The shit was whack from the beginning. It isn’t exactly his Batman. This is a much more gentler and calmer Batman that he’s writing. Not the uber prep-time god that was feared in his JLA run.
And he references this:
Which, to a lot of us Batman fans, is a no-no.
Wow, did Shot Symphy say he actually agreed with me? As such, I feel morally obligated to defend his honor against Deathy… Although Deathy is a BSP fan, so I guess it all evens out in the end when I do nothing.
But Symphy did remind me of how much I used to LOVE Teen Titans. From the first issue, all the way up to the end of the “Titans Tomorrow” storyline (other than that weakass Tom Grummet-pencilled Beast Boy arc), Teen Titans kicked so much heavy duty left buttock.
The “Lights Out” story and the Robin vs. Electrocutioner issue were still all right, but signalled the beginning of the end. They did a solid job tying in some loose Crisis threads, and it helped a lot that “Lights Out” still had Mike McKone. After that, Crisis’ role in the comic was just too much and I lost interest. And obviously, if I lose interest in something, it’s a terrible comic, because I LOVE MATT WAGNER DAVID LAPHAM GARGOYLES.
Don’t forget, Morrison’s Batman run was interrupted with a John Ostrander/Tom Mandrake arc. I have no idea why. I haven’t read those Ostrander issues, but I’m sure they can’t be as good as Morrison’s, which is why the series may not be earning favorable reviews.
Son of the Demon… Haha. The best thing about that comic is panel 2, page 4. Some terrorist is holding a knife to a hostage’s face and talking smack. Then, out of freakin’ nowhere, Batman CLOCKS the guy in the back of the head. In the picture, it’s just Batman’s arm, extended straight out (and remember, this was back in the era when his costume was light blue and gray), the hostage with a bewildered expression, and the terrorist falling forward. It’s great- the terrorist’s eyes are shut in pain, and spit is flying out of his mouth. And it’s all accompanied by perhaps the greatest sound effect in the entire Batman mythos:
CLUD
And then, the panel after that, the terrorist is sitting on the floor, holding the back of his head with one hand. With his other hand, he’s shooting a stream of bullets into the shadows, and he says, “Who did that? WHO?”
And that comic kinda just goes downhill from there.
BSP? Freshen me up on the acronyms, Zephy.
What’s with this “Damian” shit?
BSP = British Sea Power, silly!! I thought you hugged me on that one?
What is “‘Damian’ shit”?
CURSES FOILED AGAIN
That is doubly embarrassing because I actually know how to spell the word “chauffeur” and I’ve actually questioned the sexual orientation of people I’ve caught misspelling it in the past.
“Chaffeur” is just like someone saying “chaffer” but with a phony Pink-Panther-like French accent.
Pft, BSP. That’s some wacky tobaccy. You catch the new Arcade Fire album yet? That’s some hot Canadian FIYAH right there. No Cars Go = mind exploding.
By the way, you win post of the day for successfully using the word “baubles” without coming across as a massive cocksniffer like I just did. You present a fascinating perspective that I hope Bendis appreciates as well.
They’ve existed for two days and already the New Avengers are my new favourite superhero group - they gangsta as hell! Next story arc after the “Takin’ it to the Streets…and CORNERS!” arc - The New Avengers versus the Kree/Skrull Empire in an Interstellar Breakdance Battle. Called “Old School, circa 1940’s” - where Ronin’s mysterious identity is revealed as Captain America has to bust some pre-Elvis moves on the new Superskrull Stretchmasta Funk to save the rest of the New Avengers from being straight up served.
DEEJAY BRING DAT BACK
I’m going to have to disagree with you on the whole “Crisis not being bad” angle, P.Giddy. It was bad.
Furthermore, didn’t Old Superman punch through that reality time space warp continuity force bubble thing like…IN INFINITE CRISIS? That’s how they survived/got back/whatever, right? Wat cho talkin’ bout “non integral?” Shit started the Crisis!
And I guess no one read it but me, but it was the explanation behind Jason Todd’s return in the Batman Annual. I’m not even exaggerating here - one panel’s a shot of inside his coffin where he’s like this dead zombie-like dude, next panel is the RETCON PUNCH - which is so powerful that it actually causes waves of anti-continuity to spread out over the page into other panels, like the next panel which suddenly shows the inside of the coffin again, but Jason Todd’s suddenly fully alive and freaking out because he’s in a coffin six feet underground and just brought back by a patented RETCON PUNCH, and he’s gotta pull some Kill Bill 2 shit to get out.
Probably the funniest three panel sequence I’ve seen in a long time - so in hindsight, I guess Batman Annual wasn’t that bad. 'cept for the fact that they tried to pass it off as this serious, believable story. Who’s responsible? Judd Winick? That pretty much erased all the good credit he had with the previous Red Hood stories with Doug Manke, which were pretty good.
The Batman title has been sucking for a while now though. That Morrison/Kubert arc was almost Lee/Miller level in terms of being surprisingly not good. Grant Morrison was clearly sleep walking through it - I think it was like he wanted a new car or something, so he slapped together a Batman script in like two days. Like…do you really think Harrison Ford really wanted to do Firewall? He probably just wanted a new house and to go around the whole talk show circuit once more again.
Though those four Ostrander/Mandrake were just terrible. Really boring - like wouldn’t you think every comic book writer out there has been dreaming of working on Spider-Man or Batman or something at one point in their lives? So when they actually get a chance to write a four issue arc as a filler until DC stops assing around and puts good talent on that book again…wouldn’t you think most guys would have this awesome Batman story they’ve got stashed away all ready to go? I can’t imagine anyone waiting their whole professional life to write a Batman story that was that bad, about a plastic surgeon that has a killer plastic surgeoning machine that cuts stuff and whatever. It was four issues of crap that could have been told in two crappy issues.
That’s what I don’t get about the big books like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men…shouldn’t those books ALWAYS be at least pretty good? Because everyone in the industry has to have a couple stories in them for the big properties that they’ve put together in their spare time or these neat ideas that they have bouncing around in their heads. Yeah, a lot of those go into those Batman: Black & White anthologies, but there should always been a good team available that actually wants to work on those books, that have great ideas at the ready. Not this filler crap that I just endured for the last eight months. Ninja man-bats would be like the greatest idea ever if anyone else came up with them…but I expect more from you, Grant Morrison!
Though Amazing Spider-Man is awesome, so I can’t say anything about that. But if a book sucks…there should be a thousand replacements hungry to take over the job right away out there.
I would assume it is referring to batman’s son. A bastard just like me. =)
Oh…yeah. makes mental note
continues hug
Fuck Arcade Fire. BSP > AF. Hell, we even have a poster by the same name. I need to call him lame next time actually. British Sea Power know how to make music. Really good music. Apologies to Ant Life is ridiculous. Just the bassline alone kills that song. And the drumming is twice as nuts.
I believe from this point forward, me and Linty are enemies. In music, baseball, and possibly, comics. But we agree on some things, like these next few paragraphs I’ll be supplying with 'co-sign’s and insight.
I’m gonna go on a limb and say that the WHOLE point of IC was to make Blue Beetle cool just in time to kill him off. Crisis build up was awesome. It started off right. But, the ending just left this awful taste in my mouth. It was like eating unwashed pussy. You know it’s the right thing to do, but, in the long run it isn’t worth it because it just tastes nasty.
Yes. He did. Superboy just punched a wall of continuity out of pure anger. It wasn’t the exact reality wall to come back into Earth 1.
I read it as well. It was the worst thing ever. I was traumatized. And I still remember the first 3 pages visually. I need therapy. And I blame Judd Winick.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything here. So, insert a ‘co-sign’. EVERYONE has that one kickass Superman/Spidey/Batman/Xmen/What-have-you storyline that they wanna throw out there. But, they eventually chicken out and think that it was a story for it’s time and then they talk shit about “Oh, well, you know, I wanted to start fresh and I think this idea was better because that’s how art is.” Fuck that.
People should be hungry, as you said. And the reason why these books are snorefests most of the time is because the name itself is enough to sell it. Why put your all when you just A) Got a free paycheck to play relief pitcher for Roger Clemens and B) Just look at the logo. It says ‘Batman’. People will pick it up. There is no excuse for the consumer. It’s Batman and people nut-hug the top tier comic characters. Some people can’t tell the difference between a bad story and a good one.
Let’s be real here, there are only a select few of us that consider Geoff Johns the end-all-be-all at DC. But, no one sees it that way because he’s writing these “lame” books with “lame” characters that fight “lame” villains and cheesy concepts from the World War II era. People don’t read JSA for those reasons. And to the haters, I say fuck them. Yet, they’re the ones picking up the crappy books like the current Flash run and thinking “Yeah, it’s alright.” NO! It is crap. Put that down and buy Geoff Johns’ run on the Flash. You will be enlightened. You will learn to appreciate comic book continuity thanks to Geoff Johns pre-IC stuff.
People are stupid like that when it comes to comics.
Just picked up Bone: the one volume edition.
It’s got over 1000 pages. I haven’t read Bone before in my life, but I’m looking forward to it.
Yeah but that was a get out of jail punch, not a retcon punch. It was superboy doing the retcon punches which only really happened in the annual.
Yeah I missed that one, I guess it’s your fault for reading the whole red hood storyline in the first place.
I dunno, I think it is kind of cool that Johns was able to come up with a device to explain all of the deaths, resurrections, and metamorphosises(?) that had been going on the previous two years.
Next time, bub, don’t even bother trying. You think this A on my head stands for France?!
P.S.- Win Butler, the lead singer/songwriter of Arcade Fire was born in Texas- AMERICA’S COUNTRY
Right, I should have realized that. My bad. So in Son Of The Demon (remember, it sucks, so don’t waste money on it), Batman decides he must team-up with Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Assassins in order to fight a “common foe.” As such, Batman becomes their lieutenant (is that a French-based word, too? It looks like it. No wonder this comic sucks.) and trains them in his ways of non-lethal fighting. Of course, despite his genius, he doesn’t take away their guns and swords and shit. Nevermind that he has no plan in place to prevent Ra’s from achieving his master goal of cleansing the world.
Anyway, while Battyman is helping Ra’s, he gets it on with Talia, Ra’s daughter. She puts on some French-based lingerie, and seduces him with a couple words. Apparently, Batman doesn’t have any condoms in his utility belt because she gets pregnant. At the end of the story, she tells him she lost the baby after he was born- apparently, this shakes Batman up. But instead of trying to comfort his lover, he realizes he must leave the League of Assassins and fight crime in Gotham like a maniac. And then the last couple pages show that Talia lied, and the baby didn’t die after all.
So he comes back during Morrison’s run as a teenaged kid. And beats up Robin. And does other rambunctious stuff.
It was an honest mistake. I know this is shoryuken; BSP could have been referring to Blackheart, Storm, Psylocke.
But you obviously know what you’re talking about, so I’ll add my own co-sign to your post. If Giddy tears us a new one, hug me harder.
Bone is one of the best things that a human being can possibly read. You are in for a treat. Tell us what you think after you finish it.
Oh yeah, did anyone get the first issue of Jeff Smith’s Shazam miniseries? It looks soooo sexy… Especially in color. And obviously the story is going to be amazing, although I only read the first couple pages. It is going to make one sexy hardcover or paperback.
I was gonna ask if anyone here got the 1st issue…is it better to wait for TPB of this?
Re: music
No Cars Go was perfectly good back in the day. Tbh I see no reason to revisit it at all.
British Sea Power are one of the UK’s most criminally underrated bands. I’ve seen them twice at successive Readings ('04 and '05?) where they played great sets. It’s an odd atmosphere, so much foliage, so many fans with twigs and leaves and bear outfits… I’ve never seen anything like it.
Re: comics (the reason I come to this thread!)
walking dead isnt the end all be all people say (much like fables, Bru, etc) but it has its moments
Setting hug-grip to 60%. I hope this is enough. Giddy must be stopped.
I’ve read a teeny-weeny bit of Bone. And I was slightly amazed by it. The simplicity of it’s design and it’s marketing. It’s too good. Cow Race ftw.
And yes, I as well, picked up Jeff Smith’s Shazam series. I’m supporting Captain Marvel these days. I have to say, I have not been this hooked to B-list characters since forever. As a child, ignorance gets the best of you and you go for the big boys. I still love 'em, but damn, are the little guys getting all the good writing. I’m not gonna go into my usual fanboy love of the little guy.
Deathscythe MAY be purchasing Fables vol. 1 next week. Prepare for a long-winded post about Fables and how it changed/didn’t change my love for comic books.
Rounding out the rest of the books I read this week -
52 - More Lex pawnage!
X-Men Annual - Oh snap, both Exodus and Frenzy were in this comic! Long time no see!
Bru X-Men - What the heck, Deathbird hooks up with someone else? Wasn’t too long ago that she was with Bishop, she sure gets around ha ha!
Wasn’t a bad week for comics overall.
Okay, me, Bunkei, and the Alphaism crew got into it about comics and all that shit. Everybody on there is talking about how Batman isn’t shit, and I mentioned that Batman and prep time and all that shit.
Bunk wants to know what would happen if Batman went up against Spidey in the Venom Suit.
Prep Bats would have a high frequency soundwave emitter thingamajigger to own Venom Spidey up.
Simple, Morrison did a cliche story and has been late as hell on the title. I mean he brought the Son of the Demon story into continuity and all he did with it was make the kid evil. I and others expected more from Morrison or at least better execution.
highlights from Marvel’s May solits: