Batman- The Grant Morrison Odyssey: The End

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
New 52 Part 3
New 52 Part 4
New 52 Part 5
New 52 Part 6
New 52 Part 7
New 52 Part 8
New 52 Part 9


12/30/11...That was the day I first started this journey through the Opus that is Grant Morrison's Batman saga and here we are over the course of the 20 blogs preceding this one, looking at the end.  It's been 838 days, or 2 years, 3 months, 17 days in all since the beginning...yes there was an extended break from April 2012 until September 2013 but I had to wait until Batman Inc Vol. 2 had completed before wrapping up the journey. From Batman and Son through Gotham's Most Wanted as the final hardcover was dubbed, we have witnessed the Dark Knight go through hell and back multiple times over and be reborn in many fashions.  Now he stands on the verge one of the most important, and personal, battles of his career as Talia Al Ghul, the mother of his murdered son Damian, enters the Batcave for one last dance of death.

All by its lonesome, this recursive cover tells the never-ending tale of our protagonist.  Every Bat-symbol contains another Batman and another and another, ad infinitum; to me it is a commentary (whether intentional or not, and that's the beauty of artistic mediums isn't it? Lots of room for interpretation) on the nature of comics themselves.  No matter how Morrison and Burnham end their story, the story of Batman will go on and on and on...

The image on the left is from issue #1 of this volume of Batman Inc while the image on the right is the first page of issue #13...the story coming full circle with one small visual difference. The Bruce in ish #1 is spotless while the Bruce we see in #13 shows the bruises from the battles of the previous issues with Talia and her Leviathan forces.  Also in issue #1 we had no idea whose graves Bruce was standing in front of but now, come unlucky #13, we know that one of those graves belongs to now deceased Robin, Damian Wayne.

The fact that it is Jim Gordon questioning Bruce is extremely appropriate as the Commissioner points out.  Even if it's not necessarily considered continuity in the New 52, think back to Frank Miller's Year One where Gordon questions Bruce in his search to figure out Batman's identity.  Even running under the assumption that Gordon is clueless to Bruce's alter-ego, just think of all of the times Batman has been there for Jim in that pre-New 52 world.  For Sarah Essen-Gordon's murder, for Barbara's paralysis, for the Officer Down arc, when Jim nearly died from his smoking addiction, when Bruce revealed himself during No Man's Land...there has long been a bond between the two characters and I, for one, prefer to think Gordon is willfully ignorant to the Bruce/Batman connection.

There is something I truly love about the pages Burnham rendered during Bruce's interrogation; from the decimated face of the billionaire playboy to the little details of that last panel as Gordon puts his glass back on, it's a beautiful piece of work.  The dimples on Jim's nose, the mustache, the stitching and bruising on Wayne's face, and for some reason that one open eye of Bruce's staring down at the floor, it all just speaks to me so strongly.

Bruce referring to Talia as "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" sent me off to Wiki-land looking to see if this was a reference to something or just Bruce calling her by a cute name.  Turns out that La Belle Dame sans Merci is a John Keats poem circa 1819; once again you can thank comics for educating you and me about things we may not have otherwise ever discovered.

Gordon's unasked question brings us back slightly to where last issue left us hanging, with Talia descending into the Batcave, adorned in her own super-villainess disguise that is very reminiscent of Bat-attire all her own, particularly in a mask that reminds me of Dr. Hurt's attire.  It's all show though, theatrics, as she discards first the cape and then the mask as she descends the stairs to meet her beloved/enemy in combat.

Talia's undressing of costume is an undressing of the entire Batman mythos in this sequence and is essentially one of the entire superhero genre with its "...childish game of masks, Halloween costumes, and clues".  Talia is verbally shredding Batman's purpose down to its very core while simultaneously discarding any shred of feeling she may have had for her own son AND laying the blame for his death on Bruce's lap. 

The interesting thing about this page is that, unlike any previous COMIC BOOK version of the origin story, Morrison & Burnham's flashback to the night the Wayne's were murdered firmly entrenches James Gordon in the picture.  As far as a I can think, outside of the Nolan movies, this is the first time Gordon has been made a part of the origin story pre-Year One.

When Bruce says he tried to fight something he barely understood, my take is that he is referring to the obsession disguised as love that Talia brought to the table.  Bruce understands fighting, he understands armies and killers and crazy people, he does not grasp some of the most basic of emotions.

The kiss we are seeing is not a memory but rather taking place in the Batcave as evidenced by their attire and the sword while the imagery we see on the above page and the subsequent ones if what is going on in the world around this doomed couple.  The various members of the now decimated-Batman Incorporated are still attempting to save Gotham from the "empty" onslaught of Leviathan while Bruce & Talia engage in the only battle that truly means anything in this war.

We see Gordon & Harvey Bullock fighting off mutants and crazy children as well as Red Robin, Nightwing, Knight, Hood, Wingman, and every one in-between fighting for their lives.  We see El Gaucho battling for the Oroboro device, we see Red Raven & Man O' Bats, Nightrunner, Batwing, and Jiro all fighting around the world to save it from Leviathan but NONE of that truly matters.  It's all about Talia and Bruce Wayne, an Al Ghul versus THE Batman, and the nod to the digitalis is cute as it is something that has popped up before in the interaction of these two individuals.

What I love about this image is it pulls in two of the central themes of Morrison's run. First it has the red and black color scheme that was majorly prevalent during R.I.P in particular and is accentuated by the clothing of Batman and Talia.  Second it uses the Oroboro/snake eating its own tail theme that was such a major part of both volumes of Inc and it also representative of that same recursive theme the cover of this issue showcased.  It just goes on and on and on, spiraling forever...

I love the crossed swords framing of this page and Talia taunting Batman the whole time is a nice touch as well.

The interrogation of Bruce continues on as Gordon questions the two graves at which he found Bruce earlier but Wayne dodges the question and goes into another story involving the number two; the two bullets that killed his father.  It doesn't stop there though as Bruce tells Jim about the third bullet, the one that tore a hole in his mother and left a hole in Bruce as well, "a hole in everything" he says which brings back one of the earlier motifs of Grant's run as well.  The hole in everything was used to refer to Dr. Hurt, it was somewhat represented during Return of Bruce Wayne by the eclipse, and here it pops up again in reference to what Bruce experienced at his parents death.  This hole, this inability to love, this is one of the driving forces of the Batman and it too, unfortunately, is likely the root cause of all of this chaos Talia unleashed on Gotham.

A poisoned blade sends Bruce towards his dying breath with a top panel that I absolutely love; between that dragon, the melting world, and Batman face down with his cape sprawled around him like a sheet covering a dead body, it's a beautiful thing.

The fact that it is Jason Todd who comes screeching into the rescue is an important one because he owes his very resurrection to Talia Al Ghul AND his status as the black sheep of the Wayne Family also makes him the most believable to betray the cause to save Bruce.

Fortunately for all, JT is merely playing with that image as he hands over a useless Oroboro box to Talia while Bruce drinks the antidote to her poison.  Talia, resolute, tells them that she will own Wayne Industries and that Bruce will never rise above his battles with "grotesque mental patients" but, just as she accused Bruce of being a "posturing, patronizing bastard", it is Talia's own posturing that prevents her from seeing the threat before he that Bruce and Jason see.

The return of Kathy Kane! The original Batwoman, long thought dead, but who has in truth been dancing behind the scenes for quite some time as the Headmistress of Spyral.  She was there at the Girl's School in Leviathan Strikes! where the uniform of the assassins was essentially a variation on her Batwoman costume...

Just as quickly as Kathy reappears in Bruce's life, she disappears once again and leaves him alone in the cave with Alfred the Cat and Bat-Cow as his only companions.  Her influence though is felt once again as Bruce is released from Gordon's custody courtesy of the government and a mystery woman clearing his bail.  What's interesting about Bruce's comments to Gordon though are his insistence that Batman is dead...something stated by Talia during their duel that Bruce rebutted, and a statement that also made me think of this from earlier in Morrison's Opus:

Well that statement (made by Dick Grayson we would later find out) was half-right, at least for now...

The interesting thing about this page is that I'm pretty sure it also marks the first time in the New 52 that Morrison has elected to acknowledge the events going on around him in the DCU.  In this case it is Gordon's mention of Zero Year which was, at the time, an upcoming story by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo in the Batman book that has essentially been an origin tale for the New 52 version of the Caped Crusader.

I think Gordon's nod to the Batman Incorporate pin to Bruce, when added to his thoughts on the page below, add credence to my belief that James Gordon is willfully ignorant to Bruce's secret. In-between that page above and the one below though we learn that the two graves (presumably that of Talia and Damian, although it isn't specifically stated so it could very well be his parents' graves) have been robbed.  This causes Bruce to toss aside his decision to "kill" Batman and we get the enraged hero that was depicted in other Batman books (particularly Batman & Robin) following Damian's death.
 

 But, because it is comics and the drama must never ever end, we revisit an earlier story point of Talia's only this time from the perspective of her father Ra's Al Ghul and under new light with his daughter and grandson now dead.  We know because of The Heretic's existence that Damian was cloned, and we have seen in earlier parts of Morrison's story how Talia had a spare Damian laying around the house...

...but know, with Ra's in charge, we can see the truly horrifying scope of those experiments first-hand:

And that is how we end: the snake eating it's own tail, full circle, from Son of Batman to sons of Batman.  Some writers, like Brian Michael Bendis when he left Avengers, put all their toys back in the box and essentially reset the status quo when their tenure ends.

Morrison left a Bat-landscape that was forever altered as he both introduced a son for Bruce Wayne and then murdered him (a storyline that Peter Tomasi continues to follow through with expertly in B&R), killed off one of the longest running female figures in Batman's mythos in Talia Al Ghul, introduced an entire alternate future with Damian as Batman, decimated the Wayne name multiple times over, reintegrated the disparate portions of Batman's publishing history into continuity, to say nothing of the monumental task of telling an extremely long-form story.  He introduced the concepts of The Black Glove, Leviathan, Dr. Hurt, and reintroduced The Club of Heroes to the world.  He played with the very foundation of Batman and left any future writers with numerous toys they could play with if they so choose.

I know there is the Batman Incorporated Special that showcased some of the other members of the group but I don't feel it was anything more than a fun way for various creators to play with Grant's toys and as such was not integral to the larger story of Batman/Talia/Damian that Morrison had been telling since he took over the title.

So now I bid farewell to the world of Batman as through the eyes of Grant Morrison and brought to life by the likes of Chris Burnham, Tony Daniel, Frank Quitely, Andy Kubert, Cameron Stuart, JH Williams, John Van Fleet, and numerous other pencilers, inkers, letterers, colorists, editors, and other creative types.

After devoting so much of my blogspace to this subject, I know must figure out is next for me.  Obviously there are endless amounts of material to choose from thanks to the fabulous world of comics.  I just have to choose...

My Favorite Mutants....

I have said it before but it bears repeating for the purpose of this entry: the X-Men were my gateway drug. I had read random comics here and there, ones given to my by family just to keep me occupied for a couple minutes or found in garage sales.  Nothing stuck though until that fateful day in the Denver Airport when I picked up my very first X-Men comic (more on that in a minute) and it started a love affair that has lasted until this day albeit to varying degrees.

So while listening to Kevin Smith's "Fatman on Batman" podcast, specifically an edition where Kevin and one of his guests list their favorite Batman issues/stories, I was inspired to make a list of some of my favorite X-Men stories.  No real order, definitely not a complete list, but just a rundown of some of my favorite X-Centric issues & story arcs (oh yeah, and it is a purposeful thing that I don't dip into the sure things like Grant Morrison's run, "Dark Phoenix" or "God Loves, Man Kills"...just want to expose some other notables).

So what better place to start than with:

Uncanny X-Men #224

This was the issue that started it all and it was absolutely NOT the most first-timer friendly BUT a writer like Chris Claremont went out of his way to adhere to an old Stan Lee (so I've heard) axiom that every issue is somebody's first.  There wasn't yet an X-Men: Animated Series to lay the groundwork but he made it easy to understand who Wolverine, Havok, Rogue, and Dazzler were and what they were doing in San Francisco.  Marc Silvestri defined the visuals of all of these characters for me, particularly Wolverine, and for the longest time his was the look with which I associated these characters.  His version WAS Wolvie, it WAS Storm and Dazzler and Longshot...he & Dan Green WERE the X-Artists for me!

As for Claremont, he made the fact that I was jumping into a situation en media res completely tolerable given that the X-Books were on the verge of entering The Fall of Mutants, that the Registration Act and Freedom Force were things, that a powerless Storm was completely separate from the team for reasons unknown to me...

All of those things would, in the mindset of some in today's comic landscape (coughDCCOMICScough), be GIANT barriers to my signing on the the mutant bandwagon but because the writer made the effort to make his comic accessible, I was hooked and wanted to know not only where the story was going, but I wanted to know where it had come from.  This led to my 8 year old self finding a local comic shop which was thankfully right next door to the karate studio I was attending and spending several days a week there, not just new comic day.

This was in the age before EVERYTHING was traded so I dug deep into back issue bins, began following X-Factor and New Mutants, and reading Classic X-Men (later X-Men Classic) until my back issue endeavors collided with Classic around Uncanny issue #170.  Speaking of classic, that leads me to another couple of my favorites:

Classic X-Men #19

So just as with my first Uncanny issue, I also joined the classic adventures of my favorite mutants in the middle of a story! This time they were trapped in an arctic base, rendered powerless & child-like by Magneto, and at the motherly mercy of the android Nanny.  Claremont writing, John Byrne art, this was the stuff of dreams and a totally different visual than which I had become accustomed to with reading Uncanny & seeing Marc Silvestri's take.

And again, even though I was jumping into to a show already in progress, I was able to pretty much pick up on what was going on AND want to track down the issues that came before to see how my favorites got trapped in the first place!  Then, with the ending that split up the team, leaving Jean & Beast in Antarctica and the rest of the unit's fate in limbo, I had to know what happened!!!  This stuff was epic!

Plus, one of the bonuses of these Classic issues, there were additional pages (although at 8 years old I didn't know they were added at the time) added to the main story AND a total new back-up story!  This one fleshed out the character of Magneto in a way that I can look back on and safely say had never been done before.  It filled in gaps in his history and it was BEAUTIFULLY rendered by John Bolton.  These back-ups were a thing of wonder and the back-up alone is why this next issue is one of my favorite...

Classic X-Men #25

Wolverine solo...drawn by John Bolton...this back-up was a thing of beauty and probably one of the reasons that I fell in love with the character.  It does a great job of fleshing him out as more than just the crazy runt with claws, although in the Uncanny issues I was already seeing he was more than that, and it is just a wonder to look at.  Just thinking about it makes me want to either dig these issues out just to read the back-ups or go buy the Vignettes trades.

As an added bonus in the main story, you get Mariko Yashida making her first appearances in Wolvie's life (the previous issue being her first), you get Banshee losing his powers (a thing that stuck for well over 100 issues), and in the added pages, you get an Apocalypse appearance to tie him into Moses Magnum's origins!  Speaking of Apocalypse....

X-Factor #68

Okay this may seem an odd choice to some but this issue, with writing credited to Whilce Portacio, Jim Lee, and Chris Claremont with Portacio & Art Thibert getting the artistic nods, is the culmination of so many different plot threads PLUS the springboard into the next phase of the mutant world.

It brings to a head the Apocalypse story that has been building in some fashion since X-Factor #5, it brings to crescendo the saga of baby Nathan Christopher Charles Summers that has been on-going since his birth in Uncanny #201 and really kicked into high gear during Inferno & the subsequent Judgement War arc in X-Factor, and his Nathan's fate certainly added even more intrigue to the Cable/Stryfe mystery unfolding in the closing pages of the original New Mutants series & subsequently in the original X-Force series...plus it was set on the Blue Area of the Moon which harkens back to the original Dark Phoenix saga oh so many years prior.

The closing of this arc also catapults the original X-Men who made up X-Factor into the Muir Island Saga over in Uncanny that would ultimately lead us to the introduction of the Blue & Gold Teams in the UXM & & X-Men books.

But most importantly, and the reason why this issue resonates in my mind, is because of the heartbreaking scene when Scott Summers has to give up his child, has to send little Nathan off into the great unknown with a strong possibility that Cyke will never his son again, in hopes that this mysterious Asakani woman can save his life.  This is a man who, taking into account the sliding concept of time in comics, was without his son for 3 publishing years (so say like a year in comic book time maybe?). Now having only just gotten his son back, Cyclops was faced with the gut-wrenching choice of what to do, what to sacrifice, and...perhaps this is just me reading into it now...but giving is his son up to be saved is kind of making up for being a totally selfish douchebag since Jean Grey's not-so-dead body was found at the bottom of the ocean a few years prior.  That's a thought I'm just now thinking for the first time by the way...

Any way it was the emotional hook of Cyclops and Nate that puts this one in my mind more so than anything about the Apocalypse/Askani stuff...oh yeah, and this story arc would also be the hook upon which the next entry into my arc would hang its hat:

X-Cutioner's Song

So apparently, according to Wikipedia, this was a story arc not looked upon fondly despite its high sales numbers...well I don't give a damn!  I look back on this story as one of the highlights of my comic book reading youth.  Not only was it full of awesome art from the likes of Brandon Peterson, Jae Lee, Andy Kubert, and Greg Capullo but the story also brought together a ton of characters that had essentially been separate since the birth of X-Force, X-Men, and the overhaul of X-Factor that came about 15 months prior.

It took the "Cable & Stryfe have the same face" bomb that got dropped at the end of New Mutants #100 and used it for something major...if you call something like Stryfe, decked out in Cable-wear, shooting Professor Xavier in the face major.  The arc brought Apocalypse into the field as an ally rather than enemy which in turn played into the Archangel dynamic as well as the Cable/Cyclops drama.  It put X-Force, who were sans Cable at that moment, into the mix as a fugitive team.  Guido working with Gambit, Feral and Wolfsbane occupying the same space thereby proving there were in fact two different characters (bad joke), the moon, Stryfe versus Apocalypse, Stryfe's torture of Jean & Cyclops on THE BLUE AREA OF THE MOON, and Scott Summers' nagging questions: is Cable my son or is Stryfe my son?

It was an epic tale that told a self-contained story AND built for the future!  What a novel concept in this day & age where so many crossovers end up feeling to me like they exist ONLY to set-up the future and don't tell a complete story on their own.  This was throwing everything out there and making it all work!  History also tells us that Magneto ALMOST ended up a part of the story too AND a joke by Peter David is what ultimately led to Wolvie getting his adamantium ripped out in Fatal Attractions (more on that later)!

Plus the fallout from this arc also directly led to two of my favorite X-issues of all time!  First up:

X-Force #19

"The Open Hand - The Closed Fist"...the name of the story and representing the two sides of the coin when it comes to "the dream" from the perspectives of Charles Xavier (the former) and Cable (the latter).  In the fallout of "X-Cutioner's Song" the X-Force squad is essentially being held prisoner while Xavier & Storm question Cannonball's decisions.

The beauty of this issue, along with being a great showcase for how far Capullo has come as an artist, is in its layers.  For one it reconnects the former students of Xavier (Sunspot and Cannonball) with their former home, obviously via Sam's interactions with Charles & Ororo, but also thru Roberto's interaction with Stevie Hunter.  Then it points out how distant the rest of the squad (Warpath, Siryn, Shatterstar, Feral, Boomer, Rictor) are from that touchstone.  Sure some of them (Boomer, Rictor, Siryn) have a degree of affiliation but none of them were ever under the tutelage of Xavier directly and neither Warpath, Shatterstar, nor Feral spent one second under the wing of anyone but Cable.  There are so many degrees of removal from "the dream" looking at say Beast to Feral...

This issue also provides set-up for the future but no in a way that intrudes on the main story...just enough to tease you and leave you curious for what's to come.

But the highlight, the absolute crucial part of this issue though, the thing that really defined Cannonball for the future (or at least should have), is the "open hand, closed fist" debate he has with Xavier using, of all things, a mouse.  The crux of Guthrie's argument is that the supposedly safe and welcoming open hand can be used to slap you across the face (yeah...he nearly slaps Xavier across the face) while the supposedly violent & threatening closed fist can be used to protect and comfort (that's where the mouse comes in).  THAT is my Cannonball, the guy who was taking the best from his three teachers (Xavier, Magneto, & Cable) and looking to mold them into an entirely new ideal for this new generation of mutants.  It was furthered in the Counter-X Ellis run with his tutelage under Pete Wisdom AND it was why I was furious when Cannonball was reverted to the country bumpkin when he officially became an X-Man post-Age of Apocalypse..that's a whole other rant though.

This issue gave X-Force an identity, a STRONG identity, for the first time since the series began after a bunch of meandering issues about Externals and Cannonball dying and Gideon and Tolliver and lackluster Mark Pacella/Dan Panosian art. Also, and I am totally putting meaning in where there probably isn't any, it says something to me that this article on MTV.com here from 7/11/13 uses an image from this issue!

As for that other favorite issue that spawned out of "X-Cutioner's Song":

Uncanny X-Men #303

So "Song" spawned the Legacy Virus which was a pretty clear AIDS virus for the mutant community.  It had claimed the lives of some minor characters like Infectia and Burke as well as some major ones like Jamie Madrox (later revealed to be a dupe), Moira MacTaggert (the only human), and Revanche (Psylocke's....whatever).

But the saddest moment, the one that ripped my heart out, was the death of Illyana Rasputin in UXM #303. UNFORTUNATELY her death was spoiled beyond belief when UXM #304 was released BEFORE #303.  See #304 was part of the big "Fatal Attractions" crossover and I guess delaying it would have fucked up the schedule of the rest of the x-over...that's all assumption by the way.

So Illyana's story is sad enough on its own...the little sister of Colossus, as a little girl she was kidnapped from Russia to be used as a pawn by the villain Arcade, ultimately stolen away into Limbo while the X-Men were on some island where the barriers between dimensions were weak, and although it was only minutes on Earth in which she was lost in Limbo, with the way time moves there she reemerged from the hellish dimension as a teenager.  She joined the New Mutants, struggled with her demonic side for years, was used by the demons S'ym & N'astirh to bring Limbo to Earth during "Inferno", and returned to her proper age during the closing chapters of that story.

She returned to Russia, her & Colossus' parent were murdered, she contracted the Legacy Virus, and that brought us to this story where, while the rest of the team was away, it all came to a head with Shadowcat (visiting from Excalibur), Jubilee, Jean Grey, and Charles Xavier in residence at the mansion and Moira MacTaggert there via video screen.

I'm honestly tearing up writing about this and reading the recaps...I think this was the first comic in the, at that point, 6 years I had been reading that had this kind of effect on me and it says something for my memories of it that it still does.  Jubilee bonding to Illyana in these last moments of her life, the history of Kitty Pryde & Illyana coming into play, the reaction of Colossus when he returns home to the tragic news, the reading of Hans Christian Andersons' "Little Matchgirl", the BAMF doll, it's all so...heartbreaking.  As Jubilee puts it in the end, since she has been hanging with the X-Men, she has mixed it up with Brood-things, Sentinels, Acolytes and everything. ‘So how is it ya can save the world every morning pre-wheaties…but when it comes to saving one little girl…zip?’ 

I'm crying....

That could be a good time to end it but I've got two more specific issues I want to point out and one run in particular that, for me, is probably my favorite.  First up, and kind of spiraling out of the earlier mention of "Fatal Attractions" and the Jubilee stuff in #303:

Wolverine #75

In X-Men #25, thanks to a joke from Peter David, Magneto ripped the adamantium free from the skeleton of Wolverine which, in turn, prompted Xavier to mindwipe Magneto which, in turn, led to the creation on Onslaught which, in turn, led to the Heroes Reborn story which, in turn....see how it all goes with comics?

The ramifications of Xavier's mindwipe aren't the point here though.  The point is Wolverine #75, for its fancy hologram and horror-flick image cover, is one of the most touching issues of a comic you will read.  The race to save Wolverine's life while simultaneously returning to Earth from space is pulse-pounding, Xavier's willingness to risk his own life to get inside Wolvie's mind and help him is noble, the moment of Illyana's spirit shoving Wolverine's away from the light was touching as was the fact that is was Jean Grey's voice that pulled Logan back from the brink so he could save their lives.

Seeing Wolverine weakened from his ordeal yet forcing himself into a Danger Room scenario is, in it's own way, as heartbreaking as Illyana's death because he just can't cut it anymore.  Add to that the revelation that Logan's infamous claws are in fact bone and you have a true moment in X-Lore.  The real kicker to this story though, the one that makes it linger in my memory, is the letter (and his hat) that Wolvie leaves Jubilee when he departs from the team.  It is heartfelt, it is a look at the core of the man, and can bring tears to your eyes just as well as the words of UXM #303.

Sadly, and maybe this is why they linger so, the next story that comes to mind is also one of death and tragedy in the life of Logan:

Wolverine #57

Love has been a difficult thing for Wolverine to come by and for those of us who had followed his journey from his introduction to the X-Men pining after Jean Grey up to his first meeting with Mariko Yashida, you could see it was not something he gave freely.  

Time has taught us that Logan has certainly gotten around in his century-plus on Earth but the number of women that our beloved Canuck has deeply and truly loved has been few: Jean, Rose, Silver Fox, and Mariko.  Of those four men, only Mariko ever stood at an altar waiting to be Logan's bride only to have the machinations of Mastermind dash all those dreams to hell.  It was a manipulation that put Mariko into what I can only call a shame-spiral as, in the aftermath, she attempted to clean up her families criminal ties in order to make herself worthy of Logan's love.

The truly tragic thing was that those attempts to clean up the family were what ultimately cost Mariko her life, or rather, put her in a situation in which Logan had to choose: did he leave her to die a painful poisoned death OR use his claws to end her pain?  The failed samurai chose the latter, the mercy kill, and broke his own heart in the process when he "snikted" the claws into his love...in my mind the last woman he truly loved.

My heart broke for him then, my heart still breaks for him now thinking about it and reading over the recaps, and what makes it even worse...if that's possible...is that it was not the last time Wolverine would have to make that choice.  Whether intentional or not (and since Grant Morrison was writing it I assume it was intentional), Wolverine has to unleash his claws on Jean Grey in New X-Men #148 in hopes that it would unleash The Phoenix and save their lives.  If it didn't work, well then he would have two dead loves on his claws.

This story in Wolvie #57 was a picture perfect depiction of the tragic figure that Wolverine truly was at that point...

Uncanny X-Men #205, X-Factor #87, X-Men #30, X-Force (Vol. 2) #26/UXM #524, X-Men #100, UXM #143, X-Men #110....just off the top of my head those are some great single issue stories for various reasons, most of them tragic probably, but I want to close it out with a mention of one of my favorite runs. 

Uncanny X-Men #269

Uncanny X-Men #229

From Uncanny X-Men #229 until UXM #269, the lives of the various members of the team were in total upheaval.  It all started when, in the aftermath of "Fall of the Mutants", the team elected to fake their deaths in order to (a) protect their loved ones while (b) striking at their enemies.  It was an idea first floated out by Chris Claremont maybe two years prior in the aftermath of the "Mutant Massacre" but, in typical Claremont fashion, took years to come to fruition.

These forty issues saw the team set-up shop in Australia after deposing The Reavers from their very unique home, it saw the return of The Brood, the introduction of Genosha, Inferno, the team crumble in the absence of Wolverine & the "death" of Storm, the Siege Perilous, the Mandarin, Captain American, it saw a newer & stranger team born on Muir Island under the leadership of the repowered Banshee, it saw Jim Lee come to the fold as an artist, saw Gambit and Jubilee make their first appearances, did some crazy shit to Jean Grey in the Morlock tunnels, and eventually came full circle right before the "X-Tinction Agenda" by bringing Rogue back to Australia.

It was a crazy, experimental, unique time frame in X-history in which...for a long time...the traditional idea of what the X-Men team were did not exist.  There was no mansion, no Blackbird or Cerebro, no Xavier, it was an adventure unlike any that came before it or any that has followed it.  I think it is safe to say that, aside from Morrison's run, this is the most original section in the long history of the x-books and it was all guided by the words of Chris Claremont with the pens of men like Mark Silvestri, Jim Lee, Rick Leonardi, and Kieron Dwyer to bring those words to life.

If there is one issue though that I find a must-read over all the others it is this:

Uncanny X-Men #251

There are dozens upon dozens of stories in the 50 year publishing history of the X-Men that are worth your time.  These are only a tiny handful of those that have sprung to my mind in the process of writing this up.  Be it in trade form, in back issue hunting, or by downloading at Comixology or whatever website does stuff like that, these are well worth the read. 

In fact, the only X-Men stuff I would tell you to avoid is any crap written by Chuck Austen or Frank Tieri.  The worst....

Now bring on The Battle Of The Atom!!!

Off The Top Of My Head....

I opened up my blog for the first time in several months without a specific intent of what I was going to be writing about.  I mean I have spent the last 7 or so blogs putting my fan-fic Jason Todd stories out there and hadn't really addressed anything else.  So when I decided today was the day to put a new blog out there, I realized I didn't have the slightest idea WHAT I wanted to talk about....

There's Iron Man 3...which I enjoyed, thought it tried to hard for laughs at times, still not sure how I feel about The Mandarin twist, was surprised the 9pm premiere audience I was a part of didn't pop for the spots one would expect (like Pepper's big moment), and I thought the post-credits scene was cute...they don't always have to tease you for the next big movie and I don't see how a Thor 2 one would have worked here anyway.

We've got Man of Steel on tap in June and with each new trailer I find my excitement growing. The movie looks amazing and the "Can't I just keep pretending I'm your son? You ARE my son." exchange cinched it for me.  This is my movie of the year and June 14th can't come fast enough but since I now work on Thursday nights there is no midnight (or 7pm Walmart screening) in my future for any upcoming movies.  One thing I wanted to touch on about this movie though, and it's something inspired in my brain by a conversation with a friend yesterday as well as reading this from Brett White on CBR earlier today, is the idea of DARK AND GRITTY!!!

I was asked if I thought Man of Steel would be just that and it led me on a tangent about how there is no reason for that to exist in the world of Clark Kent.  Yes the movie is being put out there by Zach Snyder who helped define those words in movies like 300 & Watchmen (just as much as Nolan did in his Bat-Trilogy) but it doesn't play in the world of Supes.  As White said in his piece, Superman represents hope and unity and all the good things in a world too often filled with negativity and with the bad.  Yes his birth planet was blown up but he was raised by two loving parents in a safe environment, brought up with strong values, grew up believing in the best of humanity, and strives to be that everyday.  This quote IS the perfect summary: "You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They'll race behind you. They will stumble. They will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun."

That's what Supes is about and while I, like White, have generally shied away from Superman, there are those tales that capture it perfectly. I have read both Birthright and All-Star and they are amazing books...just takes the right author to make me care.  Obviously Clark is going to have some issues, "surprise you're an alien" would be hard news to take no matter how well you were raised, but I don't want to see a brooding Bruce Wayne clone hiding inside Clark when he's all bearded and looks to be in full-on drifter mode. I want that to be a man learning about a world beyond Smallville and doing what he can to help where he can.  It's hopefully the journey of a man finding out he's a hero, not of a man running away from who he is...

Also, I think I would put the same notion on Captain America as well...a "dark and gritty" Cap is not for me, it worked for Winter Soldier because of the life Bucky had endured but not for Steve Rogers.  Maybe it's no coincidence that one of the Superman stories & the Steve Rogers Captain America stories I dig the most are written by Mark Waid...

So what shocks me, especially coming as a sequel (of sorts) to two of the most despised comic books movies, is that I am totally intrigued by The Wolverine!  At first it was thrown out there as a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, then it evolved into a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand, but the movie still maintains it is based on the amazing Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series from 1982 (on the must-read list for any X-Fan out there, it's where the whole "best at what I do" catchphrase started after all).  

Based on the experience of Origins (a movie I wanted to like but just can't) and The Last Stand (a movie I enjoy but see why others don't), I wasn't very sure about this movie ever happening in any form and once it was announced that it was, suffice to say my guard was up.  When Darren Aronofsky was briefly attached I was certainly intrigued by how he would present a super hero movie but my interest was about as fleeting as his I suppose.  Having no clue who James Mangold was my desire for this movie to exist was...well...not nonexistent...but damn close.  As a matter of fact it is only just now as I am writing this that I bothered to look at his IMDB to see that he directed two movies I enjoy in Walk The Line & Identity...nice!

Anywho, it wasn't until I started seeing the trailers that my interest was piqued and, just as with Man of Steel, it took multiple variations before it completely captured my attention.  Now, after seeing the ninja fighting, the giant (robot?) Silver Samurai, Yukio, Viper, and the Famke Janssen spot...I am there.  The Jean Grey moment in the trailer was similar to the acknowledgment from Tony in Iron Man 3 that what happened in NYC had affected him.  For better or worse, the fact that X3 is being recognized and that the events of that movie will have repercussions on The Wolverine makes me a happy continuity nerd!  Plus I have a very strong desire to see how, or if, this movie will play into the next piece of film business that has my attention...

 X-Men: Days of Future Past!  I am scared, excited, nervous, happy, anxious, etcetera etcetera for this one.  It sounds so ambitious and loaded with every damn X-Character under the sun, bringing back Shawn Ashmore and Anna Paquin and Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as well as First Class cast members and, of course, Hugh Jackman.  Promises of making sense out of the continuity chaos that is the cinematic X-Verse have me salivating at the prospects of how this could be accomplished.  Will it be like JJ Abrams Star Trek where it plays as a prequel, sequel, and reboot all at the same time?  How will the past & future interact? Time travel? Alternate realities?  How will those tropes of comic book fantasy work in cinema?  I cannot wait to see how it all plays out!  First Class Xavier meet Trilogy Xavier!

My wandering mind just steered back to Iron Man 3, more specifically Robert Downey Jr's future in the Marvel movie-verse.  I think it is impossible to argue that he is the foundation upon which the current Avengers movie franchise was built...if it wasn't for the success of the original Iron Man and how amazing the guy was in the role of Tony Stark, it is extremely safe to say we wouldn't have gotten to the point where Marvel is willing to make the ballsy play of releasing a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  Hell, we would never have gotten to ONE Avengers movie for that matter...

So while I am dumbfounded by the dollar figures attached to both RDJ and Joss Whedon ($50 million for Downey in Avengers, $100 million contract for Whedon), based on how much money their movies have made for the company, it is hard to argue they aren't worth the price tag.  It's just telling of our society that while we pay entertainers that much, for the majority of us who keep the gears turning on a daily basis those numbers are imaginary and unreachable.  GET OFF THE SOAPBOX!!!

I don't bring this up to talk about that disparity though, I bring it up because of the disparity within the Avengers franchise when it comes to pay scale.  I can understand paying the top draw the top money (to use a wrestling comparison Ricky Steamboat would never have made Hulk Hogan money) but, if the numbers are legit, to pay some of the cast $200,000 while Downey & Whedon made that much...it's insulting.  So when I read that Downey is actually standing up for his fellow castmates and this drastic discrepancy, I want to applaud the man.  Take Scarlet Johansson for one...they obviously feel she is very important, after all she has appeared in two of the Phase One movies (Iron Man 2, Avengers) and is filming Captain America: Winter Soldier.  Aside from Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson (HIS NAME WAS PHIL!), she has been the most high-profile character to not have her own movie.  I know Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye was also in two of the Phase One movies, but he was barely a factor in Thor...nowhere near as important as Black Widow was to Iron Man 2 or, now that I think about it, Coulson to the whole franchise.

If she is one of the $200K crew, I wouldn't blame her for wanting to balance the scales and get more black in her ledger (that was awful).  Same goes for Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth who are THE LEAD ACTORS in their own franchise...their movies may not bank as much as Iron Man but still, they are the face of the character.

It will be interesting to see if Marvel recasts these parts for Avengers 2 or if they balance the pay scales out to try and keep the band together.  Also can't help but wonder where Mark Ruffalo falls in all of this...he's awesome as Bruce Banner but he will, much like Hawkeye and Black Widow, probably never see his own movie.

Comic books....or at least one of them, the much anticipated and much delayed Age of Ultron event! This damn thing was first teased over two years ago in Avengers (Vol. 4) #12.1, then again during the 2012 Free Comic Comic Book day Age of Ultron #0.1 issue that reprinted the Avengers story, and here we are in 2013 and it is FINALLY starting, and almost over due to a bi-weekly print schedule, presumably to make way for Infinity this summer.

Honestly I should know better by now to expect much out of Bendis written event books after Secret Invasion and Siege.

The former had that snail's pacing with everything of interest to me (i.e. back story) happening in the Avengers tie-in books Bendis was writing.  Sure SI had some cool moments but, in the end & in the long run, none of the Skrull reveals mattered and it ended up feeling like 8 issues of set-up for Dark Reign.

The latter, well, I just didn't care...I loved Norman Osborn's role during Dark Reign and spent the entire time waiting for that Goblin reveal but when it happened, it just fell flat.  The story being cut down to four issues I took as Marvel realizing SI was TOO LONG but even at that shorter length Siege felt long to me.

So now we have AoU, obviously a play on the Age of Apocalypse name, and it feels like this just a story being ran through as quickly as possible because it was promised to us two years ago.  It reads dated too because of that...particularly in the way Bendis writes Spider-Man.  Now it has been insisted by Marvel that the AoU Spidey IS the Superior Spidey version but anyone who reads that book can see that either (A) Bendis has NO idea how to write Octo-Spidey or (B) He wrote this two years ago before Superior Spidey was a thought and just left it as Peter.  Superior Spidey has a very distinctive way of talking that screams "THIS ISN'T PETER", his body language screams "I'M NOT PETER", and yet everything about AoU Spidey reads like Peter.  It drives me nuts....

That aside, the pacing is glacial...the heroes stood around talking for four issues like it was an on-going series...and I just find it hard to get behind an alternate reality story of this nature.  When AoA happened you knew the books would eventually get back to reality BUT the entire X-Men line changed to reflect the death of Xavier.  I know that's not something possible to do in this more integrated Marvel U (back then the X-Men played all by themselves 99.9% of the time) but, maybe in part due to the fact that the next event was being solicited before this one even got started, AoU comes across like an afterthought in every way.  It would have been ballsy but imagine if Marvel had changed the ENTIRE landscape for the duration of this book?  That tells the readers something serious is going on here...and if you plan it in advance, much like the transition into AoA world, a writer can segue their story into it as much as possible then pick up the pieces when reality returns to normal.

Yet, like the glutton for punishment I am, I am continuing to read the series...it's got nice art and some cool moments but, like a review I read said...maybe on CBR...this is a story that could have played out over a couple issues of Exiles or the recently canned Extreme X-Men book.

Everything before this was written Thursday, everything from this point on was written Friday.  It will make sense why I am pointing that out shortly...

So I just finished reading Green Lantern #20, the final issue of Geoff Johns' nearly ten year running manning the Hal Jordan ship and redefining the landscape of the GL-Verse.  I have written about this before...

- Green Lantern & The New 52...10/15/12
- Rebirth 7/1/11
- Sinestro Corps Part 2 6/12/11
- Sinestro Corps Part 1 6/6/11
- Blackest Night 5/16/11

...but not in any detail since the New 52 began.  To be honest about it, I have not been greatly engrossed in anything going on in the GL books since Blackest Night ended.  I was not a fan of the Brightest Day/War of the Green Lanterns saga that wrapped up the old DCU and, aside from enjoying the interaction between Hal & Sinestro, I haven't been very engrossed by the New 52 stories.  I don't care about Baz at all yet, the Wrath of the First Lantern story was boring as hell to me with essentially every chapter just repeating the same "false reality inflicted on a lead character" angle.  The only exception, and the brightest spot of the arc, has been the Hal & Sinestro in the Dead Zone pages of which they were not a great deal. Suffice to say that I couldn't wait for this arc to end even though it meant Johns leaving the book.

All that being said, I have to say that GL #20 was an amazing send-off for Geoff, Doug Mahnke, and everyone else who helped build the GL-Verse into the behemoth it has become since Rebirth.  Yes we have seen the "rewrite reality" schtick done a million times over in comic books but in this issue, for the first time in this arc, it really feels like Volthoom's purpose is secondary to the real story: the story of Hal & Sinestro.  Volthoom is a prop, his mission is background noise, the endless supply of Lanterns from every color are meaningless in this larger story...this is ultimately about Hal, Sinestro, and their enduring friendship despite everything that has happened over the years.  Hal still wants to believe Sinestro is a good man, he will not give up on him, and Sinestro actually does demonstrate he still has that heart.  Hell I think it's safe to say that Sinestro is the MOST emotional of all these beings floating around space.

Add in all the quotes from various creators, friends, and family reflecting on Johns' run as well as Geoff's own farewell to the GL-Verse, and you have quite a complete package for a final issue.  It even answers some of the "what's still continuity?" questions that linger from the old DCU into the New 52!

So despite my general lack of interest in the last year and a half of Green Lantern, I am quite sad to see such an epic run come to an end. Let me say though that it is not a matter of the book being bad, well except for maybe the majority of Wrath of the First Lantern, it just that it is hard to match the levels of awesomeness achieved with Blackest Night, Sinestro Corps War, Rebirth, and all the other stories that have built to this finale.

It changed the face of DC Comics, it brought Hal Jordan, a character I was only tangentially familiar with from Reign of the Supermen, into my wheel house and made me love him, and it used the building blocks of what came before to create a new and very deep mythos around the GLC. 

This is the reason I felt it necessary to point out that I'm writing this part on Friday, hence the reason I didn't just lump it in with the Days of Future Past block.

So Quicksilver, who Joss Whedon had recently announced would be be part of Avengers 2 alongside Scarlet Witch, is now also going to be part of the X-Men: Days of Future Past cast! WTF?!?!

The internet kind of had a meltdown for a minute, thinking we might suddenly start seeing the two distinct movie franchises from two separate studios share a universe or something, but the reality of that ever happening is...none.  Not even slim to none...just the none.

It makes me curious why this is happening...is it a move out of spite? A challenge? Doing it because they can?  It also makes me wonder just what other characters could fall into this same murky water of being available to both movie franchises.  Does it depend on which comic book they first appeared in or which comic they appeared in most frequently?  Not even getting into the current A+X world Marvel Comics lives in, you've got characters like Beast and Carol Danvers who have been involved with both teams for decades, or even Wolverine & Spider-Man who have been part of the Avengers for nearly a decade.  What is it that determines movie rights exactly?  Could the Fantastic Four, three of whom have been Avengers in the past, be used?  I am more intrigued by HOW this works than anything else...

Trinity War is almost here and do I care? I think the answer is a lifeless grunt.  Not quite as drawn out as the delay between AoU's tease and the actual publication, this mega-event for the New 52 was first teased in the 2012 FCBD book from DC.  This isn't something unusual for Geoff Johns by the way as he did exactly that for Sinestro Corps War (teased in the final issue of Rebirth I think) and Blackest Night (teased in the last part of Sinestro Corps War) BUT I felt like those stories were built towards in the gaps.

I'm not sure if Trinity has actually been built towards...maybe that's the kind of thing where the pieces will fall into place when I get to read it.  Right now it it just feels like I am being TOLD this is important instead of being SHOWN it's important. I read JL, JLA, and JLD and I in no way feel like these books are headed for some big collision in just two months time...and building it around a big murder mystery premise is doing nothing for me.  Maybe I'm just being cynical comic book guy here but let's see, Johns just introduced three new JL members in The Atom, Element Woman, and Firestorm (the only one who had his own book).  Well is it a safe bet to say either Atom or Element Woman are dying?  Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Flash all have their own book, Cyborg's involvement (despite not adding up to much of anything for most of the series) was pushed as a big deal, and Green Lantern Jordan technically quit.  So again...safe bet on one of the newbies getting killed.

 Pandora is uninteresting to me thus far aside from wanting to know WHY she said reality had to be rewritten at the end of Flashpoint.  Don't care about Phantom Stranger, this Question isn't Renee Montoya so I don't care, I have not been impressed one bit with Justice League of America thus far, so sadly I am heading to Trinity War with very low expectations. Maybe...as was the case with the Atlantis arc in JL...this will work in my favor and I will be overjoyed by its quality!

And finally let me just say that I am super excited for this one though and a lot of the reason comes from this excerpt from an IGN interview Batman writer Scott Snyder did here


Snyder: What happened was, I started thinking about all the things we never saw in Batman: Year One; the adventures and the early years of Bruce that had been unexplored -- a lot of the first things that happened to him. I was kind of planning on telling a story about that at some point. Then what happened – and this is me just being totally honest with you, Joey, and I guess everybody out there reading [laughs] – is that I realized over the last five or six months that a lot of the things I was trying to work around from Year One, in my story, didn’t track anymore with the present day continuity of the [New] 52.

Meaning, Jim Gordon’s son, James, would be five or six years old. And believe me, nobody loves Year One more than me. Using that book as a foundation of what you build on is hugely important to me. But, Selina Kyle’s origin is different, Barbara Gordon’s origin is different, the Falcone family is different. All of that stuff is different, and so what happened was it became, “Do I do this more tepid early years story that tries very hard to work around the elements of Year One that we could actually show again to show that they exist still and just retread?” Or does it become about saying, “I’m going to be respectful of Year One and the things that I love, but try and do something with Greg that’s our own and shows you how Batman became Batman in the 52?

As I have said before, with the history of the Bat & GL franchises theoretically left intact with the reboot a whole slew of problems were presented but left unaddressed.  As Snyder stated, when the New 52 history began to unfold, characters new origins didn't vibe with that idea so well.  It's refreshing to hear that addressed by the guy spearheading the Bat-Verse and I like that he is making an attempt to do something along these line.  As much of a continuity whore as I can be though, I don't want to see a story that is just a point-by-point history book and I am not so stuck on what carried over from the Old DCU, I just would expect everything within the New 52 to make sense.  Create your rules and then follow them...that's a simple guideline for creating any fantasy realm and the New 52 has shown more than a few hiccups (I'm looking at you Scott Lobdell and your faux-Tim Drake).  Maybe that's why I find it funny that Snyder specifically said this in the interview though, "This is not, 'Why is Damian as old as he is?'"

I keep trying to remind myself that the New 52 is only two years old and that it took an eternity for Marvel and DC to really cement their universes in the first place.  I just wonder, and probably always will, if anyone from DC sat down and thought out the finer points the way Bendis did with Hank Pym's AoU death here?

Anyway, I kind of hope that the idea of Zero Year catches on for some of the other New 52 books and that in five-ten years, when we have all hopefully finally stopped calling it the New 52, we will have some sort of idea of DCU history in the sense we all head it prior to Flashpoint.  Instead of Crisis, we will have Trinity...instead of Knightfall we will have Death of the Family...instead of Death of Superman we will have...I don't know, probably not He'l On Earth though.