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Grant Morrison's Batman

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Regrettable Juvenilia

08:01 / 24.08.06

I can't believe you didn't quote this bit, Finder!

a sour-faced, sexually-repressed, humorless, uptight, angry, and all-round grim 'n' gritty Batman would be more likely to join the Taliban surely?

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:28 / 24.08.06

And!

it seems more 'realistic' to imagine Batman as a hardcore fightin' man who wouldn't even notice his injuries until long after the fight was over, so no more of that 'MY BACK SPLINTERS INTO A THOUSAND SHARDS OF AGONIZED BONE. HE'S GOOD. HE'S YOUNG. HE'S TOUGHER AND YOUNGER THAN ME. AND TOUGHER. DID I MENTION TOUGHER ? MUSN'T BLACK OUT...'

DON'T GO INTO SHOCK, OLD MAN!

13:09 / 24.08.06

Definitely, Car, I just glanced at the interview again and laughed at the 'DID I MENTION TOUGHER?' bit...and the description of a 'more likely to join al Qaida' Batman is great too. (I think the interviewer just went 'um...' at that point)

13:13 / 24.08.06

Fun issue...what are Talia's new devious plans for a 'whole new kind of terror'? Methinks it'll be something very atypical... quite funny how she's just like 'get to know your son, ta!' Great final page. Kubert's art isn't bothering me as much I thought it might, and in some panels/pages it's pretty sharp.

13:25 / 24.08.06

She's reforming the League of Assassins as a boy band.

Phex: Dorset Doom

13:39 / 24.08.06

No no no, she's pirating movies and putting them up on the Internet, look out for 'snAkEs-On-A-plAnE(GOOD*CAM)-upped by NinjaManBat#183.tor' at a bittorrent tracker near you soon.

15:45 / 24.08.06

I didn't want to quote all the good bits.

I had to leave some treasure.

Pooky Is Just My Pornstar Name

18:51 / 24.08.06

Does anyone know if Tim Drake has been officially been adopted by Bruce? Last I read, Bruce had offered to adopt him after Tim's dad died. However, Tim declined and even went so far as to hire an actor and have him pose as his long lost uncle in order to have a legal guardian and to get out of a State orphanage type of situation. I'm asking this question because at the back of the latest issue of Batman there's the cover for the next issue, and the blurb beneath reads that Batman's son doesn't take to Robin, Batman's other son. Of course they could be speaking metaphorically about the Batman-Robin son relationship...but since Bruce did offer to adopt Tim in the Robin comic, I was wondering if the adoption had actually happened.

19:04 / 24.08.06

Whoa...I read the comic where Bruce wanted to officially adopt Tim; I didn't read that Tim didn't like the idea and hired an actor to get him out of it (that sounds like the Green Goblin hiring an actress to 'die' as Aunt May back in the 90s Spider-Man books).

Either way, we can pretty much assume they mean Tim is Bruce's metaphorical son.

And 'Aunt Agatha' is from the 60s TV series, right...?

19:49 / 24.08.06

new issue is out, then. didn't know.

and newsarama boards have reacted positively to the interview. it's a bizarro world, this one.

hm, i shouldn't be posting this, but what the hell...

00:05 / 25.08.06

Aunt Harriet was from the TV show. Aunt Agatha was a similar character who had only one appearance. Batman #89, from 1955.

Bubblegum Death

00:41 / 25.08.06

Didn't Bruce offer to become Tim's legal guardian at the end of James Robinson's run?

03:47 / 25.08.06

I think Bruce finally adopted Tim at the end of the Robinson arc, yes, but I didn't actually read it, so don't quote me.

11:48 / 25.08.06

So did we all notice the sculpture entitled Population Explosion?

14:19 / 25.08.06

With the clowns? Yes.

14:55 / 25.08.06

what's the significance of that sculpture? Saw it, figured it must be some Lichtenstein/Warhol/pop-art-type thing.

15:14 / 25.08.06

Foreshadowing more clowns.

Also, posb ref to Morrison's "super-sanity" in Arkham Asylum (new form of sanity caused by accelerating urban sprawl and dehumanisation).

Dude.

15:30 / 25.08.06

oh, and Talia still has the Prime Minister's wife hostage! D'oh! is that supposed to look like Tony Blair's wife, or is it generic-looking politico's wife?

16:16 / 25.08.06

I think it is a Kubertized Cherie Blair; it looks vaguely like her.

18:00 / 25.08.06

So there's a post up about the interview, and Grant Morrison's run thus far in general, up on the Byrne board.

I don't mean to start some kind of let's-all-hate-on-John-Byrne thing, but I find it somewhat...frustrating that the current Batman writer indicates that he's returning Batman back to the form that these fans have been asking for for years, and yet they're still determined to find one discrepancy and subsequently denounce the entire comic on one throwaway line in one panel. I seriously seriously thought they would actually like this comic (although some of the early posts are indeed quite positive) and that John Byrne and Grant Morrison could join hands as friends and frollick through a sunny meadow, but I really don't understand what these people want out of comics written after 1988 anymore.

I would also like to ask him if Gordon's line indicates that Morrison is so disrespectful of superheroes, then isn't the opening caption of Amazing Fantasy #15 ("Like costumed heroes? Confidentially, we in the comic mag business refer to them as 'long underwear characters!' And, as you know, they're a dime a dozen! But we think you may find out Spider-Man just a bit...different!") equally disrespectful? Does Stan Lee hate superheroes because he calls Spider-Man "Spidey" and Captain America "Wing-Head"?

Anyway. As you were.

18:26 / 25.08.06

All I'm getting from that page is

1. Byrne has been preaching the saving graces of comics for years (beginning with calling them Sir and Madam, one supposes).
2. People from Mexico don't like Baldy for some reason.

Did we really need to go over "John Byrne is a dick"? Again?

18:38 / 25.08.06

Oh noes the byrnites reject!1!

Give. A. Fuck.

Foreshadowing more clowns
Triplets

Yes indeed, and could be read as more fuel for Andrewdrilon's fire.

Spyder Todd 2008

21:31 / 25.08.06

I got about a third the way down on page 3 of that thread before I realized I didn’t hate myself enough to keep reading. But just as I stopped I got to this little jem, written by Mr. Byrne referring to Mr. Morrison:

I would love to get the phone number of whichever devil he's sold his soul to.

I bet you would, Johnny Boy. You know what? Why don’t you go urinate on a drawing board some more and call it “art”? And don’t try to tell me I’m wrong about your technique! I bought the third Essential X-Men, and there is absolutely no excuse for those covers! Grrrr….

Ahem. Back on thread! Is it wrong for me to want more superhero battles inside pop art galleries? Because that was pretty rockin’. Also, I loved the “This is a new twist” line.

22:34 / 25.08.06

man, there's some psycho atmosphere over there. even the newsarama pit reacted in higher spirits over the article. those guys are too jealous of the toys they don't even own.

you guys think we could donate some copies of Warren Ellis' COME IN ALONE to make them feel better? well, any links to key columns would do, actually. they need a dose of pure Brit filth to swipe the result of that hategasm away...

#656 was Batmorrison having more funfunfun and I went along. but have to say I enjoyed the Wayne bits more and found the previous issue better. this was mostly cool for the isolated bits, the gallery stuff [would the artist be an admirer of the Joker?], the dialogue with the Tyra Banks stand-in etc.

23:08 / 25.08.06

upon taking some minutes to go over Byrne's forum, I have to say I kind of overreacted. but it seems the guy leads the tone of the discussion to bad places a lot. I still love his art, though, and hope he doesn't turn into the Mel Gibson of Comics too soon.

ok, on with da-da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaa ***BATMORRISOOONNN***.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:26 / 25.08.06

I was gonna link to that thread myself- it starts off as "hey! Morrison's Batman's really cool" and then turns into "crikey, Morrison is TEH EVIL". But there is a nice bit where someone says they hate Morrison fans except the ones on Barbelith. Is that one of us, or just a nice Byrnite?

23:27 / 25.08.06

Ha! Jezebel Jet.

23:35 / 25.08.06

Actually having read two pages, the Byrners seem to quite like, not that it matters a whit. But then JB comes on and they get to the nitty-gritty, the big questions - 'oh noes, Morrison mocks superhero costumes *cry*'. But largely positive, surprisingly.

20:04 / 27.08.06

Reading certain portions of the Byrne board causes me physical pain. I'm not too up-to-date on Byrne's theology of superheroes, but it seems as though most of the posters believe in an 'essential,' Platonic Batman that's only imperfectly reflected in the comics.

For example, in a response to Morrison's "Batman as examplar of secular humanism" concept: "Interpreting characters, especially non-political ones, in one's own world view will not serve them well."

What?

Also painful: reading Morrison's first two Batman issues, then Miller's All-Star Batman #4. My soul hurts.

20:35 / 27.08.06

quit ASB, buy an Image Central book. =)

[check the PHONOGRAM thread]

better drugs...

19:19 / 28.08.06

I realize that "Byrne Robotics A Bastion of Barely-Coded Homophobia" is hardly breaking news, but I'm still a little shocked at some of the unself-conscious tossing around of such images as "Those New X-Men should trot their leather jackets and platform shoes around the East Village! Har!" and the word "unhealthy" when "discussing" Morrison's work. I really wish someone there would just up and call him a fag--that's what they're all thinking, anyway.

The Natural Way

12:34 / 01.09.06

But back to the comic...

Yeah, the pop-art was a great conceit, wasn't it? This book manages to nod to so many different ages of Bat w/out feeling at all cluttered - 60's, 70's, 80's - and generates something new via the synthesis. Grant's juggling act appears so effortless. Look at the scene where the Manbats burst through the roof; it's simultaneously pure widescreem drama and dumbass comedy. Just great. The only thing I didn't like - and this is a minor niggle - was Cherie Blair being kidnapped at the end. This isn't the Ultimates, I don't need real-world politicians wives in my Bat-books. Ruins the illusion a bit.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:41 / 01.09.06

She's only ever referred to as "the Prime Minister's wife", isn't she? It seems pretty generic to me...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:23 / 01.09.06

"Ninja man-bats. Alarming twist".

Wicked.

The Natural Way

14:57 / 01.09.06

I know.

Also, I just checked the book and yr right, Fly.

That's one quibble bat-quashed.

And why has no-one mentioned how excellent Grant's Bats is at fighting? He takes TWO shuriken in the arm w/out flinching, for God's sake, and then proceeds to smash open a glass case with his bare hands to obtain a couple of improvised nunchucks in order to crack one manbat in the face and spear one to a wall. And all that's before he breaks out the light/sonic bat-bombs....

I mean, is the big love for the bat-fight just taken as gratis for anyone posting to this thread or do I need to sit here spelling out just how FUCKING COOL ALL THIS SHIT IS?

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