Batman and Robin 2 and Wednesday's Comics

Batman and Robin 2. This is my second least favorite Morrison Quitely team up (my least favorite being Riot at Xaviers because all the characters were so unsympathetic) -- that is not as bad as it sounds, since all the other Morrison Quitely team ups are all perfect A's. What's my problem with Batman and Robin? I am not quite sure. I don't hate it. I can see that Quitely's pencils are great. The coloring I am not wild about: in the reigning war between Morrison's Batman and Miller's Batman, the coloring reminds me of nothing more than Varley's colors for DKSA -- except they went so much better with Miller's "sloppy" pencils. Once again -- and I know this is an issue of debate whether this should matter (cf the conclusion to Batman: RIP) - but Morrison overhyped the fight scene with the three circus dudes fighting as one -- he compared it to WE3, which was not the place to go. It was interesting, but not a great use of the medium, as I had the rare thought that what I was reading in a comic book might be better on screen. It is also very strange for the second issue to grind to such a halt to do a character piece about the relationship between the new Batman and new Robin, and a pep talk from Alfred. The characters are very well done, and the Alfred scene especially was heartwarming in all the right places -- one of the better done emotional moments Morrison has done in a superhero comic book. It just felt strangely placed to me -- something not helped by the fact that the ending beat here was so similar to the ending beat of issue 1, just amped up by placing a character we know in place of one we don't. I a obviously still on board with this story -- the only comic book I am picking up on Wednesdays, and it is only weak in the context of other Morrison Quitely Team Ups -- but I am still not sure that Miller does not continue to haunt Morrison in the worst way.

Wednesday's Comics 1. I hated 52, the only Morrison work that I simply stopped getting (12 issues in), never once regretting the decision. But I did admire, especially in retrospect, the formal innovation, especially when all Marvel could muster in response was a Spiderman book coming about three weeks a month. Now DC has done it again on a bigger level -- a comic book I basically am bored with in terms of content, but one that is pretty impressive and exciting on the level of form. GIANT NEWSPAPER COMICS! The idea to give a single page to separate creative teams working on separate stories was a great one: one of the things I want from comics is for the same creators to be on a run -- no fill ins -- and this does it, and also comes out weekly. Nice. But the stories had too little room to go anywhere, or even establish a decent hook -- and if we can compare a single page story to the teaser of a TV show (and I will admit maybe we can't) it should be possible to get a good hook in there. Instead we got an old man we don't care about about to be smothered, a story both distasteful and boring (Batman), the last man on earth is not the last man on earth, Superman is an alien like his foe (a story told a million times), Hal Jordan is in space while everyone he knows is in a diner, Metamorpho is after treasure (and in one of the only stories where someone did something heroic), a villain attacks the Teen Titans in empty space for no reason, Superpets on the loose, Metal Men cant stay under cover, Wonder Woman has a dream, a soldier is tortured, the Flash races and his wife things about leaving him, Catwoman scopes treasure and in the worst one if the bunch birds narrate this horrible dialogue lifted from Miller's 300, but with no sense of irony in replacing the word "march" with "flap" -- a word that surely should come with irony. Pope's art was maybe the only thing I cared about. That said, this is just getting started -- the other thing this reminded me of was when Marvel did that month of sideways annuals: it is a great formal innovation, but artists had not really had time to adjust to the new options (the way, say, Frank Miller was able to get the feel of a similar formal break in 300). Many of the stories here fought a bit with the form: compare the Wonder Woman Story to the Srgt Rock story -- Wonder Woman was trying to get more than a dozen normal comic book pages squeezed into the space, Rock simply blew up what probably would have been a single page (in, say, a book like Watchmen). In time, as people get a feel for this, it might be a really neat thing, but for now I think the only legacy Wednesday Comics will leave behind is it had the guts to try something new with the format, no small thing.

Comics Out Friday January 2nd 2009 (Umbrella Academy, Final Crisis: Secret Files, and Morrison's Batman))

A little behind with this post because of the holidays -- I also got confused and I think some of the things I picked up on the 2nd actually came out the week before. Nevertheless.

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas. The more I read this comic book the more I like it. The two guys at the beginning, in the masks, are absolutely terrifying, and I am starting to think that this book may have the potential to transcend its huge debts to the X-Men and Doom Patrol. In a world with Casanova and All Star Superman this book was just pretty good, but now that those series are off the table, this is one of the ONLY books I find myself looking forward to, though I am feeling pretty down about comics lately. Jesus shit those guys were scary.

Final Crisis: Secret Files. I call Shenanigans. Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones are listed on the cover and Frank Quitely was promised in the solicitations. Actually Morrison is listed second on the cover out of four names making me think he was the second most important person contributing -- actually, they listed the two writers followed by the two artists even though the second writer barely contributed to this. Basically the entire comic book -- certainly the only story in the comic book -- is Len Wein and Tony Sashstein's origin of Libra, which is a bad idea since most of his story is a rehash of his one comic book appearance from the 70s which DC already reprinted as a sort of Final Crisis preview six months ago. Then there is one page of nonsense by Ruka, one page of text notes about the anti-life equation by Morrison and four more pages of sketchbook material by Jones and Morrison that should have been in the original sketchbook comic. The Morrison prose is sort of interesting, and clears up a bit the connection between Seven Soldiers and Final Crisis -- though surely that should have been in the story and not as some kind of a director's commentary: this reminded me of nothing more than Richard Kelley's explanations of Donnie Darko: there is something to knowing that was what he had in mind but it is sort of his job to actually put that on the page somehow. Anyway Morrison's thoughts on the subject are, as I say interesting, but the are not 4 dollars interesting.

Batman 683. I enjoyed these last two issues of Morrison's Batman after really being annoyed with the conclusion to Batman RIP. I especially hated the ending to Batman RIP once I started reading around the internet -- apparently one of the working theories of Dr Hurt was that he was the evil self Batman rejected in the Tibetan Ritual, almost Batman's Casandra Nova. That is a GREAT idea and I cannot understand why that was not the reveal at the end. Certainly Morrison's Batman has a lot in common with his New X-Men run -- sporadically great and sporadically so badly made it is unreadable, with large swaths of awful art. One thing Batman 683 does wrong is that it adds insult to injury with the claim at the end of the issue that we should "Follow the Dark Knight to his Last Adventure in Final Crisis 6" -- after promising that Batman RIP was some kind of "final story" two issues later we get the next "final story." Obviously there is not going to be a final Batman story, but that does not mean you should just announce the end every few issues with no connection to what is inside. Maybe they did that in the old days or something, but in an auteur culture you just loose all your credibility.

This story was the high point in the run for me, a really nice tribute to Batman's history, and a brilliant idea about how Batman can make even his memories a weapon. The art was not great, but the end of this was really nice with the Lump and Alfred. I even liked how it was isolated from Final Crisis -- it felt right since it was basically all in Batman's mind. I look forward to reading the conclusion in Final Crisis 6 actually. This issue also featured one of Morrison's major anxiety of influence tropes -- the canonization of key moments of a character's history with his own contributions to that history prominently displayed. See All Star Superman, which hits major Superman moments (Luthor, Bizarro, Doomsday) but does not fail to give major time to Morrison's recent contributions, Solaris and the future Superman and Golden Superman from his DC One Million. See also New X-Men Here Comes Tomorrow, which pays tribute to the Sentinels, Days of Future Past, and Dark Phoenix but also Casandra Nova, Fantomex, and Sublime. Batman 682-683 takes us on a whole ride of Batman's history, but the end is a big kicker -- the Lump knows everything about Batman (wonderfully he can trust Batman to get revenge) but is dying. Batman says "you need a jolt to get you moving?" His memories -- his history -- destroyed the Batman clones, but you know what resurrects the Lump Neo style? MORRISONS CONTRIBUTIONS TO BATMAN"S HISTORY! "You need a jolt to get you moving" is followed immediately by memories of Batman's purification ritual in 52, the Thogal ritual, Damian, and the Batman of Zur En Arrh, all from Morrison's Batman run. That was the jolt Morrison thought the Batman mythos needed. Pretty good stuff.

That said this may be time for me to get off this book, unless the art gets better. Because that final image is really less than inspiring and I need something inspiring right now. If Quitely joins as is rumored I will pick it up; if not I may switch to the trade.

Comics Out Thursday December 4th, 2008 (Morrison's Batman))

Batman 682.



Superhero origin stories are told again and again -- even Superman is getting a new one, which is just silly at this point, yeah? The trick is, what are you going to add to the story that was not there before persuasively. How many times have I seen that bat crash through Batman's window? Lots of times. How many times has it occurred to me that the bat is surely dead as a result of the crash through the window? Zero. That there would be a mess to clean up? Zero. That of course Alfred is going to have to dispose of this stupid fucking animal, which has no symbolic significance for him? Zero. That he is going to have to THROW IT AWAY and BURN it, because it is a dead animal that is going to give someone RABIES or something. That page seriously cracked me up, because it perfectly fulfills the Hollywood axiom of be INEVITABLE yet SURPRISING. (If I was still arguing that Morrison was in a literary agon with Miller, this would be a great subversion of Year One, but I am declaring that fight over. Morrison never stood a chance, but he can still hold his head proud for kicking the crap out of Alan Moore's Man of Tomorrow story in All Star Superman).

The rest of the issue was not so good. The variant history thing where you acknowledge variant tellings of the story with "thats not how it happened I have seen before and seen better. I have certainly seen it DRAWN better by John Cassaday in Planetary/Batman. Mothman and Snake man did not do it for me. The art was occasionally charming (panels 2 and 4 of page 13 for example), but not by any means a favorite. The end reveal was OK, but as Tim Callahan points out, it refers to a book that came out long ago, and which I do not really remember anymore. Overall: a lukewarm comic book with one great page.

Comics Out November 26, 2008 (Morrison's Batman)

Spoilers on Batman, below.

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #1. This was basically good -- the art work was fun and those time guys had a cool design. Gabriel Ba is why I get this book. The colors on the battle sequence were particularly nice, and I would like to see more comics embrace a really garish color scheme -- garish colors are such a staple of comics, and obviously a book like the JLA is going to have a mess of color, but I do like to see a book that takes it to a new level just to make it feel fresh. Umbrella Academy is not of the caliber of something like Dark Knight Strikes Again, but that is another book that really does a great job with color. Give me the color palate of Courage the Cowardly Dog or Chowder any day. But I am impatient to get to the meat of this post, so I am moving on quickly.

Batman 681. Tim Callahan is a good critic when you give him a good comic book, but in my mind, particularly with Morrison, he is far too forgiving of error. I do not mean for this post to be an attack on Callahan, but since he is one of the few critics I read on a regular basis he is going to have to stand in for some beliefs held by the comics community as a whole that I find frustrating. Here is what he writes about Batman 681 on his blog:

I do think Batman #681 is a three-and-a-half-star book, since it does plenty of things really well (basically all of the Joker stuff until his ambulance-fall-off-the bridge, the Club of Heroes arrival, the super-plans of the Batman, the flashback with the poison, the betting on Batman, the Zur En Arrh/Zorro in Arkham bit) and other things not so well (the rushed fragments of ending, the lack of a resolution or full explanation, some of the artwork). Still, as I mentioned in a comment on my annotations, I think Batman has been "by far" the best Marvel or DC ongoing series over the past six months. There's more to discuss in any single issue of this series than in a year's worth of other mainstream comics. And anything that provokes thought and discussion is better than something that doesn't as far as I'm concerned.

I disagree about the Joker stuff being on the good side: although there is something wonderfully ironic about his chilling speech to the Black Glove about how awesome Batman is and how they are totally unprepared, I was not crazy about his menacing "I'll get you later" fade out after killing a guy Morrison forgot to make me care about. The ambulance fall was, as I think Callahan implies, weak (though Damian's "What was an ambulance?" was a pretty awesome thing to say) -- coincidence is almost always lazy writing even when it is masquerading as a theme with all the gambling (the red and black did not add up to much more than a deck of cards and a color scheme Satan is associated with). I know this is supposed to be a crossover and I was only reading this book, but I hated the Club of Heroes arrival because they showed up heroically to fix a bunch of problems that I learned about the moment AFTER they arrived. The city is practically saved before I knew it was in trouble -- where is the drama there? The coffin flashback to Eastern training improved not at all on Kill Bill, and even the Princess Bride managed to think of a more interesting way to deal with poisoned cups. "ZurEnArrh" turns out to be derived from Thomas Wayne's claim that Gotham would probably put someone like Zorro in Arkham. Zorro in Arkham = Zur En Arrh. I don't hate that, I might even like it. It is an interesting bit of nonsense anyway. But it is such a mess because of the Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne connection -- the Batman of ZurEnArrh is derived from the REAL Thomas Wayne and that is what allowed Batman to beat Hurt? But Hurt knew the "trigger word" so maybe Hurt is Thomas Wayne? or I guess Satan just knows everything? What?

But even if I agreed with Callahan that all this was good, I cannot imagine giving a book three and a half stars for bad artwork -- the first thing that bothered me about page three, for example, was that it looks like Batman has a mustache and goatee; then I realized it was just shadow; then I realized that buried alive THERE IS NO LIGHT SOURCE -- maybe Daniel just wants US to be able to see in the dark, which makes sense for the scene (you cannot have three pages of black, because unlike the Tarantino comics have no access to sound), but then how are you determining where shadows fall? One the one hand this is just a quibble. On the other hand Daniels is just to lazy to care; Frank Quitely would never have let such a dumb thing on the page. "Rushed fragments of an ending" is a serious complaint alone worth more than half a star, especially since Morrison has been telling us for a year that his whole run was leading to Batman RIP. Morrison can stick a hell of an ending even on very messy books (New X-Men, Invisibles) but there was no saving this story. Dr. Hurt is who now? Satan maybe, Satan who lies about being Thomas Wayne? Alfred and Batman dismiss the idea, but I cannot tell if we are supposed to take their dismissals of the possibility at face value: if Hurt is OBVIOUSLY not Thomas Wayne why does he say he is? If it is some kind of mess with your enemy tactic it is really ineffective since neither Alfred or Batman seem phased by the issue. If the issue is in doubt why does it not bother Alfred or Batman more?

Tim Callahan writes -- and again I do not mean to go after him specifically, he is just a good example of what a lot of comics fans are saying right now -- "I think Batman has been 'by far' the best Marvel or DC ongoing series over the past six months." I do not know what "by far" is doing in quotes, but I am even less sure that this really the compliment Callahan implies it is.

And now we come to the kicker: "anything that provokes thought and discussion is better than something that doesn't as far as I'm concerned." Any major character written by an ambitious major writer that comes out this messy is going to generate a lot of discussion. A lot of that discussion is caused by a debate between people who see errors ("He implicitly promised us a big reveal on the identity of the Black Glove and Dr. Hurt, and he did not deliver") and justification of said "errors" as virtues ("Do you know how to read? He pretty clearly identified him as Satan. He just did not want to be OBVIOUS about it" or "ambivalence is a hallmark of literary fiction and even the best of recent genre fiction: look at the end of Heart of Darkness, the novel from which this issue gets its title, or even the ending of the Sopranos"). An comic book may spark a lot of debate, and the debate may be good, but that does not mean the comic book is good. If my friend gets shot in the face, it may make me think hard about my life, the brevity of it, and the people I care about, but the fact that it generated some good soul searching on my part does not mean it was a good thing that my friend got shot in the face, yeah?

A few points that I could not fit in the discussion above, just general details about the issue being a mess.

WAS Thomas Wayne and co drug addicts or is that just Hurt messing with Batman?

Batman stops being Batman (Nightwing with the cowl) but then someone else becomes Batman (the Bat-signal at the end: maybe Damian takes up the job? Is this what the next story will be about: Who is the new Batman and where is Bruce Wayne?)

I am pretty sure Bruce Wayne's black glove punching through the glass to get Hurt leader of the Black Glove -- and going down in a flaming helicopter is a lame ending by the way -- is ironic: "The Black Glove always wins" says Hurt, and indeed he is right, though not in the way he intended. There is something I really like about how Morrison wants to end this big epic with Batman punching someone, something of the pure superhero concept there. But the irony of Batman's black glove is marred because Morrison had him thinking for a moment he WAS the Black Glove, his own worst enemy, and this just muddies already muddy water.

Heart of Darkness is an overrated book, but that is a whole other post. Harold Bloom says Conrad ends with this non-sense about "The Horror! the Horror!" not because the character is in the dark, but because the author is in the dark. That seems to me to be going to far, as I think Conrad was genuinely interested in radical ambiguity and did his best with it. How this compares to what Morrison did here I do not know, but I think Morrison is just making mistakes.

I loved the end of the Sopranos, but that ambiguous ending is nothing like Morrison's, as it relied on the worship people had for the Sopranos, and the fact that this was it -- there was never going to be any more. As Brad pointed out to me, the end of the show was like a friend dying -- all you want is just five more minutes with the person, but you are always going to want five more minutes and the thing has to end. Many people thought Tony got killed at the end, and I can see the virtues of that argument, but in a larger way the show itself got killed. People expected a violent and shocking conclusion to a show that had always been about understatement, and Chase delivered tenfold on both levels: nothing was more violent and shocking, but also more understated, than that final, jarring, fade to black.

Comics Out October 1, 2008 (Morrison's Batman)

Batman 680. I think I am the only one, but I am getting a little tired of this story now. I think it is the combination of this aura of weighty importance and bad art.

I really enjoyed Batman's explanation of his crazy outfit: " The colors demonstrate total confidence. Robin dressed this way for years and survived." And I adored the line about how "inevitable" the Joker is, though the line would have been more at home in New X-Men re: Magneto. Fits in better with the theme there. But it is a great line. But I feel like I have seen that exact scene between Joker and Batman a few times now already.

I like that Batman calls the Bat-mite "Might," though there is something that bugs me (just a little) in the way the speech-balloons clarify something ambiguous in the spoken word, as if we are not only getting what Batman says, we are also getting what he MEANS. The Bat-Mite explains his role (years ago I would have used the phrase "ontological existence"): when Batman asks if he is a 5th dimensional imp or just his imagination Bat-Mite replies "Imagination is the Fifth Dimension" a piece of Morrisonian thinking I really should have seen coming in my thoughts on what exactly the status of the Bat-Mite was; I guess that equation just seemed out of place in a Batman book, where imagination is less of a theme than in, say Seven Soldiers or even JLA. What I find genuinely annoying here -- and I bet people are going to jump all over me with all kinds of absurd rationalizations -- is the Bat-Mite's claim -- his very next claim after establishing that he is a force of Otherworldly Imagination and an insane looking mini-batman cartoon imp -- is that he is the "Last fading echo of the VOICE OF REASON." WHAT? Someone can surely quote me something that equates reason and the imagination, probably from Morrison's own work, but I do not buy it. Someone around here is working with comics and romantic poetry and they are going to have a field day with this line, or break their dissertation on it. To me, it just seems like an overloaded symbolic mess but that may be because of my personal conviction that the imagination and reason are in stark opposition, as William Blake knew (and he got the idea from me).

Which brings me to my next point. Batman says "Diamonds, Clubs, Rich People! Hearts and Spades, Love and Death, The Joke and the Punchline, the Harlequins Motley, Red and Black, Cupid and the Devil." The Joker claims this is all meaningless, and he better be right, because, like the Bat-Mite, this is all starting to feel really overloaded, and it is kind of making me tired. A perfectly reasonable person might find that list to be meaningless, especially the emphasis on red and black which can basically mean anything. Though in Morrison's defense he can stick a landing like no man's business: e.g. the last issue of New X-Men, Invisibles, Animal Man. So maybe he will make me love all this in retrospect.

Comics Out Aug 15, 2008

Astonishing X-Men 26. Last month I said I was going to stick with this because of the art and Ellis being high profile, and the fact that I love the X-Men. But this issue just did not do it for me in a big way, and I think I am dropping this. Discussions take too long: Morrison had this scene in his X-Men annual where Emma downloaded Chinese into everyone's brain and I think it was like a single line where Emma is like "Chinese" and Scott goes "Ah." And of course Professor X used to do this all the time in the old days. But Ellis seems charmed by the idea -- and his idea of charming never lines up with mine -- so he spends the first full page discussing it. Ellis's fastball special lacks any kind of fun, and is weirdly repetitive of when it was first used in Whedon's run. Scott says I'm sure he's survived being thrown at a parked spaceship and 500 miles an hour before" and you realize Ellis needs the word parked to distinguish it slightly from the time a fastball special was used to throw Wolverine at a spaceship 20 issues ago. "The Ghost Box" looked awfully interesting, but the labored two and a half page discussion on the morality of killing was really boring, and they guy was not even dead. Plot wise, I just did not get enough. I am dropping this book.

Batman 679. This is maybe my favorite issue of Morrison's run so far. Someone on another blog mentioned how boring so many of these images would be if Batman were in his regular outfit. The crazy day-glow mess is really a lot of fun to watch, and the idea of a back-up personality is one of those really fun Morrison ideas. The Bat-Mite and the talking gargoyle's were my favorite and the crazy black and read roses were brilliant. And I like that Batman gets different speech balloons. Plus, in a stupid joke I am loving, the new Batman fights crime WITH A BAT. A BASEBALL BAT. Hilarious. My only problem is that I do not trust Tony Daniels, because of earlier errors: it is really unclear what "What's that thing behind you" refers to, or even if it is supposed to refer to anything. This causes serious problems in a book where the fun is supposed to be looking for clues. That thing on Bat-Mite's back -- I have no idea what that is, and surely I should not, but it looks different on the next page. And there are weird maybe editorial glitches, like when Batman says "Might!" when he seems to mean "Mite" (which could of course be a pun, but it is very strange to have Batman's speech Balloon contain a pun that is verbal but not written). Tim Callahan has pointed out how strange it is that we are unsure that Bucket-head's name is unclear, and I do not know what to do with that. And let me say that I love how the iconic Alex Ross cover is completely undercut by the iconoclastic writing inside. Name another instance of Ross being used ironically.

Comics Out July 2, 2008

Astonishing X-Men 25. Ellis is not my favorite writer, but two things are going to make me stay with this book, at least in the short term. First, I think Bianchi is a really interesting artist (especially on a book like this); I am not sure I love him, and I have no idea how Wolverine dislocated his hip on the cover, and I do not know why everyone is doing "Big Arms" when they appear in street clothes, and the muddy colors might drive me up the wall, but it sort of has my attention. Though the process of writing that sentence sort of made me change my mind about him. Second, I am a sucker for the X-Men. I am reading Claremont's entire run now thanks to Jason Powell, I invested heavily in Morrison and Whedon's runs, and Ellis is clearly set up as the new heir to the prestige stand-alone core-character X-Men run: he immediately makes fun of Whedon for the name Armor, and makes the costume choices central as Morrison and Whedon did on their first issues. The story does not have my attention at all now -- a serial killer, a genetic mutant, and spaceships (god, I do not share Ellis's fascination with spaceships, science, and random violence), especially as it lacks Morrison and Whedon's big theme openings, but I will stick with it.

Does anyone remember when Warren Ellis was all about how people who wrote superhero comics were total sellouts? And how, when someone on his forum asked him about how Morrison writing New X-Men made him feel, said "What can I say? Sometimes your friends fuck ugly girls." The more I think about it the more I think I did NOT like Astonishing X-Men 25. Still: sticking with it at least through the first arc.



Batman 678. After the conference at the Met I feel like I am seeing costumes issues everywhere -- but in both the comics I got this week, it really does seem important. My interest in this very messy, ugly and uneven run continues upwards -- the last page of this issue is the best page I have seen so far in the run, and I kind of wish Morrison had somehow started his run with it. It is everything I want to see in a Morrison Batman comic book. The magical black homeless guy ghost is kind of lame, as is much of the book, but Morrison tosses in enough interesting images and ideas -- I particularly like Hurt in the Batman outfit -- that I don't regret buying this series exactly.

In Comics News -- well actually, for no reason I can understand, I quit reading Newsarama after the format change. Something about it gets on my nerves. Let me know if I am missing anything this week.

Review, Discuss, and Recommend this week's comics. Buffy and Angel people -- feel free to spoil stuff even though I quit getting those books in issue format (and possibly in any format).

Comics Out May 29, 2008 (Final Crisis and Astonishing X-Men Audio-Reviews)

Giant Sized X-Men # 1 can only be reviewed with the power of the spoken word.






Final Crisis #1 ALSO demands an audio review.




Iron Fist 15. A pretty good story overshadowed by this week's other releases. The image on the cover is especially excellent.



Batman 677. Morrison's Batman has been as mixed a bad as his X-Met at least -- probably more. Surprisingly, I liked this issue better if only because I like all the possibilities for the identity of the Black Glove being tossed around: Thomas Wayne, Alfred (Batman's real rather?), Batman himself. The fact that Batman's obscure brother is not mentioned make him the right pick I think -- Callahan had that theory and it seems like a good one. I am still not 100% on board with this because the art is boring and I think the Bad Guy team looks kind of silly and random -- not in a good way. But I do want to see how it continues. And did you read the Morrison interview where he explained about the last page of the last issue, the one I called superfluous? Turns out the colorist got it wrong, and there was supposed to be no blood -- that way you know the last few pages were pure fantasy. Morrison has a history of not communicating with his artists, say on New X-Men or the end of the Invisibles and it is kind of sad. That's why the Quitely collaborations are the best, I think, because they are friends and live in the same city, and really plan this stuff together.



All Star Superman 11. Another perfect issue. The only problem with this series, and it is not really a problem I suppose, is that the tone was established a while back and so some of the surprise is kind of gone 11 issues in. I know what kind of thing to expect now, and 11 is not going to knock me out the way 5 did. From the moment this project was announced I have been looking forward to the inevitable Absolute edition -- 12 issues is the perfect number for a book like that. It will be, for me the definitive Superman. And maybe on a personal level more important: the definitive Luthor. I ADORE the final page of this, with Luthor transcendent in the green and purple. Notice the difference between the line work when he is in the chair in the opening two pages and this final image -- as he becomes more powerful he almost solidifies. I love Luthor. I am this close to shaving my head in solidarity.

Comics Out May 14, 2008

Casanova 14. Already reviewed on this site. Twice. One of my favorite comic book issues of all time.

Serenity: Better Days 3. Fine. Whatever.



Batman 676. Not paying attention to comics news enough, I did not realize that Batman RIP was something that was going to go outside the main Morrison written Batman title into 14 other issues. I will NOT be sucked into crossover madness, so you guys are going to have to tell me what is going on in those other titles. A few things this issue. One: the new Batmobile. I see what Morrison was going for, and the idea does not seem awful or anything, but my eye cannot help but think it is the tricked out first car of the alienated comic book loving son of some rich Wall Street jerk: he took a sports car, and added bat symbols on the wheels. Lame. Also: A CD changer. Really? I know Morrison's point was to give Batman a line about a dumb criminal, but to imply the Batmobile has ANY outdated technology is just WRONG. I mean the thing is brand new. Oh, I have become that comic book guy. Moving on. The Joker scenes were pretty scary, but I felt the last page of the comic book could have been cut altogether would harming the whole at all. Finally: are we sure the title of this refers to Batman himself? Tim Callahan has a hunch the Black Glove will turn out to be Bruce Wayne's little mentioned older brother. Thematically, I want it to somehow be his FATHER back from the dead (since Batman has his own son now). In either case: is the title a red herring, in fact telling some long dead character to stay dead (which is what RIP means)?

In comic book news, Fraction is on Word Balloon, and probably some other stuff happened as well.

Comics Out April 23, 2008

Batman 675. Bruce Wayne tries to break up with his girlfriend as the eyes on fingers guy attacks; Robin and Nightwing discuss Batman's psyche; Talia, Batman's son, and an archer named Merlyn get a prologue, and the girlfriend discovers the Wayne-Batman connection. Tim Callahan says that Morrison is not served by the 90s art here, and then moves on to discuss the strengths of the story, but I simply cannot -- or will not -- get over how bad this all looks, and how bad much of Morrison's run looks. The conversation between Wayne and his girlfriend relies heavily on their facial expressions, but Benjamin is not Barry Kitson, and the scene looks absurd. I think Wayne is laughing at one point but you really can't tell from the art. Wayne seems to have walked in from a Liefeld comic -- his face is a patchwork of random lines; in a patterned suit he looks like a no-personality gangster. Look at Damian's face when he takes the blindfold off -- when did he get to be 40 and bloated? Check out the second panel of Merlyn with his bow and arrow and explain the unnatural Liefeld-esque stance; and remember the blog that made fun of Liefeld by asking "How many teeth in a mouth? A hundred right? I'll just draw a hundred"? Check out the teeth on the second to last page, and then turn back to the cover -- two separate Morrison artists made this mistake in one issue. As for the story? Morrison is at the top of his game on Superman, and the bottom of his game here, and I have argued it is the fear of Miller. That said, is this dialogue, form this issue, a parody of Miller's intentionally repetitive Vale dialogue on All Star Batman #1:

Yes you're witty and charming and clever, but underneath there's something deep and dark and terrible, isn't there? Underneath that wit and charm there's something so cruel.

I do not know what it is, but I am pretty well sick of it. I am very much in the mood to cull my comics down to the titles I actually enjoy on a regular basis, and not the ones by writers I generally, or used to, enjoy.

In comics news, there is still a lot of fallout from the NYCCC, including a Grant Morrison video, but basically I am not keeping up with it.

Comics Out February 27, 2008

All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder 9. Scott has already reviewed this for us, but let me say two things. First let me plug the Batman book linked in the toolbar on the right; the essay I contributed to it explains why I love this title even though, like almost everyone else, I started out hating it. If you hate this book, my essay might turn you around. Second, as an artist as well as a writer you have to think Frank Miller's real reason to write this issue was to play up the visual absurdity -- yellow Batman and yellow Robin serving lemonade in a yellow room with the Green Lantern standing around unable to do anything about it. This issue continues to support the claims in my essay -- Miller brings the crazy, and the crazy is good for a character like Batman, who is such a franchise at this point. But their prank -- both with the yellow and with verbally harassing Green Lantern who is, in Miller's hands, more than a little dumb (Miller hates cops and hates space cops most of all) -- turns serious. The emotion is maudlin but it should be -- this is not a realistic portrayal of emotion. This is the emotion of a Mickey Spillane novel. And Mickey Spillane, if you missed the memo, is awesome. ALSO: how easy is it going to be for DC to roll out an anti-Green Lantern Batman action figure? All toy companies ever do is get a mold, then put slightly different paint jobs on it (jungle Batman, Winter Batman), and toss in some props (vine, sled). All they need now is some yellow spray paint and a drink pitcher from Barbie's pool set.

Batman 674. I liked Morrison's writing here, and now I am wondering if his Batman run will be a failed masterpiece along the lines of his New X-Men run -- some great ideas, some great stories, some great artists, some bad artists, some misfires, some serious weak points. At least he fully has my attention again. The answers to who are the other Batmen was pretty satisfying, as was the narration about the king of crime. The art is OK, and we will see where we go from here. As for Morrison's claim that his Batman is 35 and has basically been through everything the stories say he has, it surprising me that Morrison has such a rational explanation. To me the irrational history of these characters was the best part of them, because that chaos requires strong revision. And all of Morrison's frustration with Miller evidenced in interviews and the comic book itself suggest that this is not mere history for him.

Kick Ass 1. Not as pointlessly sadistic or unlikable as I heard over at Newsarama, though surely electrocuted testicles was too far -- being tied and beaten by criminals would have been enough for anyone who can think of violence as anything other than sexual. But overall, not great either. The main character is not as unlikable as Wesley Gibson, but there Millar wanted the audience to see themselves in the main character. Here I cannot help but think that his target audience is Hollywood, and we are all here to make that happen for him, like the friends drug up to see a band play for no reason other than that there is someone in the audience who could give them a contract and it would be best to hear us cheer.

There was a con but I did not keep up with it. Let me know if there is anything I should know in comics news.

Comics Out January 30, 2008

Batman 673. Morrison, in his continued war with Frank Miller (click the label for more), takes his Batman, after a Dark Knight Returns moment last issue, to Year One. He tries to make and end run around Miller by characterizing Miller's style as an affectation Batman uses when writing his cases down to entertain Alfred ("I practice that self-conscious, hard boiled style Alfred loves to read. Anything to keep it interesting). Morrison's Batman, you see, is the real thing, while Miller's is a merely a mannered pose, something Batman pretends to be. Morrison's version of Year One has Joe Chill and Eastern Mysticism. It's not badly written or badly drawn, but it feels like a lot of Batman comics I have already read. The Bat-Mite was to be Morrison's saving grace here, the thing Miller could never do, but he leaves the possibility that it is just a hallucination a la Ally McBeal (of all things -- we are a notch away from the dancing baby). It may save him yet if he has the guts to do something really interesting with it, but we will have to see on that point. "Make it work" as Tim Gunn always says.

Quick question: where are Morrison's editors? In this issue Batman writes his cases down in an "A4" spiral bound notebook, which is a Brit thing. I suppose they could be from Alfred, but you see my point -- even if a Brit gave you A4 paper you would not call it that so casually. I don't fault Morrison for these miniscule gaffs, but I often see editors at DC fail to americanize the scripts of their British writers. In Morrison's JLA somewhere The Flash, invited to something, says he will have to check his "diary" by which he means "calendar."

Notice also, Grant Morrison knocked out in Joe Chill's hideout. He has the purple glasses.

In comics news, Y the Last Man, which I have not read, ends, and the new Captain America uniform debuted -- go to the guest blog part of the tool bar on the right to see Erin's takedown of it when it previewed.

Comics Out December 28, 2007

X-Men. I have now read chapters one, five and nine, and was pleased to discover that since Bachalo is drawing the final part I will get to see how this all turns out without being suckered into buying a lot more books than I really want when I suspect that a summary of those books would do just as well. A new character, one I always loved, gets thrown into the mix, and Bachalo uses blood spatter liberally to distinguish those on the front lines from those clean and safe. A gay character is something, I suppose, but I feel like I have seen the dark future where mutants are in camps about a hundred times now, and it makes me glad I am avoiding the other books.

Batman. SPOILERS! I love the understated cover -- this could be any issue of Batman -- that does not hint at the insane last page, or anything like it. This issue is intriguing, but I think I am going to need either more issues, or more background, to figure out what to make of it. Part of the problem is that my entire Morrison Batman run is lent out so I cannot check to see if Commissioner Vane is from 666, or the year that story takes place -- will this Devil Batman become the Batman of issue 666? Time Travel? Just a concept chiming? The Bruce Wayne sequence did not really hold my attention, until he jumps out of a balloon and his Neil Adams lifestyle, and is figured as the Dark Knight Returns; then our Batman is reverse "crucified" on his own Bat-signal by the Devil Batman; gets shot in the chest revealing the shielding plate -- as in Dark Knight Returns; dies, as he does in Dark Knight Returns of heart failure; in his final moments sees the most iconic image from Year One, the full page bat breaking though the window; BUT in one of the strangest non-satiric revisions I have seen calls the Bat-Mite for help at the last moment, something Miller's Batman could never have done -- Morrison is doing what only he can do here, which is smart. Also there is something with a purple mask that I am not clear on -- is this from 52 or something? I am not quite sure how to put all of this together -- and anyone who has ideas should not stay quiet in the comments -- but Morrison does have my attention, at least, for the first time on this book I think. I hope he has a better point than "Batman has a wonderful history, can't we just embrace it all?"

As a side note, does anyone else think that DC pulled the rug out from under Morrison -- or he did it to himself -- with the whole return of the multi-verse thing at the end of 52? Morrison using excised pre-crisis stuff in Animal Man and JLA for example seemed so much more daring before DC decided to canonize so much of the weird stuff in other worlds. Isn't Bat-Mite a more interesting thing to use when you feel Morrison is "breaking the rules" a bit, than when "Zur En Arrh" or whatever turns out to be one of the 52 universes, right next to Wildstorm?

In Comics News Spider-Man: One More Day ended -- someone give us a detailed spoiler.

Morrison's Batman vs Miller's Batman

The fight between Frank Miller and Grant Morrison to control the destiny of the Batman saw another blow today, as Frank Miller, in the tragically misunderstood secretly weirdly brilliant All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, took a shot at Morrison.

Batman tells his young charge to pick a code name and a costume. The kid picks up a bow and arrow, thinks of Robin Hood and goes with "Hood" -- as a name and a costume choice. Batman objects to the costume and says "Hood, huh? Do you know what any thug with half a brain would do with that hood?" He violently pulls the hood over Robin's eyes and walks out saying "Lose the hood. You're Robin." He has re-imagined the origin of the name and costume of Robin in a persuasive way -- Grayson goes with Robin Hood in this "year two" in the same way the young Batman identified with Zorro in "Year One."

But he is also taking a shot at Morrison's recent Son of the Bat plot. Miller emphasizes the father-son dynamic between the two: his Batman says "What am I DOING playing Father...?" Robin's first choice of costume looks exactly like the Robin tribute costume Batman's biological son wears in Morrison's book -- and Miller's Batman chastises him for picking something so stupid. Score one Miller.

Also Morrison, in the worst issue of his career, tried to create a "new" Joker. Miller actually does it.

To summarize earlier points of contact between Miller and Morrison's Batman, which you might be able to track down by clicking the labels to this post:

Miller owns Batman in the Dark Knight Returns and Year One. In order to avoid repeating Miller, Morrison gets indirectly at Batman in his JLA and goes for a more James Bond Batman. That does not hold so he has to try something else many years later in Batman.

In JLA Earth 2 Morrison has Green Lantern take a planet in big green hands. In Dark Knight Strikes Again Miller repeats the image -- bad move Miller.

Miller goes nuts with the Vikki Vale Scene in All Star Batman 1. Morrison responds by doing a gentle parody of the scene in All Star Superman 2 -- his girl reporter also gets naked while doing an internal monologue, but the pulp sexuality is removed for something more innocent.

Morrison makes fun of Miller's gritty Batman in an interview and says that he wants to get Batman back to the Neil Adams love god days. Miller GETS THE ACTUAL NEIL ADAMS to do a cover for All Star Batman and announces they are doing a project together.

Morrison makes fun of Miller in his Batman run by having gritty Batman like Bane-Batman and Future-Batman. Miller, as I mentioned above, makes fun of Morrison's "Son of the Batman" plot.

In Morrison's first issue of Batman he has a dirty cop who pretends to be Batman. This is a retelling on the story that appeared in the comics in the two issues that preceded Miller's Year One -- Morrison is saying "Here is where it all went wrong. Let me go back to that moment and start a divergent track, an alternate history." (thanks Mitch). As I discussed in the context of Astro City and Marvels in my book, that device, a mere fantasy, will not take hold.

Morrison emphasizes the Holmesean detective against Miller's hard boiled detective, but fails, in my lone opinion, because the League of Batmen is not a good story, and does not show Batman to be a good Holmesean detective. Miller, on the other hand, does a great jacked up hard boiled.

Miller's Batman takes a shot at Superman in All Star Batman #7 -- he says Superman is so stupid he does not even know he can fly. (who reminded me of this here?). The shot is a re-thinking of the original Superman, but it is also aimed at Morrison's Superman who is in the other All Star title.

Miller, remembering he repeated Morrison's Green Lantern moment in DKSA, attacks Green Lantern in All Star Batman 8 -- he dismisses the whole character in order to dismiss the one time he failed to best Morrison.

I may be forgetting something? Anything else?

Comics Out November 30, 2007

Batman. Part four of a seven part crossover where I only have the "prelude" and this issue. I follow creators, and am not going to be suckered into buying comics by lesser talents to complete a story. I did that for like five years in the mid-90s with the X-Men and I am done with that now. Morrison's Batman continues to leave me cold. At its best it is an awesome episode of Batman Animated. I can see that he has pulled an interesting switch-er-oo with the villain, but this is not enough in my opinion. Before David Aja and Iron Fist I also would have liked the art in this issue more, but alas, no one does a kung-fu fight like David Aja.

X-Men. Part five of a thirteen part story where I only have the "prelude" and this issue. I follow creators, and am not going to be suckered into buying comics by lesser talents to complete a story. I did that for like five years in the mid-90s with the X-Men and I am done with that now, as I may have already mentioned. I get this book because I LOVE Chris Bachalo, who does what a superhero comic book artist should do: he does great iconic images of individual characters and teams, where everyone looks beautiful and fun and cool. His Wolverine looks like a bad-ass cartoon, Mr. Sinister (a faintly absurd villain I always liked) looks eeeeevil, and Storm and Cable get great poster-style full page shots. I care a lot less when iconic characters are sidelined. As for the plot, I get the feeling that the issues I missed were just filler, cause this plot has advanced virtually nowhere in four issues.

Casanova. The palindrome title sets up an issue that divides in the middle and gives symmetrical layouts on either side -- just like Alan Moore did in that "Fearful Symmetry" issue of Watchmen. The art and story are great -- I especially liked the big text panels, and when Zephyr says "page eight -- but I am rapidly running out of ways to praise this awesome awesome book. There is some smart stuff in the back on sex and comics that might make it to a commonplace book entry one day.

All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. I am putting up a separate post about this issue in a few minutes. For now, let me just reiterate that I love this book because Miller is audacious, and I love this issue for the same reason. As Casanova is praised for having wild ideas on every page, I want to praise Miller for being audacious on every page -- there is almost always something NUTZ on every page, even when it is offensive or close to offensive. Like the absurdly sexy successful attorney who would have a one night stand with a guy with white skin and green hair. Or the swastika emblems on the chest of the Joker's companion, not referred to again or explained in this issue, which I LIKE. (Frank Miller always goes for absurd Nazis for bad guys because they are the ultimate evil in the pulps). Or Hal Jordan looking like an idiot with a hot-dog. (The only people Miller hates almost as much as Nazi's are cops -- and Hall Jordan is a super space cop, so there you go). Here is William Blake one more time for those who missed it: Exuberance is Beauty.

Angel: After the Fall. I got this a week late, because my comic book store under-ordered. Whedon plots but does not script. The art here is weak, but the writing is pretty good, especially because Lynch does not go crazy, as Vaughan does on Buffy, to do cute-speak with every line. Our main characters are introduced in new and persuasive formations and roles (though it took me a minute to think of Lyla to figure out why one character looked like a hologram). And Whedon solves his big problem -- this issue gives a narrative explanation, rather than one having to do with what comic book company was sold the rights to what characters -- why the Buffy and the Angel characters will remain in separate spheres. Generally I preferred Angel to Buffy, and now it looks like I might go the same direction with the comics. I do wish both books would find artists with some more flair.

In Comics News Newsarama had a report this week on Mark Millar's new project with John Romita Jr -- Kick Ass (that's the title of the comic book and not my reaction to it). It takes place in the "real world" and is about a kid who reads comics all the time and decides to put on a mask and fight crime with a baseball bat. Millar claims this premise will not be played for laughs, though the wording of the solicit (which concludes with the words "Miss out and you're an idiot") suggests otherwise. Millar on his own does not sell me on a comic, but in combination with Romita I might check it out.

Remember you can click the labels at the bottom of thus post to read my reviews of past issues of the comics that came out today. In the comments talk about your own haul this week.

Comics Out October 31, 2007

Batman 670. Morrison’s dully retro 70 Batman thing continues. The three girls, who are probably old comic book characters I do not know are boring, and the Silken Spider looks ridiculous doing her “sexy” wavy-arm squat dance. The art is pretty good, but also very Neal Adams in places, which is what is wanted, but not exactly keeping me on my toes. Making Bat-Gas standard issue may please retro-folks who just think the idea is great, but I am not one of those people. Ra’s al Ghul, again, is not impressing me for the same reason – I read this already in reprints. The issue almost kicked into gear with Damian – I was surprisingly pleased to see him back, and I love that he is still in the Robin uniform and cloak. That speaks volumes, and is the only thing in the issue worth keeping. Damian is the only character in the book to have any life to him. His family romance is the only conflict that feels like something original.

X-Men Messiah Complex. Flat, like no man’s business flat. Starts with the X-Jet and a view of five characters inside. Each is introduced with a name plate thing, and each gets a line of dialogue. Here they are.

“You picking up anything? We should be close by now.” “Nothing … which is a bit troubling.” “What do you mean?” “It’s a whole town fulla people, and xxx ain’t hearin’ any of their thoughts.” “It’s a trap.”

Look at E for Extinction if you want an example of how to reintroduce your cast for a big X-Event, cause this is a mess. Most of these lines could be assigned to other characters – they are not particular to character and just dully advance the plot in the least interesting way. Plus the second to last line is Wolverine’s and the last line is Angel’s, spoken with his hand on Wolverine’s shoulder, sympathetically. Why? I have no idea. He is basically just making something Wolverine said explicit. Dumb. The whole issue is like that.

Silvestri does a good Emma in spots (and several other characters as well), but does she have to look like she is posing for Maxim for a nothing scene like when she says to Scott “no orders for me?” Is that I joke? The context would suggest it is not, but there it is. And I think Silvestri accidentally made Xavier look evil, which is just distracting, as was the too-small caption telling us “A few hours earlier” (that confused the heck out of me). Also Silvestri has Nightcrawler looking down from the plane on the town but I do not see how he could see down out of that window unless the plane was at a major angle, an angle not implied by the art elsewhere. The thing ends with a creature, whose purpose in this issue is to establish, I think, that the baby is alive (other he would not be hunting it) – but for God’s sake, that is the most boring creature design I have seen since playing Metroid: Whatever for the Game Cube.

There is a trailer for the Wanted movie on the web, but I have not seen it yet. Wizard magazine had the words “Grant Morrison vs Neal Adams” on the cover but I have no idea what that is about.

Review, discuss, and recommend this week’s comics and comics news.

Comics Out September 26, 2007

All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #7. Exuberance is beauty, as Blake says. I love this book. It is nuts, and it makes everyone very angry, and so Miller just pushes the nuts farther and farther. Exactly the right response. People did not like the phrase "I'm the goddamned Batman? Let them swallow this: "I've taken enough grief about calling my goddamn car the goddamn batmobile. I'm the goddamn Batman and I can call my goddamn car whatever the hell I want to call it". Hilarious. Plus the response is "That's just a totally queer name for a car, is all." Add in a sex scene punctuated by a lightning blast and a sound effect that suggest Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again, and more ridiculous dialogue I do not have time to quote -- the whole project is aggressive, audacious, brazen, and prideful beyond all portrayals of Batman, if I can paraphrase Bloom on Dante. Make Mine Miller's.

Batman 669. Now that this is over I can see that this is a pretty good story -- I liked this issue more than the other two: Morrison is always good at endings. The art is often stylish and fun, and I see that it is nice to get a lighter more pulpy Batman. But I still do not really see the point of all the intertexts, all of the meshed art styles. It seems like a lot of occasionally distracting trouble to go to to make a small point about comics history that Morrison has made many times before, often much better -- in All Star Superman for example.

Immortal Iron Fist #9. I think if you are going to have a book where punching and kicking are so important -- even in a genre dominated by so much punching and kicking -- the art really needs to go to a whole new place to make it work. DavidAja does exactly that. The guy is just mesmerizing. I also like how Danny Rand is portrayed as maybe a little dumb, a little ditsy. I really like that. It is very not-Batman.

Immortal Iron Fist Annual. I know I am going to look like a philistine, but the art in this book is just not my cup of whatever. I know these guys are a big deal. I get that. It's not that I hate the art -- it is just not for me. I think maybeAja has just ruined me for Iron Fist. Aja is the Truth and the Way, as far as this book goes.

The Order. The art here was kinda frustrating in places. I did not get that Mullholland was choking, for example, and they weird hubba-bubba cocoon with a head was ... just odd. And was the stretchy girl the same girl in the black dress that got bug's blood on her? Maybe I read this too fast. Also I am pretty sure that in the exchange that begins "I can still use my powers" someone goofed and attributed the lines to the wrong characters. Or, again, I read this too fast. On the plus sideKitson is fantastic with faces (which this book needs a lot of) and there is a nice homage to Moore's Big Numbers.

Wonder Woman Annual. This is an odd week for me, where I am almost exclusively focusing on the art and not the story. I got this issue for the art only. I really admire the very few artists -- I am looking at youBachalo -- that can draw girls you can really crush on. As for story -- whatever. I think the distinction he sets up between human and non-human at the end of the book is pretty meaningless.

In Comics News Newsarama has an interview up with Judd Winnick about the Black Canary / Green Arrow Wedding special. There are two issues on the table. One is the dress. I like the dress actually. Not in real life, obviously. They considered getting an actual designer to do it -- Pat Field would have been a good choice, maybe. But they ended up doing it themselves. I think Winnick is right -- one you figure out that the fishnets are iconic and indispensable, the rest of the ridiculous thing falls into place. I have not read this but the art seems fun. As for the ending -- apparently it gets real dark for no reason. That's the age we live in apparently. The superhero version of torture porn cannot be far behind.

Comics Out August 22, 2007

Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson's The Order #2. Barry Kitson draws sixteen same size panels of a girl sitting in a chair talking, five more of her sitting in bed talking, and four more in the same vein as the first sixteen. I would not have believed that that could be done without boring me to death, but this guy is good -- the little variations in each panel are thoroughly entertaining. The shots of her at other times in her past have a great rhythm as well. It all works wonderfully to make us care about her before the little bombshell on the last page, which has me intrigued. Also loony Russians go nuts and a bear with a jetpack gets punched in the face, if you want to be so crass as to talk about the meat of the story.

Grant Morrison and J.H. Williams III's Batman #668. I am starting to feel that Morrison's Batman run is gaining on his X-Men run in terms of how is a normally great storyteller screwing up this badly moments. With the exception of some hauntingly designed tableau's -- the black and red autopsy, the bat shaped and claw shaped panels, the painted palm and sunset -- I really want nothing to do with this. The Agatha Christie murder mystery in New X-Men was the worst thing Morrison has ever done. You would think he would not go near it again, but here we are. Meta-comments on "classic" book-case doors and team ups are getting on my nerves. Morrison is not Joss Whedon, and should never try -- he has his own strengths. Idiotic, poorly "re-imagined" secondary characters from a generation long past, like the French and Argentinian Batmen are pissing me off even more, especially in such a serious atmosphere -- not one of these guys has been recreated anywhere near as thoughtfully as the least of the Seven Soldiers. The Indian, as someone here pointed out, is just a stereotype. The Knight and Squire are maybe an exception here, but that is because I liked them so much in my favorite Morrison story, JLA: Classified. In fact most of the Batmen are barely "re-imagined" at all -- they are to stand in, for no reason that I can see (and I am kind of an expert on this), for various moments in comic book history; they are carefully and skillfully rendered to invoke art styles from those periods, but the result is an annoying mishmash on the page. Coupled with the "retro"-style opening, this book is reminding less of Planetary's first fourteen issues, with their careful synthesis of comic book history, and more of a dark age version (oh the irony that Morrison has fallen into the mode he helped work us out of) of Alan Moore's irritatingly "post-modern" Supreme run that had "Superman" analogues from various ages, skillfully rendered, interacting in a bad story.

Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker and David Aja's The Immortal Iron Fist #8. I used up a lot of my energy just now bitching about Morrison, but don't let brevity stop you from knowing -- KNOWING -- that this is a great book. Character names like Dog Brother #1 and the Prince of Orphans, a story broken up into "round 1" and "round 2" rather than "part 1" and "part 2" (aren't all great comics basically fights anyway) and a to be continued panel that looks like a Mortal Kombat menu are only a few of the reasons to get this book.

Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men #22. I will save this for my issue by issue analysis, except to say, it turns out Whedon had a reason Danger does not kill (sorry Joss...), and, for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on just yet (but may have to do with shipping delays) this issue was a bit of a letdown. Maybe. I have to think about it. And you can be assured I will. That's kinda my thing.

Nothing in comics news hit me, but the DC and Marvel solicits for November are out. I did not find anything worth a mention, but if there is something I need to be paying attention to, please let me know.

Comics Out August 8, 2007

Matt Fraction and Fabio Moon's Casanova #8.

The new issue of Casanova is out, and it is blue, shockingly blue. It was a shade of blue I was not expecting when Fraction sent me the black and whites and told me they would be blue. It is blue-tastic.

It is also the first, and probably last sight of a super-villain (well, not so super to tell the truth) whose name really was was inspired by my name, DOKKKTOR KLOCKHAMMER, appearing here less that two weeks after I finished at Oxford and officially became Doctor Klock. Nice timing Fraction.

Casanova 8 doubles as a great introduction for those that have never read Casanova before -- if you want to jump on, today's the day; Fraction does a great job re-establishing a lot of things without making you feel like he is re-establishing a lot of things. Cause in Casanova exposition, even review-exposition, is always fun. As Fraction himself says in the back-matter, the thing does a needle scratch through the album that is the first seven issues, remixing all of their great stuff in 16 pages. But be warned -- Casanova 8 will make you want to shell out the money for the hard-cover collection of Casanova 1-7.

As for the issue itself. It has a hilarious Dungeons and Dragons reference, a genuinely surprising ending on a couple of levels, and the art is amazing even though it is not by Gabriel Ba, which should not be possible (Fabio Moon is Gabriel Ba's twin brother if you can believe it; and I probably do sometimes) - it has a looseness that goes over well. Fraction (I think) has said that Moon brings the Pope while Ba had the Mignola in his pocket -- that's exactly right. You will love this issue.

Plus: I have seen upcoming issues and read upcoming scripts and I know stacks of secrets and I can promise you that this is going somewhere awesome, somewhere that will rival volume 1.

Buy this issue or something probably bad will happen to you.

Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti's Punisher War Journal #10. The White Supremacists Punisher arc comes to an end, white supremacists get the crap beaten out of them (and who does not love to see that -- that's what comics were make to to back when Hitler was setting everything on fire), little Clark really grows as a person and as a killer, and Fraction finds a hell of an ending, a hell of a thing to set between his two main characters. Also the bad guys here have an H-ray generator (hate-rays); what do the bad guys in Casanova have? An H-element generator. Interesting... (Ok, maybe not interesting, but kinda fun.... Remember when you noticed that the Philosopher's stone in Morrison's JLA was the Hand of Glory from the Invisibles -- kinda like that, but with more ... something).

Grant Morrison and J.H. Williams III's Batman #667. This is a lot like Seven Soldiers #0, but slower -- Morrison and J.H. Williams team up to show you a bunch of superhero-losers (including a fat guy), then let loose the killing. There is even an image reminiscent of The Whip on the second to last page of Seven Soldiers 0. It is also a bit like Identity Crisis, with the nostalgia and dire consequences. I loved the two page title spread, Batman's appearance to the group, the two images framed in the hand, and the cruelty of the death, but I am not really feeling on board with this story. I just get annoyed at loser superheroes. It is an easy shot to take? Or I don't care? Something.... Even Williams had as many snoozer images as knockouts. Morrison's Batman is just not doing it for me, even with one of the best artists around.

AND

Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon's Sugershock (Online, and for free) #1. Oh, this is a lot of fun, and Fabio Moon is just the right guy to draw this -- Cassaday is great, but I think Whedon benefits from someone more lose and energetic. You have to give Moon a lot of credit-- this guy knows how to pick who to work with. He is having a great week -- not long ago I did not know who he was and now I love him twice over. Girls, robots, rock bands, awesome. [I was told about this by a commenter a while ago, but was too busy to notice; then Alex Su reminded me today. Two quick questions -- what is the home-page for this and is there a way of being alerted when the new issue comes out so I don't miss it? I mean I know you guys will tell me, and please do, but still...]

Nothing in comics new jumped out at me.

Review, recommend, and discuss this week's comics and comics news.

Comics Out July 25, 2007 (The Week Late Review)

[Last week was an awesome week to go to the comic book store, but I only got these yesterday, because I was in Oxford and found out that the only comic book store in town closed. Oxford University is amazing but Oxford the town is not great. Case in point: A University town that cannot keep a single comic book store in business. Ridiculous. Anyway I wanted to do bullet point reviews of last week comics.]

Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert's Batman #666. Last week in free form comments James wrote:

"Geoff is right. Once again, Morrison puts himself up against Miller's Batman, with a tale of an uncompromising, ultra-violent Batman of the future. We seem to be back in New X-Men territory here, with Morrison admitting defeat in the face of what can't be changed/escaped. Morrison's fun, "bare-chested love-god" Batman has literally fathered a violent, anti-heroic Batman of the future (see: The Dark Knight Returns), exactly what Morrison wanted to get away from. Furthermore, the only way Morrison's Batman can defeat the last of the dark, violent, impostor Batmen* and gain primacy/immortality is to sell his soul to the Devil (Miller). Try as he might, Morrison couldn't replace Miller, and it is Miller's Batman that has assimilated Morrison's, and not the other way around. The silver-lining here, is that (hopefully) Morrison can now concentrate on doing his own thing, and stop worrying about Miller. J. H. Williams III and The Batmen Of All Nations seems like a perfect opportunity to do just that.

*I quite liked that just as the last one was a version of Bane, this next one was a version of the Azrael-Batman, with his orange face-plate and flamethrower."

It is freaky how much James is on my wavelength here. He has said all I would have said, exactly. I would also add that the Yeats quote is lame, and reminds me of Morrison's bad use of Milton in Batman: Gothic. (It may serve only to call up that book as another alternate Batman).

Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo's Hellboy: Darkness Calls #4. There is a great moment in which a guy catches his own severed head a split second before it hits the ground and a perfect weird little girl character in this issue, one of the best I have seen. But her speech about her story exemplifies what bothers me about Hellboy -- chunks of Mignola's research just sit on the page, undigested, and Hellboy just sort of walks around it, doing very little. The art is great though, and keeps me hooked.

Joss Whedon and Paul Lee's Buffy the Vampire Slayer #5. The art is not perfect, and there are moments that do not quite work (the out of control truck), but I thought this issue was very moving, and also dialed down Whedon's silliness, which in three running comics now is getting to be a little much, even for me. Newsarama thought the issue failed to make us care about the main character enough, but I thought the intriguing jarring story structure kept us from quite following everything until the end, at which point it is too late to really know this girl. I thought that was genuinely sad, and well done.

Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker's Immortal Iron Fist #7. I have heard complaints that the narration takes the reader out of the story, that the narration is too dissonant. I disagree. It turns out that the narrator of this issue is a character, but for much of it I just heard Fraction's own voice, the voice of his blog. It felt a bit like a Mystery Science Theater experience; I imagine this is what Fraction sounds like if you were to watch a serious kung-fu movie on his couch with him. "She beats people up. For money!" This is a different kind of harmony, and it is also different from Joss Whedon's ironies, which is nice.

Frank Miller and Jim Lee's All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #6. I love this book: everyone is right about what is wrong with it but it all works on another level, as I have argued (hit the Frank Miller link below to see what I said). In this issue Miller continues to do ABSURD things with story structure, warping it sideways. I double dog dare you to read Jack Kirby's introduction of the Black Racer in New Gods and tell me that Frank Miller is doing something fundamentally different in his use of Black Canary or the introduction of Batgirl. In both the story is absurdly interrupted by some new character the writer felt like introducing. Goddam Batman became an Internet catch phrase for how absurd this book is, so what did Frank Miller do? -- he used it twice in one issue. Blake said it best: Exuberance is Beauty.

Mike Carey and Humberto Ramos's X-Men #201. Humberto Ramos does not suck, but he is not the artist for me. I had to order this without seeing it, and did not know Bachalo would not be drawing it.