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anyone? anyone???

Could you be more specific?

I don't remember, that was a long time ago, lol!

apparently I was thoroughly confused by this one....

I feel that way a lot during Grant Morrison books. The guy is brilliant when he's on, but other times just way over my head.

Man this book was all over the place. One of the worst Bat books I've read.

yeah especially towards the end...I think the scenes just jump around through time because they are in his mind and stealing his memories but I think it's hard to pull this off in comics because it really messes with a sequence of events flowing the right way.

Don't ask.

Grant Morrison has big ideas, but unfortunately none of them are very coherent-- especially when it comes to Batman for some reason. Even though it had its decent moments here and there, I hated his run on the book; he was probably the most inappropriate choice to write this character of the last few decades.

Next to Kevin Smith, anyway.

I've really liked Morrison' Batman but I did find this confusing when I first read it in the monthlies, somewhat less so when I re-read it in collected form. I think the art is partly to blame for not communicating the story as well as it could have been. I didn't have any problems with the arcs drawn by J.H. Williams or Andy Kubert.

I absolutely agree with Scott. Tony Daniel's art does not suit Morrison's writing. Still, I wasn't confused by RIP at all--in fact, it is one of my favorite Batman stories as is the entirety of Morrison's run. You've got to read 'Batman and Son' and 'The Black Glove' though, before RIP.

Darik wrote: "Don't ask.

Grant Morrison has big ideas, but unfortunately none of them are very coherent-- especially when it comes to Batman for some reason. Even though it had its decent moments here and there..."

And we have to agree to disagree. I think Morrison's the best thing to happen to Batman in years.

Mystagogus wrote: "And we have to agree to disagree. I think Morrison's the best thing to happen to Batman in years."

Fair enough. I get that a lot of people have liked Morrison's work on the character, and this is really just my own personal opinion.

It's not that I don't get what Morrison has been doing with the book, or even that I think he's done a bad job with it (well, sometimes he's botched it up pretty badly, in my opinion-- Final Crisis was a disaster, and I personally loathed The Return of Bruce Wayne)... it's just that I fundamentally dislike his entire approach to the character and the tone of his stories.

Morrison's Batman (or, more specifically, his Bruce Wayne) is completely undefeatable. It doesn't matter what wacky, over-the-top, impossible-to-prepare-for threat bursts out of the woodwork, Morrison's Batman is already ten steps ahead of it and has essentially won the fight before its even begun. This tactic worked in Batman R.I.P. because R.I.P. was sort of the thesis paper for this idea: literally, a story in which the worst of all possible horrors were thrown in Batman's direction, and he overcame all of it. But after this, it started to get old, very fast.

And the campy tone his books took on during Dick Grayson's tenure under the cowl was, frankly, infuriating. Sure, the camp was well done, and Morrison made sure the supervillains were extremely bloodthirsty so that the stakes would still be high, but the absurdity pretty much came to dominate the book-- so much so that I was never sure what I was supposed to take seriously or not.

I don't know-- I just feel that turning Batman into an unstoppable demigod in a violently-camp world robbed the story of pretty much all of its tension.

But that was the point of the story. To show that Batman represents humanity at its peak. He's the optimum man. And he was not portrayed as completely undefeatable. He was driven insane and buried alive in RIP. In the recent Leviathan Strikes, he was almost killed until Damian intervened. He's not unstoppable but he's well prepared.

I loved the campy tone. It was pretty much David Lynch meets the Adam West show. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of "realistic" street level Batman stories. They bore me to tears.

There's a moment in an early issue of Morrison's Batman where the third of a trio of imposter Batmen has the Dark Knight strapped to a chair. The imposter monologues for a while about his origins-- a cop conditioned by Dr. Hurt to try to recreate the psychology of Batman-- and Batman flashes back to the pre-Crisis story "Robin Dies at Dawn". Near the end of the issue, pseudo-Batman takes a meat cleaver and brings it down on Batman's arm, just under the elbow.

And even though Batman was strapped to a chair... wearing TIGHTS... and under close supervision by the villain... he had somehow managed to slip that arm (that specific arm) out of his sleeve AND his glove without disturbing the costume at all, and used it to punch out pseudo-Batman.

I think that was the point when I officially checked out from Morrison's take on the character. Because it's just ludicrous what he can do in these books. Yes, the Black Glove drove him insane and buried him alive... but Batman still won somehow, despite the fact that NO human could have survived and thrived through what they put him through, whether they're in peak mental and physical condition or not. Hell, when Bruce dug himself out of that grave, he barely looked phased by the whole experience (though that may have been Tony Daniels' art more than anything). When the author refuses to acknowledge that his main character has any sort of limits to what he can do, the story just gets boring.

(And yes, I am aware of the moment when Robin has to save Batman in Leviathan Strikes, but notice that this ONE TIME when Bruce isn't completely, 100% prepared for what he has to face, it leads to the contrived solution that Damian had to kill to save him. Because otherwise, that situation could never possibly occur, since Batman AND Robin know dozens of ways of disabling an opponent without killing him. That's a little too convenient for me.)

Batman obviously isn't just any "normal" human being. And I think Morrison has mentioned that he's writing Batman in his prime. Obviously he's supposed to be very, very good at what he does. Have you read the two issues of Batman (#698 and #699, I think; not sure.) which were set between RIP and Final Crisis? Bruce is depicted as being exhausted after the whole ordeal and he sleeps for days. Anyway, I don't think either of us will be able to convince the other so we'll just have to chalk it up to different tastes and leave it at that.

True, true. Like I said, it's just my opinion, and I know a lot of people like the books. I did like quite a few issues of Batman and Robin-- the introduction of Professor Pyg and the return of Dr. Hurt, especially-- and I think that Damian has thus far been a really interesting addition to the Batman family. Plus, I think Morrison's take on the Joker is magnificently horrific and appropriately unpredictable. So I can't rightly say I 100% disliked his run.

More like 89%, tops.

(And yes, I read those two issues, though I considered them completely unnecessary in the long run-- all they did was provide documentation that, yes, some time passed between R.I.P. and Final Crisis, so Bruce wasn't completely burnt out when he was ambushed by that Alpha Lantern. I still don't buy it-- his exhaustion should have been more like a literal coma, considering the amount of punishment and stress his body and mind had been put through-- but again, it's just my opinion.)

I think it is absolutely ridiculous to reference "Robin Dies At Dawn" 50 years after the story came out and expect people to get it. I read that story, but that's because I'm a really big Batman fan. It's even more ridiculous to reference that story because the Batman of today is completely different than the Batman of the '50s.

Sometimes I wonder if New 52 was in part a reaction to how confusing Grant Morrison made things.

One does not need to read "Robin Dies at Dawn" to understand or enjoy RIP. Sure it enriches one's reading experience further if they have read the story but it's not an absolute necessity. I for one read RIP without any beforehand knowledge of the story and enjoyed it just fine.

RIP is a masterpiece. Nice deconstruction of the Batman character.

Karl wrote: "RIP is a masterpiece. Nice deconstruction of the Batman character."

Agreed :)

It also demonstrates that the Bruce Wayne personality is an integral part of Batman. He's not merely a mask, as some would think.

All Morrison's work is an invitation to bigger and better readings within the same text.

Karl wrote: "All Morrison's work is an invitation to bigger and better readings within the same text."

One of the reasons I love Morrison's Batman run. I find something new every time I read it.

Mystagogus wrote: "One does not need to read "Robin Dies at Dawn" to understand or enjoy RIP. Sure it enriches one's reading experience further if they have read the story but it's not an absolute necessity. I for on..."

But wasn't Batman continuity supposed to be reset by Year One by Frank Miller? I just think that Batman of Zur-en-arrh, Robin Dies at Dawn and especially Bat-Mite have no place in modern Batman comics.

They were fine at the time (in the '50s). But I didn't like how Morrison brought back psychologically twisted versions of them.

I might have been more OK with it in a separate graphic novel or Elseworlds, but it seemed wrong for use in the general continuity.

Adam wrote: "Mystagogus wrote: "One does not need to read "Robin Dies at Dawn" to understand or enjoy RIP. Sure it enriches one's reading experience further if they have read the story but it's not an absolute ..."

I disagree completely. I love how Morrison integrated Batman's entire history into his story. And Batman's continuity was left relatively untouched by COIE. It's just that no one before Morrison thought of using silver age concepts and ideas in their story.

A lot of pre-Crisis elements crept back into continuity in the years following (look at Superman's mythos), so these aren't really any different. I wasn't familiar with these old Batman stories (I sort of remembered Bat-Mite from the cartoons), but I thought the idea of saying "they're canon, but not in the way you thought they were" was pretty ingenious (face it, that's the only way to explain a lot of those 60s stories!)

Yeah I didn't really understand nor enjoy this book.

What is to understand?

Zur en Arh

heehee

It's been a while since I'd read it. But I just found the whole thing weird. I just didn't understand the point of it.

Have you read the two volumes which precede RIP--Batman and Son and The Black Glove? Try and read it again, it might be a bit jarring on the first read but it's worth it.

Yeah, don't read it on it's own. One of the pitfalls and also great things about comics is some stories are part of bigger stories.

Admittedly I tried to make my own sense after the conclusion of Bruce... And I failed. I spend awhile trying to read the Red Robin and look for the lead up books and aftermath of what happened... I gave up after awhile. That was last year and it still makes no sense to me now.

I understood it, but I didn't like it. Morrison was doing great on Batman before that but suddenly train wreck.

I completely understand the story (and without reading Final Crisis the last issue must be really confusing) but I just don't like Morrison's Batman. I mean, I really like The Son of Batman storyline, but Morrison truly believes in the Bat-God and it can be over the top. I also hated the Zur en Arh stuff because it was just rediculous.

Aw c'mon the Zur En Arrh stuff is pretty damned hilarious.