Morrison has done a decent, but not exactly earth-shaking or groundbreaking - job on Batman, but like I said I won't miss him when he eventually leaves.

The only REALLY stupid thing he's done is Damien. DC decided a long time ago to remove the Son of the Demon graphic novel, where Batman has a baby with Talia, from continuity - easy to do since it wasn't referenced outside that GN, as far as I know. It was relegated to Elseworlds status, but I believe it wouldn't take much to set it on the Kingdom Come Earth instead, since one of the characters in KC was Bruce's son. Damien is Bruce and Talia's son and unfortunately was trained to be an assassin - he actually tried to kill Tim and did kill Batman's enemy the Spook (decapitated him and brought his head back to the Batcave). Nothing was explained about his origins and Talia left with him after a few issues, then later on in Batman #666, which takes place in the future where Damien is Batman, it was revealed that he was a test tube baby, made using Talia's DNA and Bruce's DNA which was stolen. So he's not really Bruce's son as much as he is a partial clone.

I hope at some point another writer fixes this and reveals it all to be a lie, if that hasn't happened already (I didn't read the Resurrection of Ra's storyarc that ran through the various Bat-titles, so I don't know if Damien appeared in that), or that someone (NOT the Joker, for christsakes!) offs Damien and they don't have Bruce's DNA to make another.

The Ostrander-Mandrake 4-parter that interrupted Morrison's run was more disappointing that Morrison's work on the title. I expected better, since Ostrander and Mandrake were killer on The Spectre, but they borrowed a bunch of things to make the story's villain: He looked a lot like Leatherface armed with a flamethrower arm, had the name of a Marvel villain (Grotesk - yes, even used that spelling), and an origin a bit similar to Darkman's.

The text issue with CGI artwork with the Joker and Harley Quinn that Morrison wrote was pretty bad, though - and what makes it even worse is that the aforementioned 4-parter was done because that issue wasn't done in time!

Aaron -- I've read O'Neil and Englehart's runs on Batman and both were top notch and brilliant takes on the caped crusader.  The problem is from what I remember at the time is that people still associated Batman with that stupid 60's television show and not what was being written in the 70's and early 80's period.  When Frank Miller came on and did Dark Knight Returns it was like slapping the whole fan boy nation in the face and giving the world a huge wake up call as to what was happening at the time in the industry.  That's why I mentioned Frank Miller because people largely aside from those here haven't read O'Neil and Englehart's work with the character.  Which reminds me I still need to read O'Neil's Batman: Venom.

***

I can agree with some of that. I remember Miller's DARK KNIGHT getting a lot of attention outside the comics readership, in the newspapers and such. I just hate it, hate it, hate it when people who are supposedly knowledgable within comics fandom try to give Miller all the credit for the "serious" Batman, as if the 70s never happened. I see that that's not what you meant. I just have an irresistible need to comment whenever it seems like that is what is being implied.

Of course, I'm pretty sure many civilians still think of Batman in terms of Adam West. That show made a huge cultural mark, which will need a lot more than Frank Miller and Christian Bale to erase.  

so, are characters now speaking for the author?

Well, I guess Morrison made his points known publicly on what he thought of the tropes of the superhero, so having his characters dismiss costumes in a book he's writing might be indicative of the author's views.

Aaron: I thought Miller was given credit for establishing a Gotham unlike the one that had existed before. In Miller's Gotham, predisposed to Miller's noir fascination, the city is rife with corruption and psychopathic murderers of different skill levels, which Miller heightened in DKR to indicate just how far society had fallen and how much Batman was needed.

Now, that style of corrupt, bleak 1970s nihilism combined with 1980s lust for power created a hybrid for a bunch of creators to take off on. This was the nasty world of fear and shadows lurking in the back of our collective consciousness, and Miller hooked a comics generation on it.

The Miller Batman's world was extremely overwrought. I think if Miller had written/drawn the actual Batman comic, as he had DAREDEVIL, he would have presented more of that DD world, a world typical with greed and corruption, but rife with preternatural threats like ninjas and more aggressive rogues, probably heightening their threat (as he did Bullseye).

So, I've stopped blaming Miller for the "dark" Batman; he produced a singular story set in a crumbling, bleak future...Tim Burton took off on Miller's Gothic Gotham to get his art department to produce a noir cityscape look that carried over to the animated show, and associated strongly with Batman to the point that Gotham will never be "just" a city again, but a mishmash of turn of the century architecture and 1950s cars. 

I prefer the 1970s Batman and his world as I think it was, where the difference between good and evil was more clear. You can fault the Adam West show for a lot of things, but Batman's portrayal is actually fairly on the money...he's on the side of the right, he's a harmless wealthy dude as Bruce Wayne, he's considerate of the weak and a champion of the oppressed as Batman, he thinks intelligently through a problem and, while not humorless, he is reserved but not inhuman...and his pursuit of justice is unshakable except in the face of the only woman who really turns him on, Catwoman. 

The show cursed us with the cultural references that comics cannot shake, but in terms of Batman's portrayal, Adam West and the writers actually did a decent job I think. 

<<Well, I guess Morrison made his points known publicly on what he thought of the tropes of the superhero, so having his characters dismiss costumes in a book he's writing might be indicative of the author's views.>>

I had posted a portion of his X Men manifesto on here awhile back.  From that, it's pretty clear that he didn't think that they should wear costumes.  I don't think he should have had Logan say what he said becauae I think it's silly considering the character's history of wearing one before he was an X Men and many times where he wasn't with them.

That said, I never accused Morrison of feeling that way in general.  Far as I knew, the X Men were the only example.

<<I prefer the 1970s Batman and his world as I think it was, where the difference between good and evil was more clear.>>

Same here. 



 

Brian:
Bullshit?  I hate to break it to you, but since you haven't even read the man's work on JLA, a series that features almost every major DC costumed A-List hero and is written with an obvious love of superhero comics, you are just talking out of turn.

I avoided his run on JLA because someone I know who has similar tastes was reading it and didn't like it, so I skipped it. But if he ripped off a classic Marvel story for his first story on the series, that's all I need to know.

His X-Men run presupposed the notion that the X-Men are NOT SUPERHEROES, but are the next evolutionary step of humanity.  The X-Men are not the Avengers, otherwise, why are mutants so hated but Asgardian gods and Super Soldiers embraced by the public? 

His X-Men run didn't presuppose anything that hadn't been done by other writers before, and them being the next evolutionary step of humanity is more or less the entire premise of the series in the first place! The feared and hated by humanity thing was hinted at early on in the original series....back in the 1960s....but not expanded and focused on until later. WAAAAAAAY before Grant Morrison.

By the way, having a couple of characters have dissenting views on costumes does not mean the writer does.

I call world class bullshit on this, because why would even have a character WHO HAS BEEN WEARING COSTUMES FOR YEARS do so in the first place if you didn't feel that way? I can understand it when a character makes fun of a new costume design that sucks, but not costumes in general. And New X-Men isn't the only time he's had characters do that.

Before you make blanket statements about a writer's work like "In almost every run he's done on a superhero comic, he eventually has characters disparage the idea of wearing costumes or make some smart aleck remark about them." try reading some of those works.  

I've heard plenty of people who've read just about everything Morrison's written say the same thing I'm saying about the costumes before I started to say it myself, so it doesn't matter if I've read all his stuff or not. I've read enough to know they're right, and I wouldn't be saying it if all my knowledge were second-hand. Go buy a clue.

What have you read? Batman and New X-Men?  Try Flex Mentallo, Animal Man, Flash,  JLA, DC One Million.. the man does love comicbooks and superheroes. 

Never had any desire to read Flex Mentallo or Animal Man, because I never had any interest in either of those series in the first place.

You may be getting him confused with Warren Ellis or something, who has said repeatedly that he does harbor disdain for them.  

No, I'm not. There's a HUGE difference between Ellis and Morrison: Morrison should just keep his opinions to himself and leave out the commentary - and write the characters correctly. Ellis shouldn't be writing superhero comics at all.

No, I'm not. There's a HUGE difference between Ellis and Morrison: Morrison should just keep his opinions to himself and leave out the commentary - and write the characters correctly. Ellis shouldn't be writing superhero comics at all. - I like and agree with your dig on Ellis, but I think writer's should express their views on the characters they write,otherwise we get a bunch of cookie cutter characters, like the SIlver Age JLA where the only major difference between Aquaman, Superman and Green Lantern were costumes and hair color.  Sure maybe sometimes those views and their takes on characters can be off, but at least it's interesting.  These characters are too strong to be destroyed by a couple of sub par takes on them.