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Morrison Bats reading order: Batman and Son (new edition) Batman RIP (ignore the two 'Last Rites' issues in the back, they're part of Final Crisis and included in its trade) Final Crisis* (optional, read it anyways, new edition) Batman and Robin vol 1 Batman Reborn Batman and Robin vol 2 Batman vs. Robin Time and the Batman The Return of Bruce Wayne Batman and Robin vol 3 Batman & Robin Must Die! Batman Incorporated (deluxe) Batman Incorporated vol 1 Demon Star Batman Incorporated vol 2 Gotham's Most Wanted *Recommended background reading: JLA: Rock of Ages, JLA: Earth-2, JLA: Ultramarine Corps, Seven Soldiers This should probably be in the op somewhere because it's confusing and most recommended trade orders I see get it wrong or recommend irrelevant stuff like Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul. Toxxupation posted:Morrison's best Batman story, and indeed the best Batman story ever written is Batman R.I.P. It's very good but if we're going to break it down into favorite arc I like Return of Bruce Wayne the most, for the genre hopping, for how densely it's structured and for how great Return of Bruce Wayne #6 is. The reappropriaton of Bat symbolism from DKR/Year One in particular is brilliant, it's the antidote to the preceding 20+ years of grimbats. It's also a really nice thematic highlight of Morrison's overarching cosmic saga stretching from JLA to Seven Soldiers to Final Crisis and now Multiversity. I love it.
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Aug 15, 2016 02:00
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 17:26 |
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Toxxupation posted:Also Final Crisis is in absolutely no loving way "optional" for Morrison Batman. I say optional because it's much more demanding than anything in Batman and people shouldn't just give up on the Morrison Batsaga if they find Final Crisis impenetrable. It's also optional in so far as Time and the Batman explicitly retells Batman's story in Final Crisis. That said, if you didn't understand Final Crisis you're likely going to have a hard time understanding Return of Bruce Wayne.
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Aug 15, 2016 02:22
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Toxxupation posted:I'd argue it's not optional because basically everything Morrison writes in Batman post-Final Crisis is written in the context of what happened in Final Crisis, and even with Time and the Batman retelling FC from Batman's perspective and finally, finally clarifying what the gently caress Batman was doing during that event, it provides no outside context for FC so it still doesn't really make any sense if read without having read FC. It's basically a bunch of scenes that, honestly, should've been inserted into the pages of Final Crisis itself because it makes the story flow better and gives Batman a retroactive arc, but without having read FC is just that - a series of unrelated Batman scenes. You're overstating just how confusing this is when everything necessary can be inferred without having actually read Final Crisis. All you need to realize going into Batman and Robin is that Bruce is now missing and everyone thinks he's dead, so Dick takes up the mantle of Batman. Batman Reborn covers that. Later Dick and Damian find Bruce's belt which contains the Time and the Batman issues explaining exactly what happened to Bruce after his battle with Hurt. Bruce went on a cosmic JLA adventure during which he shot and mortally wounded the God of All Evil, who in turn cursed Bruce by sending him backwards through time via his Omega Sanction. Those issues are essentially excerpts from Final Crisis with annotations by GMo for everyone who either hadn't understood what Darkseid did to Bruce or who hadn't read Final Crisis in the first place. Anyways, I think Final Crisis is brilliant, but it's very much a sequel to Seven Soldiers, which is itself a sequel to JLA Classified and a bunch of the stuff Grant built on in JLA. Most people haven't read all that, which makes Final Crisis the most uncompromising and demanding story Grant has written for DC (and all the more funny that DC turned it into a stupid event with a bunch of meaningless tie-ins). It really doesn't give a poo poo about traditional narrative structures or filling in all the gaps for people, which is kind of the whole point. It is very much a gently caress you to all of the unimaginative continuity fetishists obsessed with plot over story. It's not so much one story split up into thirds, but one piece of a larger whole that encompasses everything from JLA to Multiversity. It is, on its own, a self-contained story about Superman saving the multiverse from cynicism. It's great, and Superman Beyond 3D is maybe my favorite thing Grant has ever written. That said, if you haven't read Seven Soldiers, or if you don't know what a New God is, it's probably going to be a rough read, but that's okay, you can get by without it and come back later. Look at all the people who picked up Batman Inc and never read Batman and Robin. Are they going to catch every reference or thematic callback? Nah, but it all works out. Equilibrium fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Aug 16, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 05:15
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The real mystery is why, when given an opportunity to correct their mistakes, Batman Rebirth #1 isn't the story of Dick Grayson reclaiming his rightful role as Batman of Gotham. Like it's still really funny that the supposed thesis of the New 52 was to bring in readers with fresh, new stories and in the process they got rid of the single most refreshing thing to happen to Batman in 25 years. Even if I hate Snyder's writing, at least Black Mirror had a more interesting tone to it than all of his New 52 stuff. King, as it turns out, is also much better at writing Dick Grayson than Bruce Wayne so far.
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Aug 15, 2016 06:03
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That's why he's the best Batman.
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Aug 15, 2016 06:06
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If Brave and the Bold Batman isn't in the top two of someone's best Batman list, well, I'm not judging, but I do have strong suspicions of their moral character and grave doubts about their value to society.
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Aug 21, 2016 02:57
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The exchanges with Alfred in Batman #6 encapsulate everything I dislike about this run. Nothing anyone says or does feels appropriate to their character and the book is constantly undermining its own cheap sentimentality with abrupt shifts in tone. The one good thing is that King doesn't rely on any thought captions, but it's all ruined anyways by King's stylistic tick for overwrought dialogue repetition on every other page. Maybe he thinks this comes off as poetic but it's really dreadful to actually read.
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Sep 7, 2016 23:13
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"Why doesn't Batman just, like, kill The Joker, man?" simply shouldn't be entertained to begin with; you might as well ask why The Road Runner doesn't kill the Wile E. Coyote. Where Snyder hosed up is in acknowledging the question at all. It's not something that can be adequately explored through in-continuity logic because the DC universe doesn't operate on the basis of anything like realism, and when you start making up answers to questions that suppose it does you just look silly. The general metatextual thrust of Snyder's answer is correct, that there will always be another villain regardless of how many you wipe from existence, but the idea of Batman being hyperaware enough to acknowledge this but also 'afraid' of what might replace The Joker makes no sense without him also acknowledging that his existing villains are constantly being reinterpreted and coming back different and possibly more cruel than before anyways. The Joker, of all villains, isn't The Devil You Know because he is explicitly the character who is constantly reinventing himself. It's such a stupid question on its face anyways. The person who asks this doesn't ask, "Why doesn't Bruce invest in improving the security at Arkham Asylum?" or "Why doesn't Batman just get Superman to put Joker in The Phantom Zone?" No, their grand theory of justice is to have Batman murder a comic book character, like that would stop The Joker from coming back anymore than locking him up in a prison on Planet X would. Problem solved! The Joker's cyclical relationship with Batman only exists because these are cartoon characters trapped in an absurdist reality where Gotham City is leveled and rebuilt every other year. Batman doesn't kill The Joker because he literally can't. If he could, he wouldn't need to.
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Sep 12, 2016 17:30
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 17:26 |
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Toxxupation posted:This is coming off a run of comics where Batman recognizes that the only person that's able to defeat Batman is Batman so creates a backup personality within his psyche that is only unleashed when Batman is defeated. And that's widely (and correctly) considered the best Batman story of this century and arguably of all time. I fail to see how "Batman becomes metatextually aware that he would beat anybody except for himself" is less insanely hyperaware then "Batman looks around at how his rogues gallery has been acting for the past half-decade and realizes that things will only continue on a downward trajectory". The problem here isn't about believability or whether Batman should have any particular strain of metatextual awareness but that Snyder's answer makes no sense. A new interpretation of The Joker has just as much potential to be as horrifying as any new villain and so all Snyder's done here is given Batman another existential crisis that can't be satisfactorily answered. It's Batman acknowledging that his greatest supervillain is Bad Writing, which is something Batman can't possibly do anything about.
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Sep 12, 2016 19:50
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