Saturday, January 07, 2006

A word on my new approach, and several words about other things.

Okay, so I like the way my last entry read. I will continue to do that from next Wednesday. I missed a few weeks in there, because my wife, who is still living in Toronto (pending the government finishing with her paperwork) was down to visit me here in Florida over the holidays, and we were too busy for me to keep this up to date. That being said, there are some things about comics that have been floating around in my head, and how I will share them with you.


Spoilers ho!
Infinite Crisis #3 came out. It was indeed into the meat of the story. Kal-L (Golden Age Superman) starts trying to recruit people to his side. We find out that Alex Luthor and Earth-Prime Superboy are the real villains. Or at least, it looks like they have been manipulating Kal-L. Kal-L proves he is cool here, again. The story is picking up steam, and I am really looking forward to the next issue.
End Spoilers

Dan Slott's work on the Thing book continues to be excellent as well. This book should be checked out.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was the evolution of "Batdick" as people have taken to calling Batman, due to his... less than pleasant way of dealing with those around him.

(Mild Spoilers of the current "Victims" story arc of Batman below)
I remember a time when Batman used to go out and stop criminals. No, really. There was a time when his comics weren't so much about his villains being out to get him, but about his villains trying to accomplish some goal - get rich, take over Gotham, kill a bunch of people, whatever - mroe than they were about trying to take down Batman. I think the change started around the time of Bane. He definitely targetted Batman to try and take him down. Ra's had targetted Bruce a few times, but more as a test than to try and kill him. It just seems like with the addition of Hush, and the return of Jason Todd, we have more and more villains whose goal is the defeat or destruction of Batman more than it is to get something for themselves. This in turn has led to an ever-darker and less trusting Batman. Not to mention the propensity in writers to go for Batman's supporting cast so totally. Since Contagion, I cannot count the number of really bad things that have happened to Alfred. Including his most recent (in the current issue of Detective, I think) stabbing at the hands of Zsasz, and subsequent use as bait by Batman to bring Zsasz into the open.

Also, in this story, Batman did no real detective work. He basically says "well, Zsasz has no pattern, so I can't find him - have to bring him to me." This from a guy who has found rare mud at a crime scene and deduced someone's hideout, or knew that Ra's Al Ghul was testing him based on a faint fingernail scratch and Ubu's behaviour. This man is all three CSI's put together. And he just shrugs and says "the killer has no pattern, so I'd best use my best friend as bait?" The fact is that the darkening of the world around him has caused Batman to become darker still in response, and in my opinion is hurting what the character is really about.

But to return to the reasons for this, I think it stems from a need on the part of the writers to make the stories more personal. I'm not saying this is a failing on their part, it is merely an observation. By threatening Alfred, it brings the story much closer to home for Batman, and therefore, the reader. There was a time where threatening the city or innocents was enough, but for better or worse, it seems that time has passed. Now, it has to be Batman himself, or one of the supporting cast members who is threatened in order for us to care. This has caused the writers to make Batman react to this, becoming ever more paranoid, and ever more critical of those who would leave openings whereby someone could get at his loved ones. This more than anything else has created the nigh-unlikeable Batman who exists today.

I hope that Infinite Crisis has a way to deal with this, or that the editorial team behind Batman does, more specifically.

In other news, Doc Samson, always one of my favorite characters got his own Limited Series this week. It was okay. It had a nice blend of him using his mind and his Gamma-powered muscles to solve his problems. I recommend this one, too.

3 comments:

Ragnell said...

Wow! I hadn't thought of that about Batman, but I think you hit the nail on the head there.

I think he's losing his CSI skills, though, as he stops using them. He relys more on Oracles and his Gigantic Super-computer than his own investigative prowess, and his wits start to dull.

Just_A_Rat said...

Thanks for your comment.

I agree with you about his CSI skills degrading, and think that might have been one of the reasons why he has cut contact with her. I hope it does lead to more investigative "World's Greatest Detective" stories, and fewer stories where Batman is on the defensiv, post Infinite Crisis. The character is clearly at his best when he is being as proactive as the Superhero genre allows.

Anonymous said...

I haven't read Infinite Crisis #3 yet. Stupid busyness.

As for your Bat-comments, though:
I read a month ago or so that they had the story line go that it was Dr. Thomkins who let Spoiler die in the War Crimes story, from what I understood, basically to teach Bruce a lesson about getting other people involved in his mask-donning/crime fighting activites.

So yeah, a doctor lets someone die.
To prove a point about her opinions, apparently.
Nicely handled.
... or... y'know... something.

So I was kinda happy I didn't collect that particular Bat-title.

But it does sound like the story quality of the character is in a downward spiral anyway. I agree: he never struck me someone who should be reactive so much as pro-active. Figure out who's behind the goings on using nigh-impossible forensic and detective work and go get them.
Badda-bing.
Guess a paranoid Bat is better than an ass-kicking go-getter to the DC mucky-mucks these days. Don't get it myself, but hey...

Meanwhile, as promised, a rant about how Marvel's handling the Spider-Man The Other series:

***SPOILER WARNING***

Overall? Not impressed.
First they stretch it out over too many issues with too much filler, then they kill Spider-Man without any fanfare (am I the only one who damn near equates Spider-Man's death with Superman's for Marvel? One of the two heavyweight comic lines has arguably its flagship character killed, and there's no advertsing or hoopla about it at all? Are you kidding me? There should've been shockwaves felt throughout Marvel about this - issues should've gone by with him missing completely... a Black Cat tie-in would've been a nice touch, but SO MUCH could've been done with this and it was just completely wasted), and then in this most recent issue, he walks in the door and is just accepted as back from the dead. A scant few panels later, he's home and settled and cuddling with MJ. So that was way the hell too compressed (none of it aided, of course, by the more or less weekly issue releases - Spider-Man gets killed, two weeks later he's alive again... negate potential impact much?). They seem to be punching up the emphasis in all the wrong places, stretching the weak stuff, missing a lot of opportunity to see what would happen with Spider-Man gone from Marvel, and then packing what should've been an awe-inspiring, emotional return into a couple of pages in one issue.

And speaking of one issue, could this most recent one have possibly had more exposition in it? Having one character show up and explain everything is way too a) convenient and b) dull. One rule of film, often borrowed by comics: show it, don't say it. Having this evil spider dude rambling on forever to explain the whole deal to Peter got dull pretty fast.

So now I'm torn: I want to find out where Spider-Man's going from this point (more spidery and with a new suit, from the sound of it), but the story's been so badly handled, it's also tempting to just skip it all; throw in the towel and give up trying to fight it.

***END OF SPOILER***

Anyway... enough for now.
Still have to get to those Birds of Prey back issues to get a feel for it before I dive into the upcoming issue. Looking forward to it.

Later, m'man.