For The Love of Comics

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Before I dive into this one headfirst let me start with this (Click to enlarge):

That my friends [What are you, John McCain? ~D] is the LATEST teaser image released by DC Comics, courtesy of Newsarama, which was attached with a question from Dan Didio: “Can you find all the clues in this image?” I don’t want to ruin the fun by telling you guys what clues I was able to find, but I would like to talk about what has all of us Batman fanboys quaking like crack fiends in between fixes. Who will be The Bat?

Thankfully, Grant Morrison will not be penning this one, which I’m sure puts Dustin’s heart at ease [I think Peter Tomasi should write this and anything having to do with Dick Grayson.  Ever. ~D again]. Tony Daniel will be taking over here in both the writing and art aspects. (Let’s be honest, he can’t do much worse than Morrison did.) So, before Battle for the Cowl officially kicks off in March, let’s take a look at the possible competitors:

Dick Grayson
The Prodigal Son. Dick Grayson has been at the side of the Dark Knight longer than anyone has (Aside from Alfred of course). Following the tragic death of his own parents Dick Grayson was taken in by a sympathetic Bruce Wayneamd soon became the first Robin. [Actually, depending on the continuity, Bruce was the first Robin ~D] After stepping out from beneath the shadow of the Bat, Grayson became Nightwing and set out to become his own man. Over the years Nightwing has really come in to his own.  It would be a shame to see an end come to the Nightwing identity, but can you really see the next Batman being anybody other than Dick Grayson?

Tim Drake
Over the years since Tim Drake put on the red tights he has really come in to his own. When I think of Robin I think of Tim Drake; Drake is the definitive Robin, but is he strong enough to become more than that? In recent months we’ve seen Robin go through hell and have to be Gotham’s only protector in the absence of Batman, battling off gang wars, Jason Todd, Lynx, Anarky, and a fake Red Robin, mostly arranged by Spoiler in an attempt to make Tim “better.” After handling all of this at once and doing pretty good at it, has Tim proven himself capable of being the next Batman?

Jason Todd
Jason Todd has always been the black sheep of the Bat-Family. He was taken in by Batman with the idea of making Todd into something better and channeling his rage for a better cause. Despite Batman’s best efforts, the second Boy Wonder was always a loose cannon. During A Death in the Family, we saw an angst filled Jason Todd searching for his mother only to be captured by the Joker and brutally beaten to death with a crowbar. Later, Jason Todd was brought back to life by Superboy’s reality punch only to fall out of the public eye almost entirely. But is it possible that Jason Todd could surprise us all and win The Battle for the Cowl?

Ted Grant
Even Wildcat has a stake in this fight. As an expert martial artist and master of countless fighting styles, Ted Grant definitely has the moves. Having trained Batman himself, Grant shares the same will and is obviously capable of carrying on the mantle. But will he?

Thomas “Hush” Elliot
Thomas Elliot, in my opinion, is one fucked up dude. Over the short amount of since his introduction into the Batman Universe, he has gone out of his way to tear down Bruce Wayne and destroy everything that he loves. It all started in Hush when Elliot exploited his friendship with Bruce Wayne and the death of Jason Todd to launch a devastating attack on Batman.  Most recently he was the main villain in the Heart of Hush story arc in which he removes Selina Kyle’s heart from her chest while keeping her alive with technology given to him by Mr. Freeze then performs plastic surgery on himself to look exactly like Bruce. Now that he has the mask of Bruce, will he be able to take on the face of Batman?

Harvey Dent

Former District Attorney Harvey Dent has always been a wild card. With all of his actions decided by the flip of a coin, Two-Face is an erratic man of chance. For a time, he was cured of his split-personality disorder, had his face restored by plastic surgery, and stood in for Batman during his year-long journey of self-discovery [See 52 ~ the indomnitable D Man]. Upon Batman’s return, Dent was reunited with his “darker” personality and re-scarred his face himself to again become Two-Face. Now that Batman appears to have left again, will Harvey Dent once again become the protector of Gotham?

Out of this list of competitors who will lay claim to the cowl? The Prodigal Son? The Boy Wonder? Perhaps someone darker? No one know until Battle For the Cowl kicks off in March. Until then we’re all left asking ourselves: Who will be the Batman?

Honorable Mentions:

Damian Wayne
Though Damian is an underdog here there is still a chance -  there are some crazy writers out there, after all. I think it’s fairly safe to  say that Damian WILL have a substantial role in the Battle for the Cowl and that his future is almost certainly as the next Robin.

Katherine “Kate” Kane
Katherine Kane, the current Batwoman, deserves some mentioning here. Though I find it doubtful she will have much of a role in Battle for the Cowl, she has really come into her own. Who knows, maybe she’ll become an official member of the Bat-Family?

Selina Kyle
I really don’t see Catwoman vying for the cowl, but I do see her interfering with Thomas Elliot’s efforts. She could be a huge factor in the story.

Alfred Pennyworth
Former spy in the Queen’s service, expert medical training, mechanic, chef, Father Figure to Bruce, and he does windows!  My money says “Watch Alfred.” I obviously don’t think he will be fighting to become the next Batman but I am interested to see who he throws his support behind.

Harleen Quinzell
I’m honestly not entirely sure why she has been in the current solicitations from DC but she has my attention. What role will she have?

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First of all, I should warn you that this post contains some spoilers of Batman 681 and the Batman RIP storyline if you’ve yet to read these issues and/or you hate having anything spoiled, you should probably stop reading now and come back when you have everything read.

As for the rest of you, I just finished reading the final issue of Batman RIP and… I really don’t know how I feel about it. If this hadn’t been hyped up with Morrison’s statements about “the ultimate betrayal” and “a fate worse than death”, I think I would be satisfied and maybe even feel like this was a pretty damn good story, but promises were made and those promises were not kept and for that… I feel more than a little betrayed and ripped off.

There was no betrayal that I could see, unless he was talking about Dr. Hurt’s claims that he was Thomas Wayne and Alfred may have been Bruce’s real father, but did anyone ever really believe that they were true? There was no “fate worse than death” for Bruce, either, as far as I could tell. In fact, there’s an insinuation that Bruce’s fate at the end of this issue may have actually been death, though I doubt anyone thinks that we’ve seen the last of Bruce Wayne.

In fact, there are no real answers here, which makes it hard for me to really consider RIP “over”. Some things are resolved - Bruce apparently knew that an attack was coming all along, though he wasn’t sure exactly where it would come from until it was almost too late. Nonetheless, he did make some preparations and claimed to have seen through Jezebel Jet almost as soon as he fell in love with her. Ultimately, those preparations were enough to give him the edge needed to take down The Black Glove, which was never a person, but rather a group of persons, and their leader Dr. Hurt, who may have been Thomas Wayne (Bruce denies this claim), Mangrove Pierce (Bruce’s theory), the Devil wearing the “skin” of these other men (Hurt’s final claim). The Devil is strongly hinted throughout the book, but this seems a bit too over-the-top, even for Morrison. Honestly, my money’s on an insane Mangrove Pierce who believed he was the other two, but any of these answers is ultimately unsatisfying and we never really get a firm answer on what the truth really is.

In the end, Morrison’s claims that this would be the “end of Batman”, along with his other grandiose statements, turned what could have been a very good cliffhanger leading into a hiatus for Bruce Wayne (while he went away to figure out who he really was and what his mission really is) into a disappointing story that fell short of its promises.

…or maybe I’m griping too much. This actually was a very good story, and even an acceptable end, just not what we were promised.

Technorati Tags: Batman, Batman RIP, The Black Glove, Dr. Hurt, The Devil, Thomas Wayne, Grant Morrison

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Yesterday’s Lying In The Gutters column has the internet abuzz starting with the successful exposure of a con artist presenting himself as the legendary Art Adams (see what I did there with the “con artist thing? HA!) and ending with several rumors about trouble at DC Comics.

First there were rumors about trouble between Dan DiDio and Grant Morrison over Final Crisis:

A familiar source known collectively as “New York comics industry employees talking in bars” tells me that the last issue of “Final Crisis” is further delayed as it is suffering from serious rewrites. It appears that DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio was unhappy with the way the story concluded and the implications for the DC Universe for a while and had ordered changes from a, naturally, rather unhappy Grant Morrison. Considering this is the way he wrote the pitch for the book.

As a result, creative teams working on a number of spinoff and affected books have also had to stop work while the “Final Crisis” ending is reworked.

Expect more lateness, more annoyance and less likelihood of Grant Morrison doing DCU work in the near future.

In fairness to DiDio, this isn’t the first time that I’ve heard of Morrison getting pissy when Editorial doesn’t completely sign off on his craziness.

In fairness to Morrison, though, the man is a mad genius.

In even more fairness to Morrison, he is apparently not the only person upset with DiDio:

Morrison is not the only person having difficulties with DiDio’s direction. I understand that James Robinson and Dan had a stand up argument that led to Robinson quitting the Superman books and the DCU in general.

And finally, since DiDio is alienating so much of his current talent roster:

Dan DiDio is currently in the process of recruiting film and TV writers for their books. The recent “Batman: Cacophony” by Kevin Smith and Walt Flanagan has been cited, apparently the script was perfect, with very little editing needed.

This, of course, would be the comic where the The Joker offers his bottom to be sexually violated by his rescuer, jokes about the colour of his pubic hair, a scene depicting genital torture and no sign of a Mature Readers tag.

Heh…”merkin”.

Seriously, though… it’s possible that there should have been some kind of warning on there, even if Kevin Smith’s name should be enough warning to keep something away from a five-year-old.

Those were the highlights for me, but head on over to Rich’s column to catch all the rumors - he’s rarely far off!

Technorati Tags: DC, drama, Dan DiDio, Grant Morrison, James Robinson, Kevin Smith, Final Crisis, Superman, Batman Cacophony, Lying in the Gutters

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Over at I Love Rob Liefeld (which is quite possibly the ballsiest name for a blog like, ever.), Sandy Bilus decided to celebrate Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s “economic use of pages to tell an epic story.” in All-Star Superman by trying to summarize the entire storyline in exactly eleven panels and does a damn good job.

Click the panels below to see Sandy’s summarization. I’ll wait here.

If you like that, Sandy decided to follow up by seeing if he could summarize Frank “The Goddamn” Miller’s All-Star Batman and Robin in nine panels. This one didn’t turn out quite as well, but it’s still entertaining.

I’m sure someone could draw some kind of argument about compression vs decompression and all that shit, but who cares? Like Grant Morrison says, “Just write good comics!”

Technorati Tags: Sandy Bilus, Decompression, Compression, Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Frank Miller, All-Star Superman, All-Star Batman and Robin, Rob Liefeld

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Image by edwick via Flickr

First of all, I highly recommend that you read IGN’s excellent interview with Grant Morrison. It touches on everything from Morrison’s approach to storytelling on previous works as well as current projects like Final Crisis, All-Star Superman, and Batman: RIP to his post-Crisis and RIP plans to his plans to reconcile the discrepancies that came from Death of The New Gods, Countdown, and the beginning of Crisis.

I’d really love to talk about everything in that interview, and maybe I will come back to it another time, but for now I want to focus on Morrison’s take on the whole “Creator-Owned vs Work-for-Hire” kerfluffle that resulted from Robert Kirkman’s call-to-arms video editorial that he posted last week on Comic Book Resources. Morrison perfectly summed up my thoughts on how silly the whole debate really is.

I suppose I’m slightly amused by the reformer’s zeal with which each new generation approaches the problem of ’saving’ comics. It reminds me of humanity’s charming, self-regarding notion that it’s our job to ’save’ a planet which has survived fine without us through several mass extinction events, climactic overhauls and planetary disasters.

I’ve been listening to people talk about ’saving’ the ‘industry’ for over 20 years while comics have continued to be published and have, in fact, become better, to the point where the only conclusion I’ve come to is that comics are best ’saved’ by sealing them in Mylar bags! Everything else is just messianic inflation. Just do good books and stop trying to be the savior of a whole medium that’s been doing okay without you and will continue long after you’re gone.

Yes, I think Kirkman’s right, in that I’d like to see more of our creative community unleashing their wild imaginations onto the page and less of the obvious ‘movie pitch on paper stuff’ that’s come about recently as a result of comic creators chasing the Hollywood dollar but I don’t have a problem with writers and artists working on Marvel and DC properties if they enjoy it. I’d rather read a good Green Lantern story by someone who cares than work my way through a ‘creator-owned’ project that’s been created solely to appeal to lowest-common-denominator movie executives.

To which I say “Fucking DUH!” Beyond their own bank account, which I totally support writers looking out for, what does it matter who you’re writing for as long as you’re writing good stories? If you write well, the readers will come.

Morrison also points out that the vast majority of major comic writers do have their own creator-owned properties that they’re working on, which I knew but hadn’t really thought of, if you get what I mean.

Technorati Tags: Grant Morrison, IGN, Interview, Robert Kirkman, Comic Books, Comic Book Industry

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Image from Wikipedia

Rich Johnston’s latest Lying in the Gutters column is chock full of rumors, as always, but there’s only one update that I was paying attention to:

Oh and Dead Batman/Todd Batman/God Bruce Wayne? So not happening. You can still expect a status-challenging new scenario, still expect Alex Ross covers and designs, still expect some intricately complex yet instantly entertaining Morrisonia, just, expect something else. Did Internet reaction affect this? Not one jot it seems. All decisions are taking place at a much higher level, and Warner Bros. have made their feelings known.

Damn straight, mofos. I don’t even care if the millions of us screaming about how terrible this idea are acknowledged, since even my 16-month old son could see how stupid this was.

Previous posts on this rumor can be found here, here, and… here.

As always, I highly recommend reading Lying in the Gutters and everything else on Comic Book Resources; It’s good stuff.

tag: DCU, Batman, Comics, Jason Todd, New Gods, Rich Johnston, Grant Morrison

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