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Grant Morrison's Batman

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16:50 / 04.04.07

I would've thought he's riffing on the much more obvious bat-archetypes that have been doing the rounds over the last twenty-five years or so. As I said above, monologuing, gritty, street Batman has been rather popular for much of that time.

I'd say Thrillkiller Bats is a variation on that theme.

17:20 / 04.04.07

Oh, no, Grant is deffo riffing on The Batmen That Have Come Before. I'm not saying he isn't. I thought I'd throw in there, though, that there's precedent for Batman being a cop and vice-versa.

I mean, what is Bats but the ultimate police officer? Which kind of fits, symbolically, why these qlippothic tulpas are cops. They're dirty mirrors.

17:33 / 04.04.07

I'd have one be a vigilante. If possession or something similar is on the cards, that is.

18:16 / 04.04.07

Yeah, but now I'm coming round to think that - quite obviously, in retrospect - the policeman w/ gun is clearly original gun-wielding murderer Batman; it'd've maybe been nice, or maybe not, if Andy K/teh colorist ('Moose' Baumann? cannae mind) had made the effort to give him, say, purple gloves or really pointy ears instead of looking the exact same. So, ghost of Batman past.

Batbane, with teh gritty, is some kind of agglomerate of Batpresent therefore.

09:22 / 05.04.07

In the Fanboy Radio interview Grunt talks about a bunch of cops dressed up as Batman, so that's interesting.

On the question of multiple Jokers. It seems to me that the idea of the Joker being situated in one body is greatly weakened by the idea that the character has no core personality. Personality, of course, is usually determined by the experience and genetic history of a body, but by stating that the Joker personality is repeatedly born anew that link starts to look tenuous, which in turn opens the door (a little) to a kind of non-local Joker phenomenon.

At least when seen through arty goggles.

Didn't Grant create something like a Joker plague in DC 1000000?

09:39 / 05.04.07

That Jokerplague was somebody else. The thing where they kill the Joker in every issue that came out that month, I think.

One Mil had some sort of machine-virus that exhausted you and put black circles and jagged lines on your face. It may also have kept the Justice Battalion from getting back to the future until Steel pitched in and they built Solaris.

12:36 / 05.04.07

There was also something called The Laughing Virus in the DC 1,000,000 Giant Issue(?) that was the Joker, survived through millenia as some kind of psychic virus that could take control of man or machine. A bodyhopper basically. Batmillion and Supermillion fought him.

12:41 / 05.04.07

the idea of the Joker being situated in one body is greatly weakened by the idea that the character has no core personality.

Have we forgotten Jim Gordon in all the playdoh infecting cops fun? He's gonna be a J, surely.

The Joker brand fighting back against a perceived increase in Batman's marketshare? Memewar?

As I said way back at the beginning, it also taps into what the Joker was on about when he shot Barbara Gordon (when he was trying to give Jim a mental breakdown): anyone can be the Joker, you just need one, bad day.

12:50 / 05.04.07

No, I haven't forgotten about old Jim at all. I revisted Andrew's post on the subject just the other day.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:33 / 05.04.07

The Joker brand fighting back against a perceived increase in Batman's marketshare? Memewar?

No. Just... no.

Please, stop.

14:29 / 05.04.07

MEMEwar.

memeWAR.

14:36 / 05.04.07

Crystalline businesstech battlestructures intertwining in the thoughtspace of the living justice-field.

14:38 / 05.04.07

memewar and marketshare are extreme wrongness. Thankyou for bringing back the sanity, Flyboy.

15:59 / 05.04.07

It's one of my major guilty pleasures, but as a kid I loved the fun version of Batman in "Batman Forever" (to as a teen, kick it to the curb in favor of seriousness) and all of it's action packed vertigo-cameras and not taking itself so seriously.

I always liked Batman Forever as well, helped in large part by its having come out when I was ten or eleven. Looking back, the villains are grating and don't use their gimmicks properly, but the movie is still a good time, and I find the Kilmerbatman to be a reasonable approximation of Morrison's JLA Batman, swinging from helicopters and barging into boobytrapped bank vaults.

23:27 / 05.04.07

Yeah, it was something I liked about that Batman, jumping from waaay too tall ceilings in kinetic beautiful shots, hanging from a chain attached to a fast helicopter etc. It was the flying aspect of the bat or something (that went to hell with ground-leveled seriousness and toughness policy at silly teen years) -- that was something that attracted me to Morrison's BatSuperSpy approach, and it kinda confused me with the first arc's end and last issue since I'm not a huge fan of "Arkham Asylum: Serious House on a Serious Earth", no matter how the title hints at parody (although I've been hunting down a way to read that script from the anniversary issue, to see the schematics, symbols and skeletons from Morrison).

And, on the risk of being frowned upon, I think I could have liked a dead Joker with "Joker Lives On as Jokememe" (without "meme" mentions!). A post-mortem plan, scheme, investigation, ultimate joke, legacy whatever that would function as if the bastard was still alive or something. I thought Gordon was going to something like that. But I guess it'd be too New X-men and "Magneto was right" zeitgeist.

[totally off-topic]
Although I'd have liked the ground-leveled seriousness of that Batman movie rumor where Clint Eastwood would be a car mechanic vigilante and Morgan Freeman his shop assistant Alfred. After remembering that rumor, I can't take away from my head that a script draft might have been taken to a whole new level of "no silly stuff!" to the point where "no superhero crime-fighting vigilante stuff!" and then you got "Million Dollar Baby"/"Dark Knight", Swank=Robin

(you can lynch me now).

Aha! I am Klarion

04:49 / 06.04.07

Was Batman Forever really that bad? I don't think it is bad per se; the film is just really, really queeny and broadway. It is Flash Gordon (which I love for it's campy goodness), but with better direction and a slightly seedier brand of fetishism--no Queen though

. Even scene by scene they have a lot in common. It's funny, though, that each of the actors seems to be preforming in their own seperate movie.

Anyway, cops who fantasy dress-up as batman after injecting drugs to give them mutant physic...love it! Very much like Overman! All the superficial super-heroic qualities, but none of the heart and ideals of the real Batman...sounds closer to real life than fiction.

Aha! I am Klarion

04:51 / 06.04.07

To clarify that last bit, I am talking about real-life body builders and cops being obsessed with the superficial super-hero qualities and bulkiness.

05:26 / 06.04.07

'Batman Forever' was pretty decent, as things go, and I can see why Val Kilmer suggested it as one of the top hundred films of forever. (Would I pick it? is a whole other question, but I can see the excitement, especially if I posit a 'and I got to be the goddammed Batman' in there.) The follow-up was horrible, but I'm laying that one on (a) too much toy-selling commercial panic-button mania, (b) the fact nobody of an actual creative level seemed to know what was going on and you can in fact watch/read interviews with the actors or director and watch them make statements we see later to be totally false and know they at the time believed it. Also, (c) Andy Fink worked on the movie, and while I love the guy, he could serve coffee on a set and the movie would somehow take a downhill, an unjust curse I hope is forever lifted from his head.

I like the most recent Bat-film, and Burton's, and the oldschool Adam West deal. And the various TV series. They're all goodness in their own way. The novelisation of 'Knightfall' by Denny O'Neil, was the best straight Bat-representation ever, and not just because Bruce spends a long time naked with Shiva, playing Bertie Wooster, and being far more efficient than some of the theatrics or hysterics of the typical comicbook allows for. But, really, in comics, it's Morrison's JLA run and Ellis Planetary/Batman cross-over that work the best for me. Science ninja playboy Batdaddy go!

21:25 / 16.04.07

So - this sure looks a bit like Prometheus Crooked House (cover to #668) don't it?

But maybe it isn't.

solicit:

BATMAN #668
Written by Grant Morrison
Art and cover by J.H. Williams III
Batman, Robin and the Club of Heroes are stuck on an island rigged with elaborate death traps. And even as the villain behind it all begins to explain his twisted motives, he continues to pick the heroes off one by one.
On sale July 25 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

21:28 / 16.04.07

Oh yeah, two consecutive JHW3 issues = very good.

Spyder Todd 2008

21:51 / 16.04.07

Dude, I am all about Grant doing more with Prometheus. But I doubt he'll be the person killing off the Club of Heroes. I don't have any evidence beyond my gut (and it's kind of pointless to speculate on a story arc that hasn't started yet), but I don't think he'll be the villain in that one.

Just idol speculation with no evidence whatsoever, I say the killer is Squire. 'Cause she's just so cute.

Essential Dazzler

21:54 / 16.04.07

Oh yeah, two consecutive JHW3 issues = very good.

But probably very far apart.

I was sure that was Prometheus' place myself. Hope it is.

Has he turned up in the DCU after Grant's JLA run?

21:59 / 16.04.07

Aside from the Secret Society 8C stuff, Prometheus beat up on the Birds of Prey sometime around DC's "one year later" thing.

09:05 / 17.04.07

That cover is about the best thing since SEXed bread

17:53 / 17.04.07

i'm excited to see what kinda elaborate deathtraps Grant's thought up for Bats.

18:40 / 17.04.07

Yes indeed!

19:36 / 17.04.07

I remember reading that the story arc is 3 issues, not 2.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

02:04 / 18.04.07

Prometheus was turned into a lackey for Hush in one of the batbooks for a couple of years.

05:33 / 18.04.07

Prometheus was turned into a lackey for Hush in one of the batbooks for a couple of years.

Eww. Really? How the heck did that happen? Even when he was doin stuff for Lex Luthor in GM's JLA, he was still his own man.

I really like Prometheus as a Batman villain. There's this antithesis thing going with him just downloading knowledge and skills, whereas Batman ostensibly works for it. And they've got similar origins. pseudo-Batman gone wrong; strong villain concept. Hope Grant uses him again here.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

06:37 / 18.04.07

Happened in the Liberman Gotham Knights stuff. The character was meant to be someone else I think, but for some reason they changed it to Prometheus, but kept the other guys competance levels. Gail Simone tryed to fix it recently in Birds of Prey, by having him easily humiliate Lady Shiva, who she'd spent quite some time setting up as the ultimate martial artist, and general big bady-bad.

16:26 / 18.04.07

Gail Simone's use of him in BoP was quite excellent, I must say - he evoked the serious dread that he should whenever he appears. When he took Shiva down in 2 seconds, I was scared for our heroines.

17:40 / 18.04.07

I do kinda wish he couldn't have taken down Shiva, in particular. Just 'cause, y'know, she's there to take people down. And just about the only female and/or nonwhite badass in the DCU. Which shouldn't make her sacrosanct, but, y'know It was nice while it lasted.

If somebody had to do it, I'm glad it was Prometheus, who's also got basically the angle of 'I take people down; all of them' going for him.

17:56 / 18.04.07

I know what you mean, DD, but I think it's okay with Prometheus. He's a fucking JLA level threat, or at least should be. He even took down Batman for cryeye.

18:13 / 18.04.07

Prometheus is totally a JLA level threat: he nailed Steel, J'Onn, Flash, Kyle, Huntress, Zauriel and Batman in a hurry. So hardcore.

I kinda agree with spyder that it probably ain't his house, but he is a great Batalogue and awesome villain, so am holding out likely vain hopes.

18:30 / 18.04.07

His house would be a great place to stage a bunch of Deathtraps.

Thinking about it, it so could be Prometheus. I mean, why not? This run is concerned with the many incarnations of the Bat afterall, and Prometheus is bloody good example of one of those incarnations. One that's gone horribly wrong.

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