It’s been a few weeks, so anybody got any thoughts on the big reveal in Batman 10? Here’s ComicsAlliance’s Breaking Down the Big Reveal in Batman 10, and an explanation for how it picks up a crazy Bob Haney storyline from the 1970s.
Personally, my eyes rolled so hard that I might now need glasses. I heard it’ll be reversed, but still.
These are all spoilers, so if you haven’t read it, avoid those links and the comments.
(Overall, I’ve been very happy with Snyder. I trust him to bring it to a good conclusion, especially based on this interview. But he goes to this well too often.)
Say what you will about it, but the Court of Owls arc was far more coherent than Batman:RIP. I really liked it. Snyder’s treating the book more like horror. I’ll stick it out as long as Snyder continues on the book. I was ready to drop Batman altogether. While Morrison was a great idea man, somebody needed to step in and reign in the crazy. The cuts between scenes were getting too random. Jumping from one thing to another with little to no connection. It’s readily apparent in the RIP arc. Go try to reread the collection and figure it out.
With the nu52, you can tell which books editorial leaves alone and which ones it doesn’t. I think they leave Snyder mostly alone which is beneficial to the story. It’ll screw it up when they ram some crossover event into the ongoing story.
“When the Court of Owls deems the younger Wayne as expendable, he takes the Talon formula and dies, coming back as an unstoppable owl-zombie in gigantic mechanical owl-armor with owl-boobs…”
If the reveal is the ONLY thing about this comic that made your eyes roll, well, I don’t even know what to say.
Let me rephrase that, as it came out very snarky and a horrible jab at Tony which was not my intention.
Sure, that quote was fanboy snark and low-hanging fruit, but it all sounds so silly and like I said, I don’t even know what to say. In your other post about Gotham just below you wrote “in certain hands it’s like you’re apologizing for the whole idea of superhero comics in general.” That’s a sentiment I deplore as well. Superhero comics are inherently unrealistic, fantastic, and, well, silly. But from what I read in that article about the reveal, it seems to have veered from silliness to the idiotically ridiculous.
I don’t know. I’m just confused. It’s like the publishers see only two paths forward…the idiotically ridiculous, or simply retreading bland, chewed over storylines. It’s gotta be possible to give readers something new that doesn’t involved owl-zombies in armor with boobs.
Eh, I’m used to it.
Yeah, the Morrison run was a big mess. I spent a lot of time editing it in my head. The version in my head was pretty awesome, though.
My biggest complaint is that I miss the civilian subplots in superhero comics. Commissioner Gordon’s job hanging on the outcome of a mayoral race, Joe Robertson wrestling with journalistic ethics… all that stuff fleshed out the world the supercharacters lived in. I was happy to see new supporting civilians in Batman, part of what hooked me. But nooooooo, they turn out, as always, to be linked to a secret supervillain conspiracy. Big yawn.
Hey, also, since I am not reading the comic, why is Batman holding a giant egg in that picture? Do the people in the Secret Owl Society or whatever they are called hatch from giant eggs? Because I really wouldn’t be surprised if that was the answer.
Like, Batman finally beats up their leader real bad and smashes the egg that the heir to the Owl Throne was going to hatch out of, thus destroying the future of the Secret Society of Owls forever, but also murdering his own nephew!!!
It’s a court of owls mask. If I had to nitpick, if you’re going to detail the shit out of Batman’s costume every issue, you could at least make the owl mask look like a damn owl.
It looks like an egg. It totally looks like an egg. And they should KNOW that since they built the whole storyline around OWLS.
I’m kind of morbidly obsessed with this whole thing now. It’s fascinating. I LOVE how in the last few years Bruce Wayne’s extended family just keeps growing and growing and growing and they’re ALL somehow costumed characters. That’s rich!
Like, he goes from being the only orphaned child of wealthy parents Thomas and Martha. And then later it turns out he has a son (Damian, right?) with Talia? And didn’t his son become Robin or Batman or something while he was “lost in time?” And now he has a brother too, who is a mechanical owl with boobs? I can totally picture the storylines in say ten years or so. Bruce Wayne will assemble a team of lethal vigilantes that consists of his son, his brother, his cousin, his father’s first girlfriend and his bastard half-daughter from another Earth all to end the terrible threat to Gotham City embodied in his second cousin who fights alongside his great great uncle.
All of whom will be some avian variation. Like, his great great uncle will be the Teratornis and his bastard half-daughter will be the Silver Sparrow and his father’s first girlfriend will be Lady Bluejay and man it goes on and on and on.
I may actually have to start reading Batman now!
Y’know, this is another case where I don’t disagree with you on a factual level. I don’t like tying in everything to Batman’s past. I think it’s a method to get “cheap heat.” And I think Batman works better as more of a loner, rather than the center of the Batman Family.
But having read it, I didn’t think it was as bad as you imagine it to be.
… although the main villain in the Morrison run did turn out to be Bruce Wayne’s devil-worshiping great-great-great uncle.
“And I think Batman works better as more of a loner, rather than the center of the Batman Family.”
Absolutely agreed.
“… although the main villain in the Morrison run did turn out to be Bruce Wayne’s devil-worshiping great-great-great uncle.”
Are you fucking serious?
I’m not sure how many “greats,” but yes. I can’t make that up. But I am pretty sure the Court of Owls does not hatch from eggs.
Hey, this discussion seems to hinge a bit on your definition of “idiotic ridiculousness.”
For my money, comics have always relied on wacky high concepts. What’s the dividing line, in your opinion, between a “fresh, new idea” and “idiotic ridiculousness?”
I’m not sure I can answer that articulately since I tend to be primarily reactive as a reader and don’t engage in a whole lot of analysis of what really works for me in stories that I like. If I like it, I just let myself like it. Deconstructing things tends to completely sap my enjoyment of them. Also, I’m not a writer so I don’t have much of incentive to tinker with the nuts and bolts of storytelling. In some ways, to borrow a tired example, “idiotic ridiculousness” is like that foolish definition of pornography…I know it when I see it.
But I will offer this. Idiotic ridiculousness seems to me to come from pushing comic book characters in directions that are inimical to their true nature. Most of our superheroes have been around for a long time now, and they’ve taken on fairly consistent traits and characteristics. Superman, last son of Krypton, overgrown boyscout and do-gooder with a heart of gold. Batman, wealthy playboy, solitary avenging force of justice, lurks in the shadows, has no powers but is nearly impossible to beat and so on. Spider-man, wisecracking New Yorker with deep human flaws and a tragic mistake in his past, but also every bit a hero. And on and on.
So for me, idiotic ridiculousness comes from going against those traditions. Batman, as you aptly put it, is supposed to be a kind of loner. His status as an orphan, as the last Wayne, as the sole scion of a wealthy and important family…all those things are essential to his character. So when you start introducing never before seen sons, brothers, and so on, it doesn’t hold up. It’s not Batman.
It would be like if someone did a story where it turned out that Krypton had actually been colonized by people from Earth who had accidentally traveled through a wormhole in space and gone back in time. So Superman himself is actually an Earthling. It would be ridiculous. New, sure. Different, yeah. But ridiculous.
And finally, while it might seem like I am arguing against change in comics, I’m not at all. Read a Spider-man or Batman or Superman comic from the 1960s or the 1950s. These characters have evolved. They have changed with the times. So they continue to grow, albeit slowly, and evolve.
>If I like it, I just let myself like it.
Yeah. I can usually articulate a reason I liked something or didn’t like it, but it usually comes down to that gut feeling. I think that’s why I have a hard time arguing when I like something that you don’t.
But I’m not trying to argue that everything’s relative and there shouldn’t be any standards. Some things really are crap. I think a little give-and-take over what’s good is probably healthy.
So in this particular case: Zombie owl assassins (to me) fit well enough in the Batman milieu. Long-lost brothers, not so much.
OK, in Batman 11 they made it pretty clear that this is very, very, very probably a hoax. This is some Poochie-went-back-to-his-home-planet level of backpedaling. But thank goodness.