Batman- The Grant Morrison Odyssey: New 52 Style V3

What Came Before:

Part 1: Batman & Son
Part 2: Club of Heroes/Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
Part 2.1: Devil-Bats & The Bridge to RIP
Part 3: RIP
Part 4: The Missing Chapter/Last Rites/Final Crisis
Part 5: Batman Reborn
Part 6:Blackest Knight/Batman vs. Robin
Part 7: Batman & Robin Must Die!!!
Part 8: Return of Bruce Wayne Part 1
Part 9: Return of Bruce Wayne Part 2
Part 10: Batman Inc. Part 1
Part 11: Batman Inc. Part 2
New 52 Part 1
New 52 Part 2

 Depart the origin issue and return to where we left off with Matches Malone being hung, Redbird fighting dogs, and based on this cover, Wingman in action!

Only, instead of Redbird fighting dogs & soldiers as in issue #3, we kick this issue off with two direct stabs at the heart of Bruce Wayne and the foundations of what created Batman:

The Monarch Theatre....Zorro's Restaurant...two direct shots at Bruce Wayne: NOT Batman, at Bruce Wayne.  The theater outside which where Thomas & Martha Wayne were murdered, a restaurant named after the movie that Bruce and his parents watched prior to their deaths, plus a Bible quote hyping up Leviathan; this is all a direct shot at Wayne by Talia Al Ghul because, as she says in the 3rd panel, "...he took my son from me".

What is rather intriguing about this sequence though is the relatively throw-away line by The Heretic that reads "I thought I was your son..."; that line, and Talia's follow about Leviathan having many children, betrays something more sinister and rather insidious about her plans for Bruce, Batman, and Gotham City.

The next scene returns to the "trial" of Matches Malone as he ignites that match, sets ablaze a gunpowder trail, and announces that he "...set a new record for holding breath" as the world around him goes batshit nuts (pun totally intended)!

As that page shows we've got El Guaucho and The Hood in action against Talia's assassins. In the subsequent pages there is a good deal of mindless ultraviolence as the Club of Heroes take on Merlyn and a horde of other nameless villains.  In the midst of this chaos we catch up to the activity of issue #4 as Damian Wayne, aka Redbird, joins the fray and Wingman steps up to the plate. The most interesting part of this, for me obviously, takes place in the fourth panel of this following page:

Obviously there is a recognition here between Damian/Redbird and The Wingman that flows both ways but before it can be explored much further we cut scene to Matches Malone getting away from his "trial".  I think my favorite part of this whole sequence comes from Damian's insistence that Bruce said ROBIN was grounded, not REDBIRD.  Oh yeah, add in the fact that D insists he knows Wingman's fighting style and I think the scene depicted below is multi-layered:

There is some humor to be found in Damian talking about the dog's blood I must admit...

Anywho, as we progress we see more of the Club of Heroes & Batman Inc. brought into the fray as Knight, Nightwing, and Red Robin come bursting through windows while Squire snips at power lines like Wolverine in the Hellfire Club.  This is Batman Inc in full-force and they are a tough lot!

Batwing arrives on the scene with some reference to the events of Leviathan Strikes! plus we get an appearance by Alfred who name drops Kirk Langstrom and his "Man-Bat Serum". We also get Damian showing off his own detective skills by noticing Wingman's voice, accent, and "unmistakable grating sound"...

GoatBoy rears his head again with Lumina Lux in tow as a hostage.  The two individuals who sought to play Batman & Matches Malone for suckers are in one place and ultimately only one of them wins the kindness of Bruce Wayne.  Lumina stabs GoatBoy with a fork, allowing her to escape, and Bats gives her the Multiple Sclerosis medicine she told Matches her sister needed.

So, according to Bats, The League of Assassins is broken and Brucie wants Talia to have a sitdown to talk about what's going on.  She in turn tells Bruce to reveal to Damian just who Wingman, his Double Agent, really is...

So I find the name Wingman especially intriguing given the reveal of his identity.  Now I was holding out some ridiculous hope that the introduction of a new Wingman following the events of the Black Glove story arc would somehow lead to a Jean Paul Valley. Now, given that the original Wingman was a traitor to the group and was responsible for killing the original Dark Ranger, the choice of Jason Todd to fill the role was...ironic perhaps.

Look at JT's previous roles; he was a Robin, a sidekick, a WINGMAN to Batman more or less.  Upon his rebirth (due to Superboy-Prime punching stuff in the pre-New 52 world), he was a traitor to EVERYTHING Batman stood for; he killed villains, took over drug dealing operations, and ultimately made a mockery of everything Batman stood for before the BS that was Countdown to Infinite Crisis attempted to turn him into something...awful.

In his post-rebirth world, thanks to Judd Winick and the Red Hood: Lost Years mini, Jason has a very strong connection to Talia Al Ghul which also puts him in a prime position to be a part of this mission despite his anti-Batman history.

The sad thing is that despite everything heroic he has done, despite all of the missions that Damian has undertook alongside his father, ultimately (as a result of seeing the future) Bruce still sees the threat his son represents.  So, in front of most of his New 52 family (minus Batgirl), Bruce essentially tells a heartbroken Damian that he must return to his mother or else we will see the world of Batman #666...

The next issue of Batman Inc, number 5 to be precise, take us on a journey through the world of 666...

 Yeah, I love using alternate covers, what can I say?

Essentially we pick up right where we left off with Gordon and his men arresting the various assassins that Tali sicked on Batman Inc but it turns into a tale of Bruce telling Jason and Damian just what happens if D ascends to the cape & cowl:

As Bruce saw in the future, presumably in his The Return of Bruce Wayne visit to Vanishing Point, and as we all saw in Batman #666, the future under Damian-Bats is a bit of a nightmare.  Previously we saw a Gotham under the rule of a Batman willing to slaughter anyone in his path (evidenced by the murder of Pyg) and one in opposition to whatever still existed of the GCPD (headed up by Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl).

As you can see in the panel above, the relationship between Barbara and Damian-Bats is far less contentious than previously depicted and, in fact, allows room for Alfred-Kitty! Also, in stark opposition to the version of the character published in the New 52 era, Babs is depicted in a wheelchair, totally in continuity with the pre-New 52 version of her character as well as with the original Batman #666 version.

Now this version of Gotham has been overrun by Joker toxin (as referenced in #666) and they remaining "heroes" are left defending Arkham Asylum against the hordes of the infected (Walking Dead influenced perhaps?).

The baby Damian saved (tagged as Batman Beyond's Terry McGinnis in #700) is apparently already immune to this chaos but the rest of Gotham isn't!  Jackanapes, in the original #666 story, pops back up here and confirms (whilst spouting biblical Revelations references) that the baby isn't just immune but he is also a carrier of the Joker toxin and has now infected all of Arkham.

So in the midst of the chaos on Arkham which includes Barbara getting infected with Joker Toxin and shooting Damian-Bats with a Tommy Gun, we also have a man who is likely Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne influencing the President to drop bombs on Gotham City!  Prior to that page...

We have amazing artist, and all-around awesome dude Chris Burnham replicating a Kubert scene, plus Dr. Hurt laying a guilt trip on Damian for being the one responsible for opening up "the hole in things" that lead to all of this drama.

This page from the death of Arkham, and essentially Gotham, is necessary to point out just due to its inclusion of a great number of other villain's Grant Morrison dealt with during his run.  Not only do we have Jackanapes prominently featured but it also includes Flamingo (first introduced in #666 before being featured in Batman & Robin) as well as Weasel and some Dark Knight Returns Mutant looking guy.  As you can see, Damian knows it's his mother Talia...

Still, the sad revelation after the bombs are dropped and Dr. Hurt's influence is felt and we return to present day is that fourth panel look from Damian to his father. "Don't make me go back to her" is one of the most heartbreaking lines I can imagine Morrison writing and Burnham's depiction of that moment completely conveys all the sadness I would imagine Damian is feeling at that moment.

Unfortunately for the Wayne family, resolution must wait as a building containing Knight, Squire, Halo, Looker, Batwing, and others, explodes into flames....

To be continued...

All Star Superman: The Comic/The Movie

Eisner Award winning for "Best New Series" & 2-time "Best Continuing Series".

Harvey Award winning for "Best Artist" & "Best Single Issue"
Eagle Award winning for "Favourite New Comic book", "Favourite Comics Cover", & "Favourite Colour Comicbook - American" Eagle.

"All Star Superman" netted all those industry awards, and I'm sure plenty more, during a run that lasted twelve issues, intended as a bi-monthly release, but in typical Morrison/Quietly fashion, took just a little shy of 3 years to release (Jan. 2006 - Oct. 2008).  Thankfully I didn't pick up the book until it had already been traded...

The setting of "AS Supes" is one in which Grant Morrison plays in a world totally seperate from DC continuity, and seperate from the similarly established "All Star Batman & Robin" that ran around the same time frame. 

And Grant doesn't waste anytime with origins & establishments.  One brilliant, beautiful page lays out the origin story in 4 panels with two words each ("Doomed planet, desperate scientists, last hope, kindly couple.") followed by the image I chose up above for this blog.  Those words, and accompanying images, work so wonderfully because Grant embraces the idea that EVERYONE knows who Superman is, and EVERYONE knows how he got here.  I think it's safe to say that that isn't far from the truth...

The reader is dumped straight into the middle of a rescue mission, the thing Supes does best, and in a location only he could possibly survive unaided: the middle of the sun.  The art is stunning, the dialogue fantastical, but the content marks the doom of the big blue boyscout.  As is slowly revealed, Lex Luthor has essentially used Superman's own nature against him in order to bring about the Last Son of Krypton's ultimate demise.  A trip to the sun caused his body to absorb more solar energy than it could possibly contain and as a result his cells are literally bursting with an energy his body can barely contain.  Everything about Superman is amplied three-fold, but eventually it will burn him out and he will die.  That's your story for the 12 issue run of "All Star Superman", and Luthor's sad motivation for the elaborate game: to rid the world of Supes so he can finally use his genius to save it.

The Lex Luthor presented by Morrison/Quitely fascinated me like no depiction before him.  This Luthor is a classroom bully but he could also teach the class, he is the captain of the football team who ends up with a full scholarship based solely on his academics, he is a man not content with just being a mental paragon, but he apparently also must be the physical embodiemnt of perfection as well.  I belive the quote, as Luthor insists the bumbling Clark Kent squeeze his bicep, was "It's easy to be strong when you just happen to to have come from the planet Krypton! This takes hard work!"

Lex has frequently been depicted as a man jealous of Superman, of a man stifled by Supes very existence, but I think "AS Supes" is the absolute perfect depiction of the faults of this potentially great man.  He blames Superman for his lack of effort in improving the world.  He states that every man feels inferior to the alien, even tries to suck Clark into this train of thought by using Lois Lane; that if not for Supes: "...perhaps cool, cruel Lois Lane might actually have noticed good old Clark sighing faithfully there in the corner."  The statement Clark makes that Superman and Lex could have been friends couldn't seem more impossible because this is a Lex obvlivious to the inherent faults in his arguments

Then there is Lois Lane.  In this world, much like the "real" one, Lois is the target of both Clark & Superman's affections and there is that moment where Clark reveals himself to Lois.  Big difference here is that Lois refuses to believe this is anything more than Superman tricking her.  She even confesses to earlier attempts at proving Clark was Superman but she met with no success.  This Lois doesn't want to believe no matter what Superman says, and it lends a touch of humor to a book that has great sorrow at its core.  Still the romance between the two characters, whirlwind as it is, features some truly touching moment including an awesome lunar spin on the classic Supes/Lois flight over the city as well as Ms. Lane playing Superwoman for a day.  The relationship between the two of them is as iconic in 12 issues as it has been over the last 70+ years.

That's just a look at the three core characters of this story.  There are wonderful Jimmy Olsen moments, including an entire issue devoted to his "day in the life" takeover of a CADMUS-type science project called, well, P.R.O.J.E.C.T.  There's Doomsday, Bizarro, the Bottle City of Kandor, and Parasite just to name a few of the staples of the Super-Verse that show up in Grant's world; as well as a certain pet villian of Grant's.  There are the labors of Superman (a la Hercules) that play out across the whole of the series in ways that are subtle and in ways that are loud.  But the most touching issue was certainly the flashback one detailing the Smallville relationships of Clark Kent, his interaction with future Supermen, and the best game of fetch every played!

That same issue also features one of the saddest, most emotionally intense pages of the series...maybe even comics in general.  But it all matters....

See the way the story unfolds is masterful, with each moment feeling important in light of the impending doom Superman, and the reader, know is waiting with each turn of the page.  And when it all ends, it really couldn't end on a better more appropriate note.  This is how a run comes full circle with the beginning having a direct correlation to the end, and a Lex Luthor who may finally get it.  Funny thing though, I don't think there's a single moment where Lois calls Superman "Clark". 

Still the power of the arc, hell the strength of Superman as a character, is best summed up by another man who I just wrote about, Mark Waid, in his foreword to the Vol. 2 Hardcover..."Gods achieve their power by encouraging us to belive in them.  Superman achieves his power by believing in us."

Now on to the 2nd part of this review, a look at the "All Star Superman" animated movie...  

The Blu-Ray was released on February 22nd but I finally got the time to sit down and watch it just today.  Suffice to say that I thought it was visually brillant, capturing the look of Frank Quitely's unique art as perfect as could be expected.  The voices were spot on, the dialogue pulled straight from the page, with a few moments extended or added to enhance the story.  At 70 minutes, the movie fit in as much of the source content as it could without sacrificing the absolute essential plot moments, but there is still a great deal of material that doesn't see the screen.  Some of those moments being the most powerful.

There is no film version of the flashback issue nor the super-cool Jimmy Olsen issue.  There is no room for the Bizarro story, which is a damn shame because that would have been an amazing thing to see animated.  A lot of the details of P.R.O.J.E.C.T are sacrificed for time so the viewer doesn't get to see the awesome uniquely Morrison scenes that make up that scientific world.  None of the omissions detract from the overall story, but they offer the finer points to the tale that only could have been included with another 10-20 minutes tacked on to the film.  And I wish a certain moment from issue 10 would have found it's way on-screen because it truly shows Superman at his most...human.

The biggest complaint I have with the movie is its treatment of Lex Luthor in the closing of the film.  Without playing spoiler too much, what animated Lex has to say after Superman tells him "You could have saved the world years ago if it mattered to you, Luthor." is not something comic book Lex would have EVER stated.  And the very last Luthor moment, the moment of redemption, is so far out of character for what has been established that, if it wasn't for the actual close, it would certainly sour the end of movie.

"All Star Superman" has been one of my favorite stories in recent memory and it was very cool to see it brought to life in another form. All told, the movie is a worthwhile buy, especially given the sneak peek at "Green Lantern: Emerald Knights", the couple Superman animated episodes, and the awesome Grant Morrison "Making Of" documentary.  There's also a commentary track with Grant that I have to go back and rewatch the movie with.  If you're fan of the book, you will enjoy the movie and I hope anyone who watches the movie without reading the book goes on and picks it up. 

"You're much stronger than you think you are." - All Star Superman #10
(another amazing moment missing from the movie)

If you're interested enough to check them out, here's the links to both comics & movie (I don't get anything for these links):



All Star Superman Comics

All Star Superman Animated Movie

And if you're interested in reading Grant Morrison's proposal that eventually became "All Star Superman" check this out:

 Superman Now/2000 Proposal