Booster Gold!

A Flash event…

I’m going to be skint this summer!

The rumor that John Constantine is going back to the regular DC universe has me more worried than anything else about Flashpoint. Hellblazer has been one of the most consistently great comics for over twenty years. Are they really going to make him stop cussing and start spending all his time with a bunch of spandex wearing wanker twits? Bad enough that it’s happening to poor Swamp Thing. And here’s a fun continuity fact. At the end of the first Swamp Thing Vertigo run, Alec Holland was reincarnated as a baby. That means that at some point that baby had to die in order for Alec Holland to be around in any form at this point. I wonder how they’ll work that into the story.

As for the originality of Grant Morrison’s work on Batman, I don’t really get your point about his playing off of the old TV show and the 50s/60s comics. I realize that he is taking ideas and concepts from there, but its not like he’s retelling the same stories. He’s modernizing ideas that were poorly executed the first time around and using them to tell an over-arcing story.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Morrison is bullet-proof. I strongly disliked RIP and quite a few of the issues leading up to it and Return of Bruce Wayne was a bloody mess. Batman & Robin started strong and then seemed to tread water, waiting for Bruce to get back. And as much as I’ve enjoyed Batman Inc. thus far, I still can’t forgive Morrison for ‘outing’ Bruce Wayne as ‘Batman…’s source of income’. But I’m along for the ride. I find the idea of a world wide group of vigilante’s trained and outfitted by the best there is interesting. Maybe even… original?

And don’t say “It’s not Batman” because you don’t think he’s being true to the core concept of the character. His first appearance had Batman killing several people using guns. And as for the use of supernatural elements in Batman stories, I refer you to The Mad Monk. He may not be the Batman that you like the most or even the one that appeals to the widest audience, but it embraces more of the character’s past than any version we’ve seen in the last 20 years. This is Batman. In universe continuity Batman. That is, until after Final Infinite Crisis on Infinite Final Earth!

Oh, and I think we can all agree that Superman and Wonder Woman are a bit of a mess right now, but hopefully they wrap these “groundbreaking” storylines up quickly and find a way to breathe some life back into the titles (as a side note, I am thoroughly enjoying Paul Cornell’s run on Action and hope that he brings the Man of Steel back with style in #900). Honestly, I wouldn’t mind Flashpoint being used to clean up either of these stories right now.

If you don’t think I’m being fair in my assessment, track Morrison down yourself. Ask him. He’ll tell you. Everything’s he’s doing is ripped right out of trade paperbacked collections of Batman comics from The 50s and 60s.

Calling him “original” is an insult to the word “original.” Only in so-far as his Batman stuff goes. His truly original ideas, stuff like The Invisibles, Sea-Guy, We-3, etc., are all exceptional. His whackiness works for superheroes like Superman and Animal Man. Put him on Booster Gold. He’s so interested in time-travel and past stories, he’d kill on that book, probably.

My argument is: It’s not Batman. Not, “it’s not my Batman.” It’s just not Batman. Hasn’t been since they saved him from cancellation in 1970.

Everything else…meh.

No way! I’ve been reading Batman comics for thirty years.

GeorgeC. said it for me. Thanks, George.

@ChrisB. : EVERYTHING in the Batman books right now — with the exception of that obnoxious, sit-commy-w/-an-edge Damian Wayne — is cribbed directly from Batman comics in The 50s and 60s. Comics, by the way, which were considered too asinine to influence even the campy TV show. The sci-fi-silly superheroics that editor Julius Schwartz decided were so out-of-whack with the core concept, he re-booted them out of existence. The stuff that every editor and writer of Batman since The 70s has ignored like plague infection. Yes, I said 70s — Batman has been a “Dark Knightish” detective since BEFORE Frank Miller came along.

That’s forty years of work, done, to make the character more of a (relatively speaking) believable human being. All of it flushed so we can have a resurrected sidekick-turned-goon, Dick Grayson in Daddy’s clothes, and “It’s a Small Bat-World After All.”

I hear you before you even say, “But the Bat books are all popular now,” suggesting they’re more popular than those popular books from those forty years. Thing is, you can’t prove it by a decreasing readership. Maybe, just maybe, that decline isn’t all due to video games.

Tell me which you think would fly as a blockbuster movie? Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT? Tim Burton’s BATMAN? Or Grant Morrison’s ZEBRA-MAN VS. THE TEN-EYED MAN IN THE VALLEY OF THE CLONED SONS OF BATMAN? Yeah. Exactly.

Superman? Wonder Woman? I’ll refer you to Newsarama’s coverage of Wondercon’s “Icons” panel. You know, the one were there’s no mention of any icon? Hmmmm.

I’m way-off topic. I don’t have anything against “Flashpoint,” as it will more than likely just be a bunch of alterna-takes that have no effect on anything beyond the Flash titles and Geoff Johns’ follow-up event. None of which I’ll read. Some of which might be great fun for people who like ‘em.

Elseworlds are a lot of fun.

Just as long as nobody tries to sell me on the idea that the true, continuity-approved, one-and-only Bruce Wayne’s suddenly a time-traveling demi-god who shoots laser ray-guns at aliens. That’s just bu’sh’.

Now everyone write that on your respective chalkboards 500 times.

Then, for extra credit, write the following 250 times:

There are comics from other publishers that I like. There are comics from other publishers that I do not like.

And I certainly agree that losing the comment part of Newsarama has pretty much neutered the website completely. The comments are always more interesting than the actual articles in my opinion.

Also, I’m not sure what you meant by the state of Batman’s comics since 1986 (and boy am I tired of people calling DKR the definitive Batman story), but Year One, The Killing Joke, and Long Halloween all came out after that year. If you are pining so badly for those pre-crisis stories, I would expect you to love what Morrison is doing on the title right now.

I also agree that the removal of the direct response forums at the end of all articles is very annoying and I have started reading other websites more frequently than newsarama as a result. I loathe facebook and do not want to have to use their facebook page to discuss topics. Bring back your discussion pages newsarama!

I have to agree with Mike, and this is NOT cynicism.

It’s the M.O. of DC right now…

… and I agree, Geoff Johns IS vastly overrated and potentially one of the worst individuals in comics that could have been made a DC executive officer.
I don’t hate the guy but he regurgitates ideas and kills off characters all the time. Not exactly inspiring or original.

Ditto with Morrison’s general lack of originality… EXCEPT for getting DC to implement the worst ideas in Batman’s recent history… and let’s face it, Batman’s comic haven’t been pretty places to visit since 1986 and all the bad cues taken from that year.

DC hasn’t had clear editorial direction in decades. This time, instead of group editors NOT talking to each other, they’re letting a wunderkin run everything… and he’s just recycling the same shit that’s been done 5-6 times already in the past 25 years.

Not that Marvel’s any better now…

With all the emphasis on movies and merchandizing tie-ins, the main publishing lines have never been as sorely neglected and/or mishandled as they are now.

It’s a good thing that more-than-ever that reprints of vastly superior older material are out there!

P.S. — I find the lack of ability to respond to most articles on Newsarama to be a cowardly way to curb opinions that are not all in line with the Big Publishers…
More than ever, you can sense that Newarama is sucking on the teats of the Big Two!
There’s little sense of any editorial independence here anymore.
‘Arama doesn’t have to be as nasty as Fantagraphics is but the site sure could stand having more assertive people to call out on the B.S. that’s being printed now!
Everybody that writes on the site seems to like everything Marvel or DC does now… The criticisms are so mild that it’s taken that bad writing and editorial are blips instead of the norm for what passes as comic entertainment now.

Nope. I can almost guarantee we’re still going to be stuck with Grant Morrison’s Batman-as-a-corporate-logo and Geoff Johns’ Skittles-Lantern schtick after Flash-In-The-Pan.

Might I suggest the next big DC event? SHATTERED! What happened to Gotham City? Where did it go? Why is it no longer swamped with sidekick superheroes? Who will race Superman, if The Flash exists in his own self-contained universe? Will Wonder Woman remember her past as a twenty-ish hottie who couldn’t remember her past? When [SPOILER ALERT] returns from the dead, where will he return, and will anyone there give an expletive? And, do you have to read every issue of BRAVE, to understand every issue of BOLD?

The Abin-Sur description is a serious buzz kill. Running out of ideas or doing the opposite/alternate b.s. guys?

And if the rumors are true and they reboot every DC title to #1 (including Action and Detective allegedly), how much of this will really matter as its just another cleverly disguised attempt at another Crisis reboot?