Bat-Thread: Bruce Wayne, International Hairy Chested Love God of Mystery

Robos A Go Go

Yeah, it's weird that Snyder would have someone else introduce a key plot point just so that he could pick it up in his own book much later.

When Joker lost his face in Daniels' book, it just seemed like a cheap way to make a new villain seem threatening at the expense of another character.

But I dunno, Snyder's pretty good in general so maybe it'll turn out alright.

UltimateInferno

It will be nice to have the Joker be a "main" villain finally again, I mean he was used fantastically in Morrison's Batman and Batman and Robin runs, but was just a side character.
I'm guessing the face cutting off has to do with when Dick found him in Detective Comics going off about rebirthing for Bruce's return.

Linespider5

I think it's kind of weird how all these disfigurations have been heaped on the Joker in recent memory.

Morrison started his run by shooting the Joker in the head. He later did something fucked up to his jaws. Then he had the Joker cut his own tongue in half length-wise.

He did come back from all that pretty normally, admittedly after a very long time of wearing a black hood and pretending to not be the Joker.

I can't say I really gave a toss about the Joker's face being found and weirdos worshipping it or whatever that whole thing was before the relaunch. Now that whole damn face reuniting with the Joker...?

What's next? He just uses really, really thick makeup, and during fights it smears off to show the facial muscles underneath?

They're pushing him too far in a direction he can't really come back from.

I like the weirdness. I like all the chaos-art infusions and the Joker's bi-lateral prescience coupling his 'very, very hard to kill' reputation.

But, sometimes, I just want him in a smartly-dressed suit, with a single Beretta in his vest, stepping out of a car and out-Caponing every two-bit thug who thought he could just set up a little territory and use a restaurant as a front for his operations.

We need the Joker back in the street, scaring the shit out of the other criminals.

ryven

Linespider5 wrote: »

I think it's kind of weird how all these disfigurations have been heaped on the Joker in recent memory.

Morrison started his run by shooting the Joker in the head. He later did something fucked up to his jaws. Then he had the Joker cut his own tongue in half length-wise.

He did come back from all that pretty normally, admittedly after a very long time of wearing a black hood and pretending to not be the Joker.

I can't say I really gave a toss about the Joker's face being found and weirdos worshipping it or whatever that whole thing was before the relaunch. Now that whole damn face reuniting with the Joker...?

What's next? He just uses really, really thick makeup, and during fights it smears off to show the facial muscles underneath?

They're pushing him too far in a direction he can't really come back from.

I like the weirdness. I like all the chaos-art infusions and the Joker's bi-lateral prescience coupling his 'very, very hard to kill' reputation.

But, sometimes, I just want him in a smartly-dressed suit, with a single Beretta in his vest, stepping out of a car and out-Caponing every two-bit thug who thought he could just set up a little territory and use a restaurant as a front for his operations.

We need the Joker back in the street, scaring the shit out of the other criminals.

i agree with everything you say here especially the last part about him scaring the other baddies

Robos A Go Go

I like that version of the Joker too, but I don't want to see him return if the best writers of the moment aren't interested in writing him or don't have any stories to tell about him.

Dude was around for a while and beaten into the ground, so it's understandable that people might be wary of returning to that well.

Bob_Loblaw

John Layman is taking over Detective Comics after Daniels leaves. Awesome.

UltimateInferno

whoa

DouglasDanger

Bob_Loblaw wrote: »

John Layman is taking over Detective Comics after Daniels leaves. Awesome.

holy shit
go layman!

Maybe Layman will be the guy to embrace the absurdity of the DC universe while still telling a well-crafted, mature story. I have only read the first hardcover of Chew, but it has a perfect balance of grim and goofy. Batman and his Rogues are both grim and goofy, fun and frightening, The Brave and the Bold got that some times and nothing else really has before or since

Centipede Damascus

I have to say, I really hope that the Catwoman #0 thing completely does away with the old Frank Miller prostitute origin for Selena.

Munch

Bob_Loblaw wrote: »

John Layman is taking over Detective Comics after Daniels leaves. Awesome.

I'm really excited to see what Layman does with the title, even if I dislike Jay Fabok's art. Approaching the series like Chew, where each issue is self-contained, but ties into a larger arc, could be really great.

AaronKI

I hate to add a second $4 comic to my pull list, but this has me really excited. With the approach he's taking, hopefully the extra pages are dedicated to more story content instead of a backup.

KingofMadCows

Is it me does the new Mr. Freeze origin make no sense in addition to being terrible?

Spoiler:

In the TAS Mr. Freeze origin, Victor Fries froze Nora because she had an incurable disease and he wanted to keep her frozen until a cure is found for that disease. Ferris Boyle wanted to shut down the project because it was unauthorized and costing him a ton of money. Fries tried to stop Boyle since taking Nora out of stasis would kill her, and that led to the accident that turned him into Mr. Freeze.

But in this new origin, Nora was frozen 50 years ago because she had a condition that was incurable at the time. But now there is a cure for her condition and Victor Fries wants to thaw her out so she can be cured. So why was Bruce against finding a way to thaw out people who were put in cryostasis? The whole reason why those people were frozen is because they were sick and wanted to be thawed out again when cures were found. Now that there are cures for their diseases, why is Bruce is against researching what is essentially the final part of the project?

And why is Fries so damned impatient? Nora is perfectly safe as long as she's in stasis. She won't age, she won't get sick, she's basically immortal as long as she's frozen. Why not do some more tests on the thawing procedure before using it on her? Fries is putting Nora in unnecessary danger by trying to thaw her out with a brand new experimental procedure that he developed without testing or approval. Fries studied Nora for years, where did this sudden sense of urgency come from?

And what's the deal with Bruce saying that Nora can't consent to being unfrozen? Wouldn't the patient leave behind instructions on when to be thawed out, presumably when there's a cure for their disease and when they can be safely thawed out? That just makes the false sense of urgency even dumber since all Fries had to do is fulfilled the instructions Nora left behind to legally thaw her.

Zyrxil

Not even that, but it makes him non-sympathetic. There aren't enough even slightly sympathetic villains in DC, so I don't understand why they would remove one.

Robos A Go Go

Interview with Snyder about Joker's return.

He's playing things close to his chest, so all you really get out of it is that this is going to be another huge crossover with Joker individually attacking every member of the Bat-Family.

Also, apparently the higher-ups are refusing to let anyone use Cass Cain or Steph. You could've inferred that from their absence since the reboot, except for that one issue of Batman Inc., but it's weird to have a creator explicitly state that.

CorporateLogo

They died on the way back to their home planet

Antimatter

If you liked the face coming off, you should thank Tony. There are a couple of things I said would have worked, and he went with the one he liked the best.

ughhh

and re: cass and steph, i'm of the mind it's not a great loss but i'm sorry for people who miss them

TexiKen

Another thing the interview mentions is that Snyder says he gets no demands from DC entertainment about stuff. Now I don't know if he's playing nice for PR reasons, or if he (and Geoff Johns) are allowed to do what they want, while others have to adhere to what George Perez described, how they just need a copy writer.

Centipede Damascus

Antimatter wrote: »

If you liked the face coming off, you should thank Tony. There are a couple of things I said would have worked, and he went with the one he liked the best.

ughhh

of course, the subtle implication there is that if you didn't like it, it wasn't his fault

Robos A Go Go

Centipede Damascus wrote: »

Antimatter wrote: »

If you liked the face coming off, you should thank Tony. There are a couple of things I said would have worked, and he went with the one he liked the best.

ughhh

of course, the subtle implication there is that if you didn't like it, it wasn't his fault

You think Snyder was afraid of losing face?

KingofMadCows

Zyrxil wrote: »

Not even that, but it makes him non-sympathetic. There aren't enough even slightly sympathetic villains in DC, so I don't understand why they would remove one.

Well, that is obvious but I'm pointing out how the new origin made no sense in addition to ruining a great character.

Here's two other problems I noticed:

Spoiler:

What exactly was Fries planning to do after he thawed out Nora? She still needed heart surgery. Was Fries going to perform the surgery himself? Is he a heart surgeon too now? It didn't look like he had any equipment prepared. Was he going to take Nora out of the Wayne building and drive her to a hospital? Transporting a terminally ill person who had just been unfrozen doesn't seem like a good idea. Again, it would have made so much more sense for Fries to do this legally since Nora could have been moved to a hospital and with a team of surgeons ready to operate on her as soon as she was thawed out.

And why did Bruce confront Fries in the lab? Why not just lock Fries out of the lab or arrest him when he's just coming into work? Why confront a mentally unstable man in a room full of dangerous chemicals and highly sensitive equipment? Again, they're just creating a false sense of urgency to create drama where none exists.

nightmarenny

Spoiler:

People who are frozen arn't generally frozen right before they die. I doubt unfreezing her would end "I'm awake! Ack my heart!"

KingofMadCows

nightmarenny wrote: »

Spoiler:

People who are frozen arn't generally frozen right before they die. I doubt unfreezing her would end "I'm awake! Ack my heart!"

Spoiler:

But it's not just her disease/condition, there's also the stress of being thawed out. Not to mention the shock of waking up 50 years in the future where most people she knew are probably dead. Even a healthy person could suffer pretty severe physical symptoms from that kind of emotional trauma. It's certainly possible that she can survive the trip to the hospital and it won't do any long term damage but it's still a pretty big risk. Fries may be obsessed but this just makes him seem shortsighted and not very smart.

Crimson King

Robos A Go Go wrote: »

Centipede Damascus wrote: »

Antimatter wrote: »

If you liked the face coming off, you should thank Tony. There are a couple of things I said would have worked, and he went with the one he liked the best.

ughhh

of course, the subtle implication there is that if you didn't like it, it wasn't his fault

You think Snyder was afraid of losing face?

this is incredible

anyway i'm kind of curious about snyder's joker

i haven't given a shit about his batman so far but it's entirely possible he'll write the joker in an interesting way and that's all i really want

Crimson King

wait hang on, are they doing a massive owlfight style joker crossover

that sounds awful

Tairu

Eh, i'll still pick up Batman. The rest of the crossover issues not so much.

Agnogenic

I have a question that maybe one of you could answer. I'm caught up with Snyder's Batman, but I only have the first two issues of the new Detective Comics. I've heard that most of Daniel's work is pretty terrible, and I was wondering if I should just skip ahead when Layman starts writing or should I just power through the previous issues?

UltimateInferno

skip till layman

Maximum

UltimateInferno wrote: »

skip till layman

seconded

I actually stuck with it up until # 4.

I feel dirty for lasting that long.

TexiKen

Batman #11 is a little too cute with wrapping up the Owls stuff in the kind of "wait, what?" manner. It's still a very dense issue, and there's some nice dialogue but:

Spoiler:

Snyder does his best to make it all easy to be retconned away that Thomas Jr. might just be a crazy brainwashed baby the Owls made to believe he's Bruce's brother.

And there's this scene where Bruce is literally fighting against being sucked in to a jet turbine (no cape to worry about ala Incredibles), but somehow escapes the turbine and gets on the wing of a plane and plummets back down to earth and the new Wayne Tower collapses from explosions but no one died, despite being pretty well completed and usually construction is around the clock. Buildings collapsing like the way it was drawn makes me uncomfortable and I think would be done these days to carry more emotional weight because they know what it represents, but here it's almost like "a skyscraper collapsed, but no one died, no big deal." It just didn't jive with the comic, especially against the backdrop of Gotham being a place where the undead just went on a killing spree hours earlier.

The backup story also didn't need to exist, because it's basically all explained in three panels this issue in a rather good exposition by March.

There have been a lot worse endings out there, but compared to say, B&R #8 where it had a real emotional connection between Bruce and Damian, here it just felt a bit too cartoony, in that nothing really gets resolved and everyone goes back to their respective corners to do a clean slate for the next story that's supposed to turn Batman upside down.


edit: B&R #11 is really good, and an interesting way to make Gotham fear Batman. It also has a lovely splash page that very clearly is meant to sync up with the Dark Knight Rises movie, it can't be unseen. And Damian gets one of his trophies like he promised last issue, he's a real go-geter

Armoroc

is batman earth one going to come out digitally? gonna have to order the physical copy if not

Robos A Go Go

Batman #11 was almost entirely expository dialogue and Snyder beating us over the head with his themes. Not a good ending by any means.

Centipede Damascus

From the SDCC Batman panel:


http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/07/12/batman-panel-comic-con-2012-scott-snyder-owls-ed-benes-john-layman/

On Snyder's main Batman title, the #0 issue in September will be delving into Batman's early years (an area Snyder was initially wary to address). Afterwards, the "Death of the Family" arc will kick off and explore the idea of the Joker as Batman's Court Jester. Since the court jester's role in a king's court was to deliver the worst news to make the king stronger, this is how Joker sees himself, and feels that Batman's forgotten the Joker's necessity and wants to "punish" him for it. He will "rape, and kill, and mutilate" to bring terror to the doors of Batman's friends. Snyder pointed out that Joker's only ever attacked Barbara Gordon to hurt James Gordon, and only ever attacked Jason Todd to hurt Batman, but in this story he'll aim directly for Batman's allies personally. Additionally, he will have a "secret" that will be a major revelation, and Snyder stated that the Joker is his favorite villain in the entirety of fiction.

Let me be on record as saying that if the Joker rapes anybody I will burn every copy of that book I can find.

Robos A Go Go

I do like the idea of the Joker as a kind of court jester, the only figure who has the liberty of illuminating the flaws and misconceptions of the king.

But I'd be much more interested in seeing him play that part than seeing him go on a bloody revenge spree because Batman's "forgotten the Joker's necessity" as his jester. Revenge isn't a bold new take on the character but rather something we've already seen several times before.

And really, the way Snyder's hyping this story makes it sound like The Killing Joke BUT BIGGER.

nightmarenny

The court jester idea gives me hope.

And I'd like to point out that comics can address Rape well.

Its just very very very rare.

TexiKen

It was mentioned at one of the panels that Snyder didn't have an idea for the Talon series until Tynion suggested something, which makes me think Snyder's name will be on the book in name only, like Bendis was on Secret Warriors in the beginning. But the other stuff Tynion has been a part of so far hasn't been the best (the Batman backup really didn't go anywhere the main story didn't address at the end).

And when they mention that the Talon they're using was an escape artist in his former life, it makes me think some kind of backdoor way to introduce Mister Miracle for the DCnU.

UltimateInferno

haha at the Batman panel everyone was given a Court of Owls Mask

DeMoN

I am so jealous.

Zyrxil

Those look less like sinister owls and more like toilet seat covers with holes punched in them.

Bullio

"Don't you get it? We are the walking dead!"

er, wait...

Robos A Go Go

DeMoN wrote: »

I am so jealous.

Almost want to try and find one on eBay, but it'd probably just languish in storage since I'm not much of a collector.