Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Current state of Batman books (2/7/06)

I'm the type of reader that collects trade paperbacks. Batman trades are usually ones that I pick up.

I enjoyed the No Man's Land series as well as the Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive series that followed. Really dug the Hush volumes, but hadn't picked up much since... until this past weekend when I picked up Hush Returns.

Hush Returns left me way flat. It had no purpose, barely showed much of Batman or Hush and when it did there wasn't much exposition about them. Then it ended without doing anything. All this story needed was Wolverine and it could have been an X-Men arc. Ugh!

I was considering picking up War Games, but if Hush Returns is any indication of the quality of stories in the Bat Titles... I'd rather not waste my money.

Opinions or thoughts on the recent Bat Trades would be most welcome.

You're absolutely right on the Hush returns story, and if you want an even more crappy Batman run, try Judd Winnick's Batman stories. Probably the worst Batman run I've ever read IN MY WHOLE LIFE!!!

Throughout the 80's-90's I felt there was a quality to the Batman books that was often unmatched by the rest of the DCU. Even during the Bane saga they were good, if you could forgive them for a years worth of crappy Jean Paul Azbats stories. Following Bruce's return, there were some excellent runs/storylines. The whole 'Who Shot Commisioner Gordon' story was great, as were the previous final arcs of No Man's Land.

Thus, it is my duty Minesurfter to warn you against all Batman stories in the last year. Your eyes may bleed and your throat may close up.

I am definately looking forward to James Robinson coming in and taking control for a little while. Despite the loud minority feeling of anti-Dark Batman across the internet, there's tons of stories over the last twenty years that showcase how great a character Batman is (LOTD #1-41, SoTB #1-15, Grant/Breyfogle, Aparro's last Bat stories, etc., etc.). Sadly, this was lost following Rucka and Brubaker's departure from the Bat books.

Thanks for the input Cobie. I don't have the words to state just how disappointed I was in "Hush Returns". This is the first time I've actually thought about dropping Bat-related books altogether (and I really dig Gail's work on BoP).

Do you have any specific recommendations about the War Games arc? Were those written by Winnick? I've checked a couple spots around the internet and "War Games Vols 1-3" get a rating of 7 to 9 out of 10 by the average reviewer. I've found that those average reviewers tend to over-estimate just how good tpbs really are though. I much prefer word of mouth.

I'm actually moving toward the trade collection reading. Too many transition issues these last few years.

Hush Returns was weak, the writer was just trying to ride the excitement of the Lee/Loeb pairing. I'm with Cobie, since Winnick started writing, I've dropped the Bat-titles. I will be picking up Robinson's run tho'. Here's a writer/character combo that has been a long time coming.

I agree on that one.

There's actually two obscure Robinson written Bat stories in L:otDK, which are both excellent. The latter is a Spook story from the late 90's which was great, and the first was earlier, but I can't recall which it was off-hand (get them confused--but know I thought it was excellent). There's also the Bat appearances in Starman.

But I agree--a long time coming.

Didn't Robinson write a 2-part Cavalier story for LotDK?

That's it. And it was excellent IMO.