ed Jim Gordon instead of made him a doubtful sadsack, as Iron Man Batman sort of feels like the natural time to do so, and especially if they actually let him be Batman for a while instead of...what, ten issues? And halfway through it becomes a Bruce Wayne story anyways? ...I would've considered it a classic at the level I consider Dickbats to be a classic. Instead it feels like one big mistake whose entire impact was a single plot point in Metal.
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Jan 3, 2018 05:08
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This issue was fine. The twist ending was obvious and doesn't work but up until then it's pretty interesting. In contrast Batman and The Signal was loving incomprehensible. At least it's Snyder writing someone who isn't Batman but it's not an issue that makes like, absolutely any sense whatsoever.
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Jan 4, 2018 03:35
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 19:25 |
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Space Fish posted:Indeed, having THOMAS and MARTHA scratched into one's face is not an interesting finale. Again it's not like the worst thing ever. It's definitely weaker than...everything that came before, but Tom King is a fuckin' King Midas when it comes to the comics he writes so I can excuse an off day. Like, I fuckin' loved War of Jokes and Riddles, the two arcs immediately after were arguably better, the Catwoman proposal is one of the flat-out best developments I've seen in any Batman issue ever. He can have an issue that doesn't cohere into a complete one-shot, he has earned my trust in him for him to make a mistake. It's not even ruinous in the way, say Snyder's Batman annual in N52 where he made Mr. Freeze into a mass-murdering lunatic was. This hurts nothing and it's just sorta mediocre. Oh well. Saying you're gonna cancel a subscription off of one bad issue is...presumptive, to say the least. I mean, even fuckin' Morrison had The Clown at Midnight and everything about Batman Inc., volume 2. Perfection is impossible unless it's super short and constructed like...well, King's Vision and Omega Men and possibly his Mister Miracle if things shake out how they look.
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Jan 4, 2018 04:05
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