Okay, so I'm doing a feature for the Meg on the best and worst Batman stories since the Adams and O'Neil era.
Please help by shouting out your candidates for the WORST Batman comics of all time...
Here's what I got so far: Digital Justice, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again and Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder ('Are you retarded? I'm the goddamn Batman!')...
The Long Halloween - man, that was boring!
And pretty much anything from the 1950s and 1960s - not a lot of classics from that era!
I don't think The Dark Knight Strikes Again was bad as such, just people maybe expected more from it.
I quite like it but I just can't get over the terrible colouring on the book.
"According to studio New Line, the first will be an adaptation of The Hobbit, the novel Tolkien published before his Lord of the Rings cycle.
The second will be an original story focusing on the 60 years between the book and the beginning of the Rings trilogy."
Uh-oh... Brace-brace-brace for the waves of Fanger.
Link: Del Toro to direct Hobbit Movies...
I really haven't read enough Batman to comment fairly, but can't resist adding Hush. If that wasn't the worst, Batman is pretty bloody ordinary
here's a link to a column I wrote about it...
Link: what I wrote about Hush
Can't say I've ever read much Batman, but in a second hand store in Cardiff city centre there is a reproduction of an old Batman cover.
It shows Batman completely submerged in a tank of water with Robin looking on and has a speech bubble coming from Batman saying "That's right Robin, I've become a human fish!"
How bad/contrived must that story have been.
Prepared to wipe the egg of my face if it turns out to be one of the classics though.
just adding Batman vampire trilogy.
Vampire trilogy??
There's three of them?? I'd read the first (I uess) Red Rain or something. I love Batman, but that was shite.
Post Adams and O'Neill? So that's post 1970s? Hmmm. For me it would have to be something by A.j. Liberman. Batman books are basically bulletproof sales wise but Lieberman managed to drive Gotham Knights into cancellation.
Hush Returns is a collection written by Lieberman in which...well the title says it all. What really shocked me about it was that two of the six issues are spent retelling widely read and available origin stories without adding anything extra to the mix. So The Joker sits by a fireside with The Penguin and The Riddler and shares the Red Hood story and another 22 pages are spent telling the history of Prometheus as written by Grant Morrison in a JLA special.
Pointless retreadings that don't embellish or tell the story from an interesting new perspective. Nothing is added or developed or reimagined. Whatever you may think about Moore and Morrison they are two of the most creative writers out there and to hear their stories rehashed in such a prosaic is baffling in the extreme. Anybody who wanted to read them could have read the originals. Nothing is added to story by these lengthy digressions and, considering the books called Hush Returns they don't even have much to do about Hush.
Much to do about Hush? Shakespeare versus Kane.
Year 2.
Remove the part about it being Batman's second year and it's actually not a bad story. Probably more of a marketing fuck up than writing. Some gorgeous art at the start from Alan Davis only then to switch into the awfulness of McFarlane. ISTR hearing that a Year 3 was in existence as well...
All-Star Batman is currently get a bit of a pating but it makes me laugh as I really dont think its meant to be serious.
In the last year I've read some of Grant Morrisons new lot and they were just plain bad.
Cool column there, Floyd!
the Vampire trilogy
Batman & Dracula Red Rain
Batman: Bloodstorm
Batman Crimson Mist
I really like ALL STAR BATMAN.
I like the fact that it can exist in the same universe as the sixties Batman movies.
Do elseworlds titles count? I recall reading a couple; one where he was in the Wild West and one where he gets mixed up in the Arthurian legend (he was a dark KNIGHT, geddit). The Arthurian one was abso-fucking-lutely appalling.
(GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT is great however).
BATMAN Vs. PREDATOR was pretty poor though (it was basically the same plot as PREDATOR 2) but bizarely, I still found myself buying another BATMAN vs. PREDATOR title (can't recall) as I was sucked in by some fantastic art.
I've read a few Grant Morrisons in the last couple of year and quite enjoyed them myself.
I really like ALL STAR BATMAN.
I was pretty critical of the first few issues of The All Star Goddamn Batman, but I've really warmed to it lately. Pulling one thread out of the whole Batman mess and running with it to bizarre lengths is one of Miller's cleverer ideas, and the Green Lantern sequence was priceless.
Isn't the "God-damn Batman" a rehash of the very first spoken dialogue in the legendarily-awful Sam Hamm screenplay for Watchmen that was doing the rounds on the internet a few years ago? "Oh no - it's the God-Damn Watchmen!" or something like that?
Hush - without doubt, one of the worst comics I've ever read, and whose only half-decent moment is a cliffhanger - lifted wholesale from the story 'the Mud Pack' during Alan Grant's Batman run alongside Norm Breyfogle - when Jason Todd turns up at the end of the issue. The writer even lifts the reveal that it's Clayface for the next issue, despite it making no sense whatsoever for him to be there - then lifts a scene from the Batman animated series where Clayface disappears in pouring rain. Awful.
Batman: City Of Crime is also terrible - like a sixth-former's angsty poetry told over several hundred pages. It's hard to accurately describe it - have you ever seen the cut-scenes from the Max Payne videogame series? Pretty much identical to that - it's just a relentlessly juvenile attempt to be adult and edgy, but unlike Max Payne, it's not even funny.
The Larry Hama Batman run - the one where he stole an old Eisner Spirit story beat-for-beat (because, y'know, The Spirit is pretty obscure and no-one will notice) and featured the Batman toys in every other issue, like the Batman Aqualung action-figure turning up because he needed to fight a half-woman, half-whale villain called Orca.
I'm not making that up.
War Games was a disasterous event, not just for Batman (because it was pretty dull and added nothing of interest to the series beyond pointlessly ending Bats' 'urban legend' status), but for DC in general, as the treatment of one character led to an outcry from female readers and the creation of Girlwonder.org, a website for female comics nerds of a feminist inclination. Of late, DC have resorted to retconning the whole affair in the Robin title, so that gives you an idea of how bad it was that they won't even bother to try spinning the whole thing anymore.
A lot of Morrison's Batman stuff is too self-indulgent and misses the mark, so I'd say that counts as pretty bad - especially when we know he's capable of doing better.
Another vote for Digital Justice and DK2 - the latter especially really was as bad as people say, and certainly doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt some have given it. Miller with nothing to say and it shows.
**I like the fact that it (All Star Batman) can exist in the same universe as the sixties Batman movies. **
That is fuckin' deep and right on the money. I kind of like the crazy unreality of the series. After all the ass kicking I always expect Batman to break it down and do the watusi. And after all it Was a retarded question. I'm a big Flaming Carrot and Pat Mills fan so no doubt it makes the comic easy to digest.
The problem is Jim Lee. That man wouldn't know a facial expression if it mugged him.
Hush gets my vote. Bad drawing bad script. Digital Justice was awful. Most of the Elseworlds books were non events.
"Year 2. Remove the part about it being Batman's second year and it's actually not a bad story. Probably more of a marketing fuck up than writing. Some gorgeous art at the start from Alan Davis only then to switch into the awfulness of McFarlane. ISTR hearing that a Year 3 was in existence as well..."
Year 2 was indeed shite. Memory says that Year 3 (which I don't think was ever collected) was as bad or worse. Where it really failed was that it was written as mix of flashback and the (then) current storyline, which just missed the point as far as I was concerned.
One of the early Legends of Dark Knight storylines could easily be interpreted as a 'real' Year 2. (I can't remember the details, but I remember Batman building the Batmobile from scratch in the Batcave.)
I can't remember exactly when I gave up getting the all the comics (around 1996, probably), but I remember that from Knightfall onwards things started getting ropey to say the least.
Regards
Robin
"Digital Justice was awful."
Even I didn't buy that and it came out when I was buying almost every Batman comic going.
"Most of the Elseworlds books were non events."
I'm sure there were some good ones along the way, at least early on. I seem to remember Gotham by Gaslight (one of the earliest, if not the first) was quite good.
Regards
Robin
"Digital Justice was awful."
Even I didn't buy that and it came out when I was buying almost every Batman comic going.
"Most of the Elseworlds books were non events."
I'm sure there were some good ones along the way, at least early on. I seem to remember Gotham by Gaslight (one of the earliest, if not the first) was quite good.
Regards
Robin
What about the current issue of Batman? I didn't read it, but I had a flip through and it looked pretty crap. There was a villain who had a blindfold and eyes drawn on his fingertips. I'm guessing Grant Morrison didn't get all of that out of his system on Doom Patrol.
Gotham by Gaslight wasn't bad but really it was Mignolas art and design that sold the comic. I remember kind of liking Thrillkiller by Chaykin and Bereton. I'm sure there's one I'm forgetting. But that is three out of hundreds.
"Digital Justice was awful."
Even I didn't buy that and it came out when I was buying almost every Batman comic going.
I, to my eternal shame, *did* buy it, but I managed to foist it onto an unsuspectinmg messageboarder. Hyuk! Hyuk! Hyuk! ;)
Whilst in FP a while ago, I noticed Pepe Morino's name on the spine of some TPB I'd never heard of (in the sale section for tuppence ha'penny). Having a quick flick through, his traditional, non-80s CGI art is pretty shitty-biscuits as well.
I remember people talking about how great Digital Justice was.
Recently I learned that some people don't like Arkham Asylum. I fnd this hard to believe. It's beautiful.
I must've blocked it out of my memory, but the post No Man's Land run by Larry Hama was something of a low point, especially as it ran concurrently with Greg Rucka's exellent stint on 'Tec...
It did have some pretty sweet Scott McDaniel art, but Sweet Bouncy Jesus those scripts were awful...
I quite like All Star Batman and Robin too, but that's probably 'cos I'm a casual bat fan. I thought the bit about how Robin got his name was inspired! Did Miller come up with that idea or has it always been the case?
"Recently I learned that some people don't like Arkham Asylum. I fnd this hard to believe. It's beautiful."
It's very pretty in places and has one genuinely great moment (Joker's April Fool), but on the whole it didn't excite me much.
I'd previously read Gaiman and McKean's deptiction of Arkham, Green Ivy and Batman in the Black Orchid mini-series, and those brief scenes were so much better.
Regards
Robin
Never read much Batman, but i do seem to remember a pretty pish run from the 90s where he got addicted to drugs.
Was it called Venom, or something?
Sorry, i'm not much help!
With the exception of 'Year One', 'Year Three', 'A Death In the Family', 'Knightfall', and 'Batman:Aliens'- I think they're mostly pretty bland after giving it some considerable thought. Oh, 'Killing Joke' is good too.
Hang on a sec... so is 'Venom'.
But for a load of puerile nonsense I'd go for 'No Man's Land'. That story went on forever. Gotham has an Earthquake. Oh please.
I've just finished reading 'Crisis On Infinite Earths'. What a load of convoluted codswallop.
Sorry for being so negative.
I've just remembered that Highland one with Bruce Wayne in a kilt. Diabolical doesn't cover it.
My mate inexplicably bought it to read on a flight somewhere. It was even more pish than the time he bought the Independence Day comic, but not as funny as the time he left Jurassic Park 2 on the plane with only two chapters still to read.
Candidates for Worst:
Digital Justice (truly, teh worzt evah!)
Frank Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again
Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder
Hush
Batman/Dracula: Red Rain, etc. (Batman vampire trilogy)
Hush Returns by A.J. Liberman (in Gotham Knights)
Year 2.
Batman/Spawn: War Games (Frank Miller)
The Cult - that was f***ing dreadful!
Grant Morrison's latest run is pretty bad. Just Alfred feeding the bats on cooked chicken was bad enough.
Elseworlds titles: Wild West; Arthurian
BATMAN Vs. PREDATOR
Batman: City Of Crime (whatever that was)
The Larry Hama Batman run, "where he stole an old Eisner Spirit story beat-for-beat"
I enjoyed War Games to a certain extent - because I wasn't following any Batman titles at the time, and it got me picking some of them up again. I didn't get all the parts of War Games, and I'll admit it didn't add anything, and some parts were just plain stupid (the one where there's a massive brawl in an amphitheatre for no good reason stands out). But at least there was SOMETHING going on for once, and the plotting over the story arc was tighter than it might easily have been. It had some genuinely scary (and quite appalling) moments. Which, yes, led to very bad reaction from feminists and female readers (having a girl Robin was a great hook for female readers, and her becoming Robin made story sense, so it was badly misjudged to bump her off and restore the status quo). But I don't think mere pointlessness and bad fan reaction are enough to earn it a 'worst ever' tag, because the art was okay, the story was okay, it had drama, sadism and believable characters acting consistently. It couldn't have been any further removed from Hush and Hush II.
Oh and how could I forget! Batman: Gothic. One of the most boring Batman vs. mobsters stories ever. I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn't. Then I wished I hadn't wasted my money! And now they've seen fit to reprint it as a GN/TP. Sheesh!
The final part of Hush is definitely the worst Batman comic I've ever read.
You would think I'd learned my lesson but I bought Ultimates vol. 3, its like the last decade of comics have gone by completely unnoticed by Jeph Loeb and 'Joe Mad'
Joe Shit more like.
I think Usher presents the most complete list of suck so far frecklemonster. I disagree with choices 2 and 3 but not many others would.
The whole furore with Girlwonder.org came up after War Games finished, as it centered around the not-unreasonable request from female fandom that Stephanie Brown (aka 'The Girl Robin') get a memorial in the Batcave just like Jason Todd did - and still does, despite coming back from the dead as an unrepentant serial-murderer and aligning himself against Batman (even trying to kill Robin and Nightwing). DC editorial's reasoning was that the character didn't deserve a memorial because "We don't consider her a Robin" - a statement they've contradicted in interviews and - more crucially - in the Bat-books themselves (Batman's final words to the character on her deathbed were that he thought of her as Robin), but which has also been viewed in isolation as dismissive of the character on the basis of gender. For that reason alone, War Games should be considered a noteworthy stinker, as it did a lot of harm to DC's image that they're still suffering from - a lot of their books feature direct commentary on DC's place as a whipping-boy for online commentators (Power Boy in the Supergirl books, the metatextual references in Nightwing as to how the character should have died in Infinite Crisis, Superboy/Man Prime quoting online reviews of Countdown in his dialogue, Batman hallucinating a trophy case for the Stephanie Brown character), which is unnecessarily defensive on DC's part, but also leaves a lot of their books with baffling content for those whose comics appreciation isn't a communal experience.
But as I say, this came up after War Games was finished and done - I didn't like the story at the time because not only did it add nothing to the Bat-mythos (Batman is on the run from the cops, Batman has plans that he doesn't share with others, Gotham suffers a wave of violence), but it also removed some things from the franchise. Yes, there's the death of a couple of characters, but to be honest, Orpheus was a blank slate, and Spoiler was out of place in the main Bat-titles - what struck me as pointless was the one-panel dismissal of the whole 'Batman as urban legend' angle from the books, despite it being the one entertaining and original thing to come from the various Crises and Zero Hour retcons DC seem obsessed with doing every two years. It served no purpose in the actual War Games story, and afterwards, nothing was made of it.
Dull, pointless, repetitive, and most of all, it's damaged DC to this very day. I'd say for these reasons War Games counts as a bit of a miss.
But if you enjoyed it, fair enough. Taste is a personal thing, after all.
You make a very good case. I think you have to be a fan and a follower of the Bat-books to see why it stinks so bad. That's why I missed it.
You make a very good case. I think you have to be a fan and a follower of the Bat-books to see why it stinks so bad. That's why I missed it.
don't apologise for being negative Monty, that's what this thread is all about. You could always start a 'best batcomics ever' thread to restore the cosmic balance.
I found Arkhamm Asylum a bit underwhelming myself - too bloody 'this is an arty comic'
don't apologise for being negative Monty, that's what this thread is all about. You could always start a 'best batcomics ever' thread to restore the cosmic balance.
I found Arkhamm Asylum a bit underwhelming myself - too bloody 'this is an arty comic'
Being a long-winded gobshite is 'making a good case'? Good lord! More good case-making to follow!
Because you expressed a lack of knowledge of the book (a TPB), Batman: City Of Crime is a David Lapham-penned exercise in offensiveness - partially offensive because of the book's preoccupation with paedophilia in an attempt to be edgy and adult, but mainly offensive because I paid money for the effing thing. Basic bullet-points include: Bruce Wayne becomes the object of desire for an heiress at her 14th birthday party, but dismisses her with the internal observation that she's not worth bothering about because someone else at the party full of old men will shag her instead of him, so that's all right, and certainly nothing he - Batman - should even consider giving a second thought. Then we find out that lots of Batman's rogues' gallery are making money from a child sex ring - Penguin, mainly, but also Mr Freeze, who's become sexually preoccupied with one of the kids being victimised by aforesaid ring.
'Offensively bad' is a term bandied about with abandon, but it is utterly apt in being applied here - City Of Crime really is that terrible, and to prove it, I'll give my copy of the TPB gratis to anyone who wants it (I'll even pay postage) if they'll agree to share their honest opinion of it here once they've read it.
There you go, freckle monster - take death by bongo up on the offer!
Alan Grant did an appalling one about the dangers of smoking 'long fags'; po-facedly showing teenagers rolling about the street having hallucinations of dinosaurs, and finishing with Robin (whoever he is these days) making a big speech about why he'll never touch drugs. What was the crack there? Doesn't Grant have a fanzine or something about ganja? Not really into the stuff myself (these days at least) but that was one hell of a patronizing story.
Crikey! Thanks to all who pitched in on this. I basically needed a hand coming up with titles to have a bit of fun with for a short sidebar to the main feature. Anyway, this is more than enough to be getting on with. Thanks again.
Alec
Okay, Death by Bongo. I'll take you up on that! Send me an email and I'll give you my address. I'll send you a cheque for the postage, just don't send the book in a solid gold crate wrapped in banknotes... Oh, and you do live in the UK, right?
Year 2.
It's cackapoopoo.
Year 2.
It's cackapoopoo.
It looks gorgeous though.
Compared to Year One, it's just gaudy.
Compared to Year One, it's just gaudy.
Mmmm... fair point!
I'm a sucker for the big flappy cape images- that's my problem.
It looks gorgeous though.
The Alan Davis parts certainly are, but I'd be hard pushed to describe McFarlane's art as anything but "meh" at best. All of the related Full Circle story *does* look gorgeous, although the story itself still leaves me wanting.
"I'm an excellent driver."
Lots mentioned about war games but what about its sequal war crimes
They fucked over an even older female member of the batman cast in that one!
You Mean Leslie Thompkins? They're retconning that - kind of makes a mockery of the big noise DC made at the time about her never appearing again, doesn't it? Mind you, they're retconning the Spoiler death, too, which is a shame, I think. They should address the problem they've created honestly, rather than just retcon the trigger event for all their reactionary woes out of canon.
War Crimes wasn't so much bad as dull, and just left me with no opinion of it other than it wasn't very interesting and the main conceit would be retconned before long. Dull and uninteresting - that makes it pretty much a Bat-book on par rather than hitting a low.
Freckle Monster: you have mail.
Okay, so Death by Bongo kindly sent me his copy of BATMAN: CITY OF CRIME in exchange for an â??honest opinionâ? shared online. So, as agreed, here it isâ?¦
As DBB made clear itâ??s not one of his favourite reads. â??Offensively badâ?, he called it. Well, I wouldnâ??t go that far, but itâ??s still pretty much what you might call â??not so greatâ?, â??so-soâ? or â??kinda mehâ?.
A little context. Originally published as DETECTIVE COMICS # 800-808, # 811-814 (2005/6) with art by Ramon Bachs (the Spanish artist who notably illustrated several STAR WARS minis for Dark Horse), BATMAN: CITY OF CRIME is the first foray into the DC/Marvel mainstream by David Lapham, the bright young thing who won two Eisner awards for his self-published crime series STRAY BULLETS. Laphamâ??s apparently a big Frank Miller fan, and, boy, does it show in CITY OF CRIMEâ??s first half. Laphamâ??s Gotham is not so much an urban Hyboria like Millerâ??s Sin City, as an oversized concrete binbag brimming with lethal human vermin that Batman canâ??t ever possibly hope to contain. Itâ??s city-living seen as existence on the Ninth Circle of Hell, an evocation that might have worked if Laphamâ??s noirish captions didnâ??t tend towards blousy poetics and laboured similes. (I loved the bit where he likens the buildings on Gothamâ??s fetid East Side to drunken old men. â??And like them, theyâ??re ugly and they smell and they laugh at their own excrement.â? Arf!)
Anyway, the story kicks off with a fire in an apartment block that uncovers a room full of pregnant (underage) girls, used as part of a black market adoption racket run by the Penguin. (Old Cobblepotâ??s not such a bad guy, though; in his bird-infested office he at least lets his secretary use an umbrella.) Anyway, Penguin hurriedly sets about tying up all loose ends by ordering Mr Freeze to pop anyone who can connect Penguin, or his mystery employers, to the crime. Unfortunately, Freeze is still mooning over his dead wife and takes an insane shine to one of the young women heâ??s been sent to turn into a popsicle. â??This is what happens when you work with freaks,â? groans Penguin.
Driven by a sense of guilt at the death of a 14-year-old heiress, whose overdose he inadvertently funded, Batman must track down another missing girl beforeâ?¦ before what Iâ??m not sure. The problem is thereâ??s a lot of plot going on here, with some kind of pod people/Thing-type conspiracy one minute and street-battles with armies of masked inhumans the next. (Maybe the two-issue break in the original run has something to do with the uneven tone.) The story comes into focus quite nicely, though, when Bruce ditches the tights to go undercover and investigate some dodgy goings-on at the docks. But then the plot unravels again into a final half involving the sudden incursion of a rabies-like plague that causes an outbreak of mass hysteria with an exploding landmark or two. (In fact, it pretty much resembles the crowded finale of the movie Batman Begins, released the same year.)
Lapham only contributed this one arc for DETECTIVE (before going off to do DAREDEVIL VS. PUNISHER), which might explain why CITY OF CRIME has such an isolated, off-kilter feel, as if the writer never quite had time to explore his characters properly. Jim Gordon (after having been written out of the book several months before so he could enjoy his retirement) turns up briefly to wave his gun about and go crazy along with everyone else. Iâ??m reliably informed that pretty much the whole cast donâ??t quite act in synch with whatâ??s gone before or after on DETECTIVE, but I havenâ??t read these issues so I canâ??t say. Most unsettling are the bookâ??s queasy undercurrents. Icky suggestions of pedophilia abound, in fact too many characters seem to harbour some kind of secret hankering for underage girls. Most disturbing is the scene in which Bruce himself, in the grip of a fever, hallucinates that the dead teenage heiress declares her love for him. Why would Bruceâ??s delirious subconscious suggest such a thing if there werenâ??t some deeper suppressed feelings behind it? Maybe this is why heâ??s in a full-on clinch with a handsome middle-aged woman a page later. Clever and subtle, but â??EUW!â?
On the plus side Bachsâ?? panels suitably teem with detail like so many germs in a Petri dish, even if his combat scenes arenâ??t particularly dynamic. And Lapham pulls off a couple of undeniably creepy bits: one of them involving the Ventriloquist in the aftermath of a hit (â??Kill, Kill, Kill, All you Gastards!â?), the other involving Freeze arranging his â??wedding guestsâ?? in a meat locker â?? we can probably let Freeze off the hook here, by the way, regarding the age of his reluctant betrothed, as the poor crazy guy thinks sheâ??s his dead wife. (The Great Beard did much a better job of portraying love-sick villainy in Mortal Clay, BATMAN ANNUAL # 11, 1987.)
So there you have it; as much of a review as I can give on a single reading of BATMAN: CITY OF CRIME and the fact that I donâ??t fancy reading it again any time soon is probably enough of a verdict in itselfâ?¦
You write good, Freckster.
Especially: '...teem with detail like so many germs in a Petri dish.'
That evokes the image perfectly
Fanks!
Frecklemonster is a real writer. I think you should introduce yourself, Frecklemonster!
:)
I thought I already did. I'm Alec Worley, the guy who does the film reviews for the Meg. Um... hello.
There's one out at the minute called Batman Secrets. Its by Sam Keith and its truly awful.
Hmm surprised no one has mentioned Knight Fall when Azrael takes over the costume, bad move imo...
"You use yore tongue priddier'n a twenny dollar whore."
It's hard to pick books that stand in isolation as bad, rather than just a bit dull and ponderous for a standalone (graphic) novel. In retrospect, City of Crime is probably more the latter than the former - not good in isolation, but probably taking on a new dimension of awful if you're following the books on a regular basis and can actually remember where Jim Gordon and Tim Drake are supposed to be at in their lives (retired and high school senior respectively). I mean, the reader knows that much, so the writer should arguably be aware of it as well.
Meh - it's all pre-Infinite Crisis anyway, so it's been retconned to buggery by now.
Even if you didn't buy into my personal distaste for the book, that's a fair and balanced review, Alec.
I did also forget that some of the clean linework on the Gotham vistas were actually quite a break from the over-shadowed rendering of the city prevalent in the books even now, so I suppose that's one thing undeniably in its favour.
Ooh, what a lovely vat of bile you've tapped! I actually liked Dark Knight 2, but hated the whole cataclysm/no mans land stuff.
you inspired me to start my own post - "what's the most disappointing comic purchase you've made?"
Which book has given you you the least bangs for your buck?
War Games contains some head-slappingly absurd moments, such as Barbara Gordon's amazingly well thought out plan in the final episode: "Oh no! Batman and The Black Mask are fighting! Someone might get hurt! I know...I'll set the whole building on fire, forcing Batman to rescue me!"
And yes, War Crimes was shocking for all the wrong reasons. A total betrayal of Leslie Thompkins' character.
There was a Batman/Lobo comic recently that was DIRE.
The Superman/Batman story that I forget the name of was terrible as well, but I forget the name. I'm sure Jeph Loeb wrote it or something.
well I've never read Dark Night but saw first two of DK2 in the second hand book shop last week so I picked em up (only $4A each)and I dont really see much of a problem with it, Arts a bit rough (i guess its meant to be like that) but I dont think the story's too bad as long as its meant to be an Elseworlds tale because none of the characters in it are recognizably from the DC universe I know.
To put in perspective I haven't ever read D.K., Year One etc
The new Grant Morrison run sure does suck though, every time it seems to get interesting some stupid cross over or something happens and we have 3 or 4 issues of crap before we get back to this whole black book thing he's blathering about.
CU Radbacker
Thanks for all the suggestions. Far more than I could ever come up with myself. It was really just to get me going on a small sidebar for the main feature.
Thanks again
Cheers
A.
Long time back (late 80's early 90's) they tried to re-invent the Riddler to give him a hard egde like most of the other characters (and somehow involved magic in it as well IIRC)...and the result; Character betrayel...and a stupid 3 parter.
Was that Peter Milligan's 'Dark Knight, Dark City' arc? The Riddler wasn't reinvented as a gritty psycho in that story, he was in thrall to Gotham City/the demon who was narrating the story, and being manipulated into freeing it.
Milligan's Batman run has been derided by many, but I liked that he actually tried to do something with the character beyond the Batman vs Mobsters stuff that cluttered the books post-Burton movies.
Good memory Bongo-Boy, now to the Bongo-Boat we go...
Bongo-Shark-Repellant at the ready!
My memory isn't that good - I've just read loads of Bat-books from around that period. They put the repetitive angst of the current books to shame.
I also remember when all this were fields.
I've got a lot of time for those Pete Milligan Bat-books. The Riddler used to be my favourite Batman villain until a certain Jeph Loeb came along.
You pillock, Jeph.