Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Batman, Detective Comics and All-Star Batman

Now you guys are starting to get why I'm so terrified of him with the Legion.

"I am Suicide" ends with a big old "Thud" for me. I'm not sure if it was art, or pacing, or what, but things still don't make a lick of sense to me. Spoilers ahoy:

Yeah Batman didn't shine in this arc

I'm happy to see Punch and Jewelee, and Bronze Tiger to re-enter the DCU
I've always liked these characters

The Ventriliquist shines

I'm not sold on this arc. It seems to be a lot of set up for the next arc.

The Amanda Waller moment was stupid IMO

Does anyone on here know about that pitch Gail Simone made all those years ago when Cass Cain was still Batgirl? The one where she found religion and started devoting more time towards protecting Gotham's homeless and downtrodden?

No. But the first part sounds pretty awful, and the latter part... clearly Simone never read the Puckett/Scott run on her series, which (when it wasn't being dragged into crossovers) was mostly about that sort of small-scale stuff.

No actually it was a pretty good idea. It centered around Cassandra saving a minister from being mugged, but gets confused about why he seems so forgiving towards these two men who tried to rob and kill him. Curious, she starts meeting with him and begins discussing the idea of faith and religion, which aren't really things she's familiar with.

Here, this is Gail's description of it:

Batgirl saves this minister, a guy who preaches to the homeless of Gotham City, a real get-down-into-it guy, from a vicious robbery. He's beaten badly, and Batgirl lashes out at the gang viciously, until he begs her to stop. He's forgiven them, let the police handle it, he says.

Batgirl is utterly baffled. She doesn't get it. Forgiveness for those who kill and injure innocents isn't part of the batcode. She starts visiting the minister in the hospital. He talks to her, not to convert her, but the belief he has in God is so moving and unshakable, that she comes to think of him as incredibly strong. Everything about him is the opposite of Batman--he's at peace, he doesn't believe in violence, and above all, he's got the joy of God in him, in every part of him. He tells her he used to be a bad, violent man, and the book changed him. The idea appeals to and terrifies her.

So, even though she can barely, barely read, she buys a bible, and at first, she's afraid to even open it. It must be a dangerous and powerful book to change men's hearts so. Each sentence is a struggle at first, and she has to call Oracle and Robin and Alfred to have words explained to her. But one day, bam, she gets it.

From then on, she is truly devout, truly converted. She wears a white bat outfit and starts looking out for the most vulnerable of Gotham's residents, runaways, immigrants, homeless people, mentally ill people, etc, because that's what she understands the minister would do. She still issues righteous beatings because she's a little bit old testament, but she talks scripture with both the minister and the gang members. She believes.

And after a while, she gets a new nickname...many people don't call her Batgirl anymore, she becomes to them, the Angel of the Bat. And for the first time, she's genuinely happy.


Okay, here's the thing. I am not religious. In fact, I am an atheist, and you guys know I'm liberal as all hell. But I too believe Conservatives and religious people have been represented cheaply and unfairly (sometimes stupidly) in comics. When I turned in my pitch/outline (and I wasn't pitching for the book, just being asked what direction I might see for it), the editor instantly thought I meant it in a condescending way...like she would be religious, but would be shown to be naive, or that it would be just a fad, from an intellectual standpoint.

But that's not what I meant at all. I meant that she REALLY believes, and isn't stupid OR ashamed. Is in fact proud of it. Quotes the bible. Asks questions about matters of faith and scripture. And that she would be using her very dark knowledge in a redemptive way. I felt, and feel, that religious readers are often spoken down to in comics, and this would be a character change that would be fascinating for non-believers as well. But no cheating. No smirking. No trying to put in a knowing wink to the parts of the audience who aren't themselves religious.

The weird thing is, the idea actually seemed sort of radical, apparently, as I don't believe they thought it could be carried off sincerely. I don't see why not...it's a character. Her belief system doesn't have to match the writer's, or I couldn't write Dr. Psycho and Chuck couldn't write, say, anyone who isn't a gun nut (I'm kidding!!! Love ya, Chuck!).

Anyway, that was my idea, Angel of the Bat. For whatever reason, that idea seems a thousand times more controversial than having her be the head of the League of Assassins.

I'm not bitter about it, and hopefully I can revisit the idea somewhere, but with all the grim, hopeless characters in the bat-verse, I thought it would be delightful and seditious to do the exact opposite and present a sincere, hopeful and positive version of the character. Batman's reaction alone would be priceless.

So, I did try, anyway!

Gail

I loved, loved, loved the Ace the Bat-Hound story in the Batman Annual. The rest of the issue was hit or miss, but I like a good anthology, and the Ace story as the lead made it all worthwhile to me.

I actually ended up liking the Bane / Catwoman story a lot--definitely a lot more than Dave did. The deception at the end was obviously coming but it was still nice to see. I like the way Taylor writes Batman, which is very different than anyone in the past few years. I keep feeling like there's a whole "missing section" to Catwoman's story that we'll be getting shortly (or perhaps have already gotten--I'm about 3 weeks behind); I'll hold out full commentary until we get that. I think the sexual tension between Catwoman and Batman was well done: it was both sexy and romantic rather than just one or the other.

I liked this latest issue setting up "I am Bane". I'm a sucker for scenes where the Robins all get together with Bruce out of costume, and this one was well done. Decent set-up with a cliffhanger that has an obvious resolution, but effective nonetheless.

So is Tom King just trolling everyone or are there serious gaps in his storytelling? Spoilers for the latest Batman:

Only reading 'Tec; Still loving it.

I haven't read the latest round of 'Tec and Batman yet, but I did want to comment on how great All-Star Batman has been. Thus far, what its essentially been is a showcase for some of the best artists in comics to produce a Batman story alongside Scott Snyder. While Snyder has produced some of the best Batman stories in recent years (especially his Tec run prior to Batman), he's also had a lot of misses, falling perhaps into the territory of buying into his own press. I'm hoping a recent return to some creator-owned roots reinvigorated him a bit, and if this first group of arcs on ASB is any indication, I think it has.

To start we had a magnificent Johnny Romita Jr arc featuring a whole slew of villains (which thankfully did not include the Joker, Riddler, Catwoman or some other obvious ones). This included awesome renditions of KGBeast, Two-Face, and a bunch of others. I'm a huge JR Jr. fan, so for me, this was a special treat, watching him draw so many great Batman characters. His art was made even better by inks by Danny Miki and colors by Dean White, who gave some vibrancy that made the art "pop" in ways his last few years of Marvel stuff (and recent Superman stuff) hadn't done.

The back-up story for these issues was by the incredible Declan Shalvey, whose work is just awesome to behold. Over the last few years, he's emerged as an artist to watch.

From there we got Jock on a Mr. Freeze story which was as phenomenal as you'd expect. Jock and Snyder have great chemistry as their Wytches series at Image showed, and that continues here in a big way.

The latest issue had another new favorite of mine, Tula Lotay, joining Snyder on a Poison Ivy story, and her artwork was absolutely stunning! I became a fan of Lotay after her stunning art on the Supreme miniseries with Warren Ellis, and I'm eager to see what she does next. The art on her instagram account that she posts is breathtaking.

This latest issue also had a back-up by perhaps my favorite current artist in comics, Francesco Francavilla, who I greedily feel I helped discover because I collected his Zorro series when basically no one else did. Francavilla can do no wrong in my eyes, and this brief 8 page back-up had at least 3 amazing pages that I just had to stare at for over a minute.

All in all, the artwork on ASB has been really phenomenal. I hope that continues to be the raison d'être for the series, which makes it stand apart from the current Batman ongoing.

I've been going back and forth over whether to get the Night of the Monster Men collection. On one hand, it's clearly by a guest creative team and probably skipable for that reason. On the other hand, it was teased in the Batman arc immediately prior and appears to have had some repercussions afterward. Can anyone tell me whether it's worth getting or maybe is more of a hard pass? Hugo Strange is in it, right? I've always been kinda partial to him, having especially enjoyed the "ghost" mystery from the Bronze Age--even if I never saw exactly how that ended.

Personally, it would be a pass for me. It's probably the one Batman Rebirth story so far that fell totally flat. Even with repercussions, you'll still know what's going on in all future stories.

Still, if you get a good deal or if curiosity gets the better of you, it wasn't outright terrible. And it does feature the first Rebirth team-up of Batman, Nightwing, the Tec team and others. But reading it week to week was a bit of a chore, so I suspect doing it all once will be even more so. A lot of the issues were "new monster arrives, Team Batman fights it, plot slowly develops".

I've been buying 'Tec since Rebirth started, and Nightwing, so I picked up the Batman chapters to have the full story. There's a reason for each monster, and what Strange was working toward. I don't regret getting the extra comics, although I don't have Batman books to file them away with... I think I just stuck them in my 'Tec run between the appropriate chapters, LOL.

Well, hell-OOOOOOOO, Cobie! Another too-long hiatus, I see! Good to see a post or two from ya, ya bastard!

Anyhow, I think I'll skip Monster Men based on your appraisal and Pov's not-exactly-glowing endorsement. The Bat-titles have been among the best Rebirth books so far, so I wasn't sure which way to go with it. It's the only Rebirth collection to get the hardcover treatment thus far, so the price is higher than the others. I finally found one for $12.40 but still wasn't sure if it was worth it. I'll save that $12.40 for another book or books.

Anyway, Cobie, I put some more rebirth reviews in the DC Rebirth thread and will add another 4 some time this week. Check 'em out and comment if you can!

I'm going to unhelpfully point out that both the original Golden Age Monster Men story and Matt Wagner's retelling of it from about a decade ago were pretty awesome!

That was DAMNED unhelpful Ester!!!

I read the next Batman arc "I am Suicide" without reading Monster Men and had no problems, they lay out the relevant plot development pretty clearly (Hugo Strange sold character "A" to character "B" but Batman needs character "A" to save character "C").

Message recieved!

Okay Batman/Shadow really caught my attention this week when it featured cameos from

Should I pick up the DK3 collection? Did anyone here read it?

Sorry, I swore off Miller a while ago and Azzerello isn't enough to assuage any fears, so I took a pass. This is one of the those weird books where on all the sites I go to, I've seen literally NO ONE talking about it, yet it continues to be a big seller. Someone is buying it, and presumably liking it, but I have no idea who.

Don't bother. The first one is overrated enough as is.

I bought it but haven't read it yet. Knowing full well there would be delays, I wanted it all to be done before I even started.

FYI, love the first and think it's brilliant. Hated the second when it came out and never revisited (as I know some people come to see it as actually being quite good).