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Books: Batman Dies vs. Krypton Lives
Mar. 7th, 2011 09:33 pmOver the past couple years, both the Batman comics and the Superman comics have been going through long "events" intended to shake them up. One was handled well, one badly.
The Batman titles have largely been choreographed by Grant Morrison. Over the past few years, Bruce Wayne has discovered that he has a 10-year-old son, Damian. He has been entwined in a complex plot to drive him insane, based on his experiments in sense-deprivation and his frequent exposures to Joker venom and fear-gas. (This was used to bring some of the weird stories from the 1950s into modern continuity — they become metaphor instead of absurdity.) He died, facing a mad god, saving the world. Dick Grayson became the new Batman, with Damian as the new Robin. The world discovered that Bruce wasn't dead, but rather cast into the past, traveling back to the present through one awful lifetime after another. He returned to the now, in triumph. And, in the near future, he begins to spread the cloak of Batman worldwide, by franchising the name. In short, the Morrison years have been marked by profound change, much of it likely to be lasting, all of it twisting the myth in interesting ways.
Meanwhile, over at Superman, the Bottle City of Kandor was enlarged, and given its own planet, thus adding 100,000 Kryptonians to the DC Universe. They went to war with Earth, lost, and their planet was blown up, with most of them killed, and the rest shoved into the Phantom Zone. At each step it felt like every "profound change" was shadowed by the reset button lurking in the background. And, sure enough, at the end of the storyline things were back to normal. Any dead characters were the ones introduced during the storyline, and new characters were few and minor. The cynicism of it was mighty and tangible.
So: Morrison's Batman: Strongly recommended. The tale of New Krypton: Not recommended.
Edit: Recommended reading order:
Optional: The Black Casebook
Batman & Son
The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
The Black Glove
Batman: R.I.P.
Very Optional: Final Crisis
The Battle For The Cowl
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn
Batman & Robin: Batman vs. Robin
The Return of Bruce Wayne
Time and the Batman
The Batman titles have largely been choreographed by Grant Morrison. Over the past few years, Bruce Wayne has discovered that he has a 10-year-old son, Damian. He has been entwined in a complex plot to drive him insane, based on his experiments in sense-deprivation and his frequent exposures to Joker venom and fear-gas. (This was used to bring some of the weird stories from the 1950s into modern continuity — they become metaphor instead of absurdity.) He died, facing a mad god, saving the world. Dick Grayson became the new Batman, with Damian as the new Robin. The world discovered that Bruce wasn't dead, but rather cast into the past, traveling back to the present through one awful lifetime after another. He returned to the now, in triumph. And, in the near future, he begins to spread the cloak of Batman worldwide, by franchising the name. In short, the Morrison years have been marked by profound change, much of it likely to be lasting, all of it twisting the myth in interesting ways.
Meanwhile, over at Superman, the Bottle City of Kandor was enlarged, and given its own planet, thus adding 100,000 Kryptonians to the DC Universe. They went to war with Earth, lost, and their planet was blown up, with most of them killed, and the rest shoved into the Phantom Zone. At each step it felt like every "profound change" was shadowed by the reset button lurking in the background. And, sure enough, at the end of the storyline things were back to normal. Any dead characters were the ones introduced during the storyline, and new characters were few and minor. The cynicism of it was mighty and tangible.
So: Morrison's Batman: Strongly recommended. The tale of New Krypton: Not recommended.
Edit: Recommended reading order:
Optional: The Black Casebook
Batman & Son
The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
The Black Glove
Batman: R.I.P.
Very Optional: Final Crisis
The Battle For The Cowl
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn
Batman & Robin: Batman vs. Robin
The Return of Bruce Wayne
Time and the Batman
