Morrison on Batman

[tekende]

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN READING BATMAN LATELY.

Back when it was announced that Grant Morrison was going to write Batman, I was pretty excited. Even more so when I read that Andy Kubert (or was it Adam? I forget) was going to draw. Little did I know what was coming. Little did I know that this was going to be one of the worst runs I've read yet.

This is all to the best of my recollection, mind, so I may have forgotten a thing or two here and there, but these stories haven't made sense anyway.

So Morrison starts us off with a tale from left field as it's revealed that Batman's got a son! Evidently Brucie's bat-condoms aren't as reliable as one might hope.

Anyway, Talia has named the kid Damien, so right off the bat we know he's going to be an evil little so-and-so. And so he is, as, for some reason, he tries to kill Robin.

Also, Talia has an army of Man-Bats. I don't know why.

My favorite part of this story was how Batman just accepted that Damien was his son without question. Because, you know, he's never suspicious or anything and it would be totally out of character for Batman to, I don't know, do a DNA test. Which I'm quite sure he could do with the equipment in his cave, no problem.

That story ended with...I can't remember. Damien went back to Talia or something? I wasn't terribly interested by that point.

Let's see, after that there was a filler story for like four months, because like all superstars, Morrison and/or Kubert apparently can't handle deadlines. The filler story was just that, filler, and it was about a guy who invented some medical thing and then turned into Alpha from the Men in Black animated series.

Then what? Oh yes, the worst issue of Batman ever, in which Morrison proves he can't write prose to save his life, and someone does some absolutely horrible computer-generated illustrations. I can't bring myself to go back and read this thing again, but I remember it had to do with Joker and Harley.

After that is where things got really crazy, because evidently things were making too much sense before. Morrison presents us with something that vaguely resembles a story in which Batman talks to some prostitutes and then gets beaten up by a dude who looks like Bane, and he dates a supermodel or something. It seems like the spine of this story, the details that would have made it make sense, are all lodged somewhere in Morrison's brain, and he refuses to share. Like the whole thing was based on previous events we weren't privy to. Nice artwork, though.

The next issue continues this story. Based on a dream Batman had, he decides that there are three crooked cops committing crimes and dressing like Batman. Or...or something. Once again, Morrison chooses to keep the details to himself. Batman and Robin take down the Bane lookalike, and then something happens, and the issue ends on a sort of cliffhanger because there's another Batman villain cop whatever running around?

In the following issue Morrison laughs as he decides that instead of maybe ending the story presented in the previous two issues he's going to jump ahead ten or twenty years to where Bruce is dead and Damien is Batman, and some stuff that doesn't make any sense happens.

After that came a three-issue mystery story in which we are shown a murder mystery involving a bunch of stupid characters (seriously, they're all losers) we've never heard of and therefore don't care about. Nice one, Grant. Kubert decides to skip town or something, and someone else does the art and it looks weird.

So yeah. That's my take on the last year or so of Batman. I haven't really enjoyed it and I can't wait for Morrison to leave the title.

What are your thoughts?

[sdowner]

Woah.
My opinion is almost opposite yours.
Batman having a son seems weird, I'll grant you.
And his unquestioning acceptance of said son is also weird.
Otherwise, though, I loved the story!
Talia blackmails Kirk Langstrom into creating her an army of ninja Man-Bats, who attack a vacationing Bruce Wayne in a comic art museum.
Almost an entire issue of Batman brawling with ninja Man-Bats, then he gets captured by aforementioned freakin' ninja Man-Bats and taken to Talia, who apparently has gone all-out evil.
"Hey, Bats! remember that one night? Where I drugged you because you didn't want to give me the perfect kid?"
"...vaguely...why?"

"Say hi to Daddy, Damien!"
"HOLY CRAP I have a KID???
We move to the cave where, while Batman's out fighting crime, the aptly-named Damien:
(1) mugs Alfred
(2) beats the crap out of Robin
(3) sneaks out and cuts off the head of some supervillain to prove his awesomeness to Batman.
Batman says, "okay, this is crap. You're going back to mama."
Kid says "Bummer, I was just getting comfortable."
He drops li'l D off on the Rock of gibraltar, which Talia has just coerced the British government into giving her. Then the British army blows up her submarine, and Batman goes back to Gotham. And I go to change my pants because I peed them from sheer joy.

Bottom line:
Ninja man-Bats make everything better.

So yeah, I loved it.
The weird, semi-prose issue was lame though.

[Crimson Spider]

Okay, my opinion on Morrison's run so far falls somewhere in between you two. I was looking forward to his run quite a bit, and was ultimately disappointed. However, I don't think the book was that bad. My disappointment mostly stemmed from the book not being as groundbreaking as I had expected it to be. For what it was, though, I enjoyed it. There were some things that didn't quite feel right, but overall, I liked it.

In other words, it's a disappointing Morrison book, but an enjoyable comic.

Having said that, I wasn't crazy about the storyline that followed the Batman & Son arc. And I haven't yet read the JH Williams III issues, but should be doing so in the next few days.

And yes, the ninja man-bats were a very neat idea.

Incidentally, Batman's son did not "come out of left field." It was always implied that Batman had a son in Son of the Demon, which is an Elseworlds book, I know, but it's been established before is my point.

[tekende]

Incidentally, Batman's son did not "come out of left field." It was always implied that Batman had a son in Son of the Demon, which is an Elseworlds book, I know, but it's been established before is my point.

So it wouldn't be out of left field if someone were to suddenly make Batman a vampire, because it was in an Elseworlds comic?

[Chris Piers]

It wasn't an Elseworlds comic when it came out. For a while the editors said it wasn't in-continuity anymore, but now it is. So what?

[shoryukenmaster]

Continuity or not, teh bats would check to see if he's his kid. Would he not? I agree it does seem a little out of character for him to just swallow that pill without blinking.

I agree with CS, it had high potential, but failed to deliver. I liked the ninja man-bats.

[Pencilero]

My opinion is at least Morrison isn't doing the same tired ass shit impersonation of Frank Miller all these hack writers have been doing for the past two decades since The Dark Knight Makes Batman a Paranoid Asshole.

Batman is the ultimate, "My dad could beat up your dad" character. No matter what anybody throws at him, no matter how insurmountable his cowled monkey ass always has some Bat ex Machina means of escape.

Which is why that Commie Superman story was so enjoyable.

No.

Sorry Batman, your pampered white ass cannot beat the alien. Only in Elseworlds fanfic penned by Frank Miller.

HAW HAW!

[tekende]

My opinion is at least Morrison isn't doing the same tired ass shit impersonation of Frank Miller all these hack writers have been doing for the past two decades since The Dark Knight Makes Batman a Paranoid Asshole.

That's fine, but could he do it without sucking? Seriously, is it THAT hard to put together stories that MAKE SENSE?

[Trilogy]

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN READING BATMAN LATELY.

Back when it was announced that Grant Morrison was going to write Batman, I was pretty excited. Even more so when I read that Andy Kubert (or was it Adam? I forget) was going to draw. Little did I know what was coming. Little did I know that this was going to be one of the worst runs I've read yet.

This is all to the best of my recollection, mind, so I may have forgotten a thing or two here and there, but these stories haven't made sense anyway.

So Morrison starts us off with a tale from left field as it's revealed that Batman's got a son! Evidently Brucie's bat-condoms aren't as reliable as one might hope.

Anyway, Talia has named the kid Damien, so right off the bat we know he's going to be an evil little so-and-so. And so he is, as, for some reason, he tries to kill Robin.

Also, Talia has an army of Man-Bats. I don't know why.

My favorite part of this story was how Batman just accepted that Damien was his son without question. Because, you know, he's never suspicious or anything and it would be totally out of character for Batman to, I don't know, do a DNA test. Which I'm quite sure he could do with the equipment in his cave, no problem.

That story ended with...I can't remember. Damien went back to Talia or something? I wasn't terribly interested by that point.

Let's see, after that there was a filler story for like four months, because like all superstars, Morrison and/or Kubert apparently can't handle deadlines. The filler story was just that, filler, and it was about a guy who invented some medical thing and then turned into Alpha from the Men in Black animated series.

Then what? Oh yes, the worst issue of Batman ever, in which Morrison proves he can't write prose to save his life, and someone does some absolutely horrible computer-generated illustrations. I can't bring myself to go back and read this thing again, but I remember it had to do with Joker and Harley.

After that is where things got really crazy, because evidently things were making too much sense before. Morrison presents us with something that vaguely resembles a story in which Batman talks to some prostitutes and then gets beaten up by a dude who looks like Bane, and he dates a supermodel or something. It seems like the spine of this story, the details that would have made it make sense, are all lodged somewhere in Morrison's brain, and he refuses to share. Like the whole thing was based on previous events we weren't privy to. Nice artwork, though.

The next issue continues this story. Based on a dream Batman had, he decides that there are three crooked cops committing crimes and dressing like Batman. Or...or something. Once again, Morrison chooses to keep the details to himself. Batman and Robin take down the Bane lookalike, and then something happens, and the issue ends on a sort of cliffhanger because there's another Batman villain cop whatever running around?

In the following issue Morrison laughs as he decides that instead of maybe ending the story presented in the previous two issues he's going to jump ahead ten or twenty years to where Bruce is dead and Damien is Batman, and some stuff that doesn't make any sense happens.

After that came a three-issue mystery story in which we are shown a murder mystery involving a bunch of stupid characters (seriously, they're all losers) we've never heard of and therefore don't care about. Nice one, Grant. Kubert decides to skip town or something, and someone else does the art and it looks weird.

So yeah. That's my take on the last year or so of Batman. I haven't really enjoyed it and I can't wait for Morrison to leave the title.

What are your thoughts?

I've been feeling for a while that Morrison's run on Batman isn't very good, and I posted as much on some message board a while ago. I was greeted with the typical, "At least it isn't so-and-so and such-and-such," and pretty much what amounted to, "Dude, it's Morrison. It can't be anything less than great."

[Pencilero]

That's fine, but could he do it without sucking? Seriously, is it THAT hard to put together stories that MAKE SENSE?

Maybe he's trying to top Dark Knight Strikes Again. :D

[Hankinstien]

I tend to fall into the camp that loves everything Morrison does (almost) although I'll admit I've been a bit dissapointed by his Batman run, but for completely different reasons than most of those brought up here.

Using one of the biggest icons of a medium (I'd rather say genre, but sadly, I feel I have to say medium) to comment on that medium is right in line with Morrison's meta-fiction agenda.

What I'm trying to say is that, these stories may not quite "make sense" in the normal, 3-act, "batman finds the badguy" kindof way, but they make complete sense as artistic statements. I'm not sure Morrison is trying to tell a Batman story as much as he is using the idea of Batman to tell a different story, about something much bigger. But that's the kind of thing he does all the time in his other work.

That said, I think he does it much better in his other work, and thus, this Batman run, although really entertaining, awesome, and funny as anything I've read in a while, falls short to all of Morrison's other work, I think. When I read these Batman issues, it just makes me think that I'd rather be reading Seven Soldiers or Invisibles, or something like that.

I think this might be one of those cases where, if you don't like this run, you probably don't like Morrison's stuff in general. I expected this kind of story from him, and I'm entertained enough by it. Plus, I love J.H. Williams.

I'm sorry if you're not enjoying his run, but if that's really the case, then stop reading it, and put the money to a different book, even something you've never read before, you might find something better you like. Not everybody likes everything, and thats ok.

I don't understand the need to bash Miller and Morrison so hardly--regardless of what you think of Miller, he was one of the most important shapers of the character. I do think his "All-Star" bit is terrible, but I think thats probably because he's trying to finally stop people from asking him to write nothing but stories about a guy who dresses up in a rubber bat-suit at night. I'm dissapointed by some of his stuff, but there's no need to bash him (or Morisson) so badly, especially when they've produced some excellent and important work over the years. If you don't like it, thats fine, get something else, if you like it, enjoy it! That's what's cool about fiction.

-Mike

[Crestmere]

I've liked the 4 or 5 Grant Morrison things that I've read.

I loved We3 and New X-Men.
I liked Seaguy, Vimanarama and Sebastian O.

My writing partner is what people call a "Kool Aid" fan. I'm not sure I want to take a sip yet.

I'm kind of lost with the Batman stuff.

I'm not sure what possessed him to do some of the stuff he's doing on that book.

I really can't imagine that anyone could think Damien was a good idea.

And he seems to have entire issues where nothing happens.

In his defense, my writing partner told me that he has like a 50 issue super Batman novel in mind. Or something like that. I got that information from my writing partner and I have not been able to verify it yet. If that is true then we are slightly over a quarter of the way in.

Although New X-Men was around that length and it was much cooler 10-15 issues in then Batman.

And Super Morrison Apologetic Man also blamed the hardcore workload for 52 for his drop in quality. Not entirely sure I buy it but I get the feeling that a weekly book would be a logistical nightmare to try and write. If they asked me, i would probably have said no.

The art from Andy Kubert hasn't blown me away yet. It doesn't really seem like Kubert was the right artist for the series. He doesn't seem to be adding much and he would probably be served better to work on another book. And Morrison would probably be better off with another artist.

The Club of Heroes story was pretty cool. The International Batman club was an awesome idea and Morrison probably made it ten times cooler than it originally was. But it didn't blow my mind, it was something I had seen before.
And that was probably the highlight of things so far.

The Ninja Bat guys were a cool idea.

His Joker prose issue sucked.

So far things aren't looking great but they seem to be steadily getting better.

[black as the night]

idk if this is relevent but arkahm asylum was amazing. it was a little on the short side but i loved the story and the art was just so... so.... awesome.

*i just read the title before posting, didnt read the thread so im sorry if this didnt fit.

[tekende]

idk if this is relevent but arkahm asylum was amazing. it was a little on the short side but i loved the story and the art was just so... so.... awesome.


I read that a while back. I was really, really disappointed. The way everyone talks about it I had thought it was going to be the best Batman comic I'd ever read, but it turns out it pretty much sucks (in my opinion, natch).

I sometimes wonder if Morrison just really likes writing Batman stories that don't make any damn sense.

[DJ Kenobi]

At least in Arkham Asylum, Morrison seems to rely heavily on the anthropomorphizing of the psyche to allow for personified interactions and battles to work on the levels of both physical action and psychological metaphor, which I think works great in a book about an insane asylum. However, if this meta approach to Batman, making the story not a traditional story but a commentary on the psychology of Batman, is not your cup of tea, then yeah, I can see Arkham Asylum sucking.

[Art of Drowning]

Still need to pick up the rest of invisibles so I can read it in it's entirety. This issue was pretty fun with nice allusion to the black glove and things to come. When did Morrison begin to playing around with anthropomorphising mental processes? I read the first trade of his run on Doom Patrol and I've read little of his run on Animal Man (also need to pick up) so im guessing it began with DP.

[DJ Kenobi]

Morrison seems to me to love to play around with theories of existence and thought. So Arkham Asylum is psychoanalysis run amok. Animal Man is testing the boundaries of self-reflexivity in postmodernism, and The Invisibles is still postmodern, but leaving behind the simple self-reflexivity and meta-narrative of Lyotard for the more complex re-thinking of reality through Baudillard mainly, possibly with a touch of Foucault in his analysis of power. He then digs deep into the well for archetypal and mythic theory in his Justice League of America run with Howard Porter. That's one thing I love about Morrison, he's constantly willing to change and try to create the new, and isn't afraid to rework the past in the process.

[AlphaMale73]

Batman R.I.P. has been a very good read to me. Bruce Wayne is the shi#!

[jackie0109]

I'm a batman fan...I watch batman movie, tv series, animation and read comics...from batman begins to birds of prey lol...Dark Knight is the best among...

[NickRocks]

Ive never really been a morrison fan...but ninja man bats sounds pretty dope.

[NickRocks]

yes, actually. but i dont see what this has to do with batman.

[NickRocks]

oh btw...I did manage to read the hardcover...the ninja man-bats werent as awesome as i thought they would be. I also am not as big of a fan of andy kuberts art, i prefer adam. It was a decent read though.

[dxdragon]

The Kubert bros both suck. Every character looks the same, with the same painful expression. They also cannot draw age groups...kids look like adults, teens look like adults, and older charcters look 15-20 years younger.

They live off daddy's rep.

I'm so glad they left Marvel since I only read 3 or 4 DC titles.

[Dri]

Just read this and have to say it started off really weird. I blame a lot of this on the writer and artist chemistry.

Andy Kubert worked best with Mark Waid as he suits Waid's writing style. I remember enjoying both Kazar and Captain America. But on this book he can't sell the story or the gags. The gag of the Joker killing Bats in front of down syndrome kids. The comic art museum.

It started to grow on me until Morrison ended Damien's story arc abruptly where he is given organ transplants to survive an explosion. Throw in the three Batmen impersonators and the flash forward to where Damien kills the last of them Batman.

I liked parts of it but too many loose plot threads and erratic storytelling let this one down.

[lost-spartan]

While Andy isn't the greatest artist out there, I grew up with his X-men so I have a soft spot for his work, flaws and all. So I gave Batman and Son a shot. I should've just stopped there and saved myself the torture of trying to wade through the mess of follows that weak sauce. Morrison has been terrible with his Batman/FC run overall. And with the greatness of his All-star Supes run still in the front of my brain, it just sticks out even worse. The man should be forced to write down every idea he wants to work into a book, then have an editor pick just two or three, and throw away the other 5 pages of nonsense crap, and just let him loose.