"The Anatomy Of Zur-En-Arrh: Understanding Grant Morrison's Batman" by Cody Walker

It's the CliffsNotes to Grant Morrison's take on Batman, everyone...and it's a very useful book. It answers a lot of questions as to what it was all about and digs around for ingenious insights into the imagery given. Morrison's Batman tenure was ground-breaking and ambitious - every story mattered - which meant stories about Batman chasing drug dealers down alleyways and through warehouses simply wouldn't do; the Dark Knight Detective became acutely self-aware - 70+ years of incarnations were now meant to represent a single decade & a 1/2 in the crazy life of a very busy tycoon, the wealthiest man on Earth, a playboy/philanthropist/detective who beats up people dressed in a costume vaguely resembling a bat...and how he achieved godhood on the whim of the most-powerful embodiment of evil in the DC Comics Universe..

Cody Walker, to his credit, doesn't shy away from the weaknesses of Morrison's storylines. In my opinion, there were many concepts and story elements throughout that read as though Morrison was in a deadline crunch and lacked time to present his ideas with better care and organization. His plot twists also required skill at writing detective stories, which turned out to not be his strong suit. His characterization of the villain Darkseid and his Earth avatar, the "Bat-God" Barbatos/Dr. Simon Hurt might be more varied and colorful than any incarnation we've seen before or after, but this was lost by woefully underdeveloped scripting. At the time, only the main points of each issue registered, not the themes or characters, which may explain why it was so easy for fans to embrace Scott Snyder's back-to-basics approach.

And yet, this book came to the rescue. I have a newfound appreciation for what Morrison was doing and would like to go back and revisit those storylines again, particularly The Return of Bruce Wayne arc, with Batman hopping through different time periods. The section covering Batman Inc. was kind of dull, though..perhaps reflecting that Morrison's run was winding up and had fewer points to make about Batman, aside from the power of the character's totem-like symbolism as a corporate brand..which reminds me of a non-fiction book of criticism about Batman from 2000 titled Batman Unmasked, which was the first I had read argue the same points that Morrison was making throughout..It may have been a source of inspiration for what he would do...I need to look for that book..

Not all questions were answered, however. I remember searching for answers about that goblin creature looming behind Bat-Mite in Batman R.I.P. and finding it in a transcript of a Q&A, where Morrison revealed his take on the imp ( that the creature was the imp's true form, a kindly-yet-grotesque-to-us being, offering what he believed to be a pleasing avatar to appear in his stead , kind of the opposite number to Darkseid appearing by proxy as Barbatos/Dr. Hurt ), so now you know, and can thank me...but we'll never know if there was any significance in Alfred the butler reading a copy of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code...

..maybe Walker has a Volume 2 planned...

It's Been A Pleasure: The "Batman Odyssey" Casebook

A LOT has been written and said about Batman: Odyssey, Neal Adams' 13-issue magnum opus he wrote and illustrated in 2010.  I recently found a hardcover edition of the book at a good price and decided to give it a try, in light of Adams' recent efforts to turn the tide of negative opinions on it...Well, I read it...and I have something new to say about this guilty pleasure read - something that nobody has noticed:

If you own the hardcover edition of this story, then you can remove the dust jacket...and then the book looks like "Volume 2" of Batman: The Black Casebook!

The Black Casebook is a paperback reprint of Batman comics from the 1950's that inspired Grant Morrison's nine year tenure writing for the caped crusader. Morrison wanted to reintegrate material from that decade back into current Bat-continuity, so he came up with a "Bat-X Files": accounts of the Batman's strangest cases kept locked away, much like the safety deposit box in which Doctor Watson kept notes on Sherlock Holmes' cases that were to be kept confidential.  In Batman's case, these would include encounters with space aliens, Bat-Mite, time travel, alternate identities, various identity crises,  documentations on the aftereffects of repeated exposure to laughing gas, fear toxins or Bat-smoke pellets of his own design - all the offbeat stuff.

With this in mind, Batman Odyssey  fits the criteria for labeling it as "A Batman Adventure for The Black Casebook"  or a new edition entitled: "Batman: Odyssey - An Adventure From The Black Casebook". Of course,  DC Comics still uses the Legends of The Dark Knight title/brand on Batman comics, but Odyssey is really a Casebook book. If you own both of these tomes, I suggest you put them side by side and enjoy searching for thematic links between them. The quality of the scripting on both is the same, plus every page is packed with stuff to absorb - for all that's been said about Odyssey, Adams doesn't shortchange you.

So, I hope anyone giving Neal's book a try and feeling a bit dumbfounded about what to make of it after hearing or reading recent interviews in which he suggested you see it as "a book " can rest easy if you see it the way I see it...as a Casebook!

You can rest assured...the same way Batman inexplicably decides to plop down on the floor of the Batcave and take a nap at an early point leading to the book's climax. Goodnight. :)

Batman Deux - Comic Book Rehab Issue #1, Volume Deux

I found issue #2 of Batman. Since I did not find issue #1, I have to go along with the old idea that every issue is accesssible, even in a chapter of  a long arc (it rarely ever is, only in the sense that you observed some things that have happened).

We get a new villain, The Court of Owls...that sounds more like a Daredevil antagonist to me - he has a villain named the Owl, and he could use better villains...why not The Court Of Bats? Whatever. They've got it in for Bruce Wayne, and we get a neat sequence where Bruce Wayne (Batman) gets pushed out the window of his office building (a location which is always featured in the comics but never used in the films or tv series, possibly because of its egg-shaped peak, like a kind-of rejected design for the Daily Planet building). He survives the fall in a way that pays off the wordy (in teeny tiny print) first page.

We get a interesting action sequence involving some stolen statues aboard a helicopter with Batman following on motorcycle that I guess the writer was bored with, because he ends it abruptly, but I thought it was more entertaining then this dull CSI scene with an autopsy that was run-of-the-mill, oh, and a Nightwing cameo (in which we are reminded that he still exists in this new continuity) and a very dull character named Lincoln March, who willl join Tommy Monahan in the Batman-villains-who-introduce-themselves-in-their-civillian-guise-first category - but if I'm wrong, then hats off to Scott Snyder.

What we're left with is mostly middle and set-up. I wonder if the 1st issue had anything going on at all - was it just Batman swinging around, doing his "I am the Night" schtick before finding a dead body on the last page? We get a preview of a Batman Graphic Novel, Noel, which reads like a story I might have read before, but New-er-er or "Like New".  What does work is the art. If the script seemed leaden, the art never lets on that it is, and Greg Capullo gives Gotham a look that reminded me of old Legends Of The Dark Knight comics from the late-80's-early-90's

I remember joking that once Grant Morrison was off the Bat-books, the tone and format of the comics would go back to the 90's Batman, which had him going after street gangs, ersatz Fu-Manchu/Mola-Ram types and beefed-up thugs with gimmick names...well, it's back, and we can expect a rematch with Bane next spring.

Supergods by Grant Morrison - Book Review

Grant Morrison is an interesting case. He was part of the British Invasion of comic book writers in the 1980's (with Frank Miller as their token Yankee), and his work at the time didn't quite grab attention like Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman, but he's the last man standing. Alan Moore became the modern day Howard Hughes, Gaiman became a bestselling author and screenwriter, recently getting positive marks for writing an episode of Doctor Who. This year Morrison has managed to complete his opus, Supergods, which he often hinted at in interviews over the past few years as being a survey of Superheroes and how people read them, as well as cobbling together a lot of the rhetoric about their popularity which often appeared in bits and bobs in many of his interviews.

Morrison's work can be described in two categories - stories that use structure: there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, the audience is hip to what's going on, the characters are in fine form; then there are stories that consist of moments: cause-and effect built around high-concept metaphysics. These are stories that approach the character as a concept, with reflections that play off representative samples of how they were portrayed over decades, as well as creating suspense about the nature of the world/universe/hyper reality that serves as their backdrop/soundtrack, decompressed into a 30/40-issue arc. This approach is the more ambitious, often  sabotaged by modern scriptwriting. Stories like Seven Soldiers, Batman R.I.P,  Final Crisis, and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne feel rushed and incoherent, making more sense in talk back interviews. Final Crisis felt like a typical Zombie/Vampire movie with a tired superhero/supervillain twist and not very interesting, but it was only upon reading Supergods that there was a more intriguing undertow that should have been front-and-center. It was as if Grant had been stretched thin and had to move on to his next "big event thing", his next wide screen comic book epic.

Two things Morrison neglected to mention in his book had me curious. In 2000, having completed a successful run redefining the long-running, but often mediocre mainstay, Justice League of America, as well as wrapping his creator owned title, The Invisibles, Grant claimed he was through working with DC, believing that concepts he created for The Invisibles had been ripped-off by the Matrix franchise. He then began a four-year tenure with Marvel, headlined by an interesting run on the book New X-Men that ran out of gas very quickly. Then he returned to DC. I guess he got over it - he makes no mention of the fit in particular, except perhaps with a wink when he recalls seeing the Matrix and describing his work on The Invisibles.

The other thing was a series of ads for Calvin Klein jeans that appeared on the back covers of Marvel comics a few years back. After giving Rob Liefeld a poke in the ribs for starring in a Levis jeans commercial in the 90's, I suppose Morrison couldn't find a way to make his celebrity (and that of his cronies, contemporaries, and upstart proteges) distinguishable from Rob's (and the founders of Image comics) without his reasoning falling apart.

He describes his work a lot here. For this book is a memoir disguised as a history lesson - yet that's what it does, it offers the history of Superheroes as the soundtrack to Grant Morrison's life and his universe. For within these pages, these so-called "Supergods" are his muse - his theories about life, the universe, and everything have some connection to the characters that only exist on printed paper, on TV screens, as merchandise, and the cinema. He runs the risk of making mountains out of molehills and coming off glib, but once you realize that he's offering insight into how he works, then the book becomes more interesting for it. We rarely get a chance to pick inside the brain of a popular author, see what makes him tick, and look forward to his next project with greater insight into the origins of his imagination.

In lesser hands, this book would've been an ego trip - many will see it that way. Morrison is still playing his cards close, but he's letting us take a quick peak at his hand. For now, anyway. It's worth a look.


Take Care.

Marvelous Triple Action with Comic Book Rehab

I decided to just keep issues 1,5, and 6 of Batman Odyssey.  Those issues have stuff I like, whereas the others...well, if the payoff to this is impressive, I'll consider picking up the trade. The story concerns Ra's Al Ghul playing maestro with Batman's career as a superhero, supposedly using the classic rogues gallery as his puppets in a drawn-out plan to make Batman the big piece in his global chess game. Maybe... That's where the bad reviews go - "If only Neal Adams had someone scripting his plots.." Well, maybe things would be clearer, but things are happening on a level too simple to demand it.

So, the book is a big turducken, but I  find it no different than the hyped-up stuff that Grant Morrison has been doing with Batman in the last 5 years. Both projects are dwelling on the past, and both seem insubstantial enough for the next team to come along to try and ignore it for their own sake.

I thought Morrison spoiled his run off the bat by introducing Damien, Bruce's son from Mike W. Barr's so-so Son Of The Demon Graphic Novel, as an uber-spoiled tween - Jason Todd's worst moments redux. Then Morrison indulged in revisiting 50's Batman continuity, making mountains of half-baked concepts. I like Bat-Mite, but there's a diffrence between liking a character/status quo/design scheme and liking a story - those stories weren't really great.

 Then what happens after the rock stars drop the mike and take off? We go back to Batman fighting ninjas, drug dealers, serial killers, and police stories and season-spanning crossovers. One good thing I can say about Odyssey is that it's just one book to follow - one source of whackiness to dip in.

Take care, everyone. I'll be back.