Fifthfiend
08-30-2006, 11:36 PM
Dini's doing Detective Comics, Morrison's writing Batman. In both cases, it certainly sounds promising.
Morrison did an interview just recently (http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/Batman/Morrison/Morrison_Batman.html), in which he says an awful lot of things about Batman, which I would like to see said by somebody writing Batman.
He also talks a lot of shit about Frank Miller, and I have to support that.
Personally, I wanted to see a psychologically 'healthier' Batman - the last couple of decades have seen the character in the comics deconstructed almost to the point of no return and the Bat-books were heavily-laden with an extended family of characters, many of whom existed only to stand in for some part of Batman's personality that had been lost or suppressed over the last twenty years. It seemed like the right moment to step in and start gluing him back together again.
the idea here is not to soften or emotionally reset Batman as an exercise in nostalgia but to make him more real and relatable, while at the same time offering some rationale for his complex multi-faceted personality I want to see a Batman that combines the cynic, the scholar, the daredevil, the businessman, the superhero, the wit, the lateral thinker , the aristocrat. He terrifies the guilty but he has great compassion for the weak and the downtrodden and will lay his life on the line for anybody who's in trouble. He's a master of yoga and meditation who has as much control over his body and his feelings as any human. He has a wider range of experiences than most people will dream of in ten lifetimes. This is not a one-note character! So, while I won't pretend we all live on Sunnybrook Farm, I don't think its appropriate - particularly in trying times - to present our fictional heroes as unsmiling vengeance machines. I'd rather Batman embodied the best that secular humanism has to offer - a sour-faced, sexually-repressed, humorless, uptight, angry, and all-round grim 'n' gritty Batman would be more likely to join the Taliban surely?
GM: Well, I still intend to do 'Miller'-style first person narrative captions which give some insight into Batman's thought processes but it seems more 'realistic' to imagine Batman as a hardcore fightin' man who wouldn't even notice his injuries until long after the fight was over, so no more of that 'MY BACK SPLINTERS INTO A THOUSAND SHARDS OF AGONIZED BONE. HE'S GOOD. HE'S YOUNG. HE'S TOUGHER AND YOUNGER THAN ME. AND TOUGHER. DID I MENTION TOUGHER ? MUSN'T BLACK OUT...' In Batman #657 we see some of the pulp noir narration and non sequitur imagery that goes through Batman's mind during a fight and keeps him from being distracted by his aches and pains.
Read his first issue and it's a bit rocky, but still a promising start, and if he's going to back up half of what he's saying - which is always a maybe, with anything Morrison decides to say about any comic book he's going to write - it should be pretty good all 'round.
If anything I'm a little iffier about Dini, for all that I loved Batman:TAS, he does have a bit of a tendency to write Batman - Total Asshole which I've never enjoyed seeing. His first ish of Detective is aces, though!
Morrison did an interview just recently (http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/Batman/Morrison/Morrison_Batman.html), in which he says an awful lot of things about Batman, which I would like to see said by somebody writing Batman.
He also talks a lot of shit about Frank Miller, and I have to support that.
Personally, I wanted to see a psychologically 'healthier' Batman - the last couple of decades have seen the character in the comics deconstructed almost to the point of no return and the Bat-books were heavily-laden with an extended family of characters, many of whom existed only to stand in for some part of Batman's personality that had been lost or suppressed over the last twenty years. It seemed like the right moment to step in and start gluing him back together again.
the idea here is not to soften or emotionally reset Batman as an exercise in nostalgia but to make him more real and relatable, while at the same time offering some rationale for his complex multi-faceted personality I want to see a Batman that combines the cynic, the scholar, the daredevil, the businessman, the superhero, the wit, the lateral thinker , the aristocrat. He terrifies the guilty but he has great compassion for the weak and the downtrodden and will lay his life on the line for anybody who's in trouble. He's a master of yoga and meditation who has as much control over his body and his feelings as any human. He has a wider range of experiences than most people will dream of in ten lifetimes. This is not a one-note character! So, while I won't pretend we all live on Sunnybrook Farm, I don't think its appropriate - particularly in trying times - to present our fictional heroes as unsmiling vengeance machines. I'd rather Batman embodied the best that secular humanism has to offer - a sour-faced, sexually-repressed, humorless, uptight, angry, and all-round grim 'n' gritty Batman would be more likely to join the Taliban surely?
GM: Well, I still intend to do 'Miller'-style first person narrative captions which give some insight into Batman's thought processes but it seems more 'realistic' to imagine Batman as a hardcore fightin' man who wouldn't even notice his injuries until long after the fight was over, so no more of that 'MY BACK SPLINTERS INTO A THOUSAND SHARDS OF AGONIZED BONE. HE'S GOOD. HE'S YOUNG. HE'S TOUGHER AND YOUNGER THAN ME. AND TOUGHER. DID I MENTION TOUGHER ? MUSN'T BLACK OUT...' In Batman #657 we see some of the pulp noir narration and non sequitur imagery that goes through Batman's mind during a fight and keeps him from being distracted by his aches and pains.
Read his first issue and it's a bit rocky, but still a promising start, and if he's going to back up half of what he's saying - which is always a maybe, with anything Morrison decides to say about any comic book he's going to write - it should be pretty good all 'round.
If anything I'm a little iffier about Dini, for all that I loved Batman:TAS, he does have a bit of a tendency to write Batman - Total Asshole which I've never enjoyed seeing. His first ish of Detective is aces, though!