Silent Lucidity: Batman & Robin #18 Review

When DC leaked the news last month that Grant Morrison would be killing Damian Wayne in Batman Incorporated #8, the company claimed that the character’s death would resonate across the main Batman Family titles, despite Batman Incorporated existing, since the New 52 reboot, in some strange continuity bubble that seems to lie outside of the New 52, and based on some weird editorial philosophy where all major decisions are tagged with the phrase, “…but keep Grant Morrison happy.” In that spirit, one would think that, compared to the maintenance of continuity spreadsheets, last-minute story changes and line editorial late nights and headaches, it would be cheaper and simpler to just dump a truckload of peyote on Morrison’s driveway, but whatever.

My big question at the time of the reveal was: how exactly were the other Batman Family creators going to handle this event? After all, Batman and Robin’s battle against Leviathan from Batman Incorporated wasn’t exactly something that had been addressed in the other books, and it seemed like those other writers already had plans for upcoming story lines. Hell, before Robin’s death, Scott Snyder had announced he was embarking on a Riddler story in Batman before more recently announcing that instead he was gonna do a long-form Batman: Zero Year story focusing on Batman’s early years, and while Riddler might be a part of it, it at least seems like a change of plans.

But my biggest question, that I couldn’t address at the time without riddling the story with spoilers, was how this would affect Peter Tomasi’s Batman & Robin, what with the tiny detail that Robin’s name appears in the fucking title. And while other Batman Family titles have clearly just shoehorned Robin’s death into previously-planned storylines as an afterthought (last week’s Detective Comics simply mentioned it in a panel or two while Batman then went on his merry way attacking Penguin and Emperor Penguin as previously planned, and in this week’s Batgirl the death gets a page and a half before going back to Barbara’s fight with James Gordon, Jr), it’s gotta be hard to move forward with any previously-existing plans when one of the title characters is taking a dirtnap. You know, until someone kicks his carcass into a Lazarus Pit (and you know this will happen).

So given the early efforts of the Batman Family titles to apparently simply slot the fact that Robin is dead into existing story plans (Please note that I don’t know that this is the case. For all I know, Grant Morrison called a staff meeting with the Batman editors and creators a year ago and announced his plans over absinthe and some form of ritually sacrificed beast of burden, and it’s just the half-assed executions that make it look shoehorned in), I was half-expecting for Batman & Robin #18 to be a standard Batman story with maybe some weird-looking camouflage art to cover where Robin was supposed to be, and a headset quickly pencilled onto Batman’s head so it wouldn’t look like he was talking to himself like an insane person.

I was wrong about that. Instead, Batman & Robin #18 takes Damian’s death head-on, with the focus solely on Batman and how he is handling the event (short answer: badly), and makes use of a bold storytelling choice to make the reader empathize with Batman by almost forcing us to try to think about what we’re seeing in his reactions. Suffice it to say that, if Robin’s death in Morrison’s playground was a forced afterthought in some of Batman’s titles, it most definitely was not here.

Robinus Resurrexit!

So as of yesterday, Tuesday, March 12th, in this year of our Argentinian Pope who is old enough to have met (if not harbored) escaped Nazis after World War II, there were two widely-known facts that were the uncontested word of God when it comes to comics:

• Damian Wayne – Robin – has been dead for two weeks, and:
• Wolverine is the above-the-fold star of at least two different monthly comic books, which is one more than almost any character who isn’t The Punisher in 1987 could support (and given that The Punisher spent one of those books horking a jet ski, turns out he couldn’t support them either).

These facts would normally mean that these two characters shouldn’t appear in any more comic books than they already have. But it is a special day; the Vatican displayed an eruption of smoke from the Sistine Chapel, meaning that they either selected a new Pope or hotboxed the place, so miracles are abound! Miracles such as Robin being referenced on the covers of three different comic books despite the mild adversity of being deader than shit, and Wolverine having two new books to headline!

Truly, it is an age of infallibility! Or perhaps incontinence; one can never tell when the elderly blaze dirtweed under the auspices of diplomatic immunity. But either way, it means that this…

…means the end of out broadcast day.

But despite the weird incongruity of seeing people in books that sanity indicates maybe should not be so, there’s some good stuff in the till this week. We’ve got a new issue of The Walking Dead (where we meet Ezekiel, another elected spiritual leader overseeing a flock thanks to his quiet dignity of office. And a tiger.), the second issue of Marvel’s Age of Ultron event, the third issue of Brian Wood’s Star Wars, a Christopher Yost Avenging Spider-Man, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But you know the drill: before we can review them, we need time to read them. Well, we also need time to try and resist to make filthy genital jokes about “worshipping the Holy See,” but mostly to read them. So while that happens…

See you tomorrow, suckers!

…Isn’t Even Past: All-New X-Men #8 Review

I have a recurring dream where I wander into a keg party at my college in 1991, grab a Natural Light, and wander around until I find myself, at 20 years old, in a corner somewhere. And I say, “Rob: for the love of God, don’t stick your dick in Lynn Mansfield. She will make you into a whinier, more irritating moron than usual for at least a couple of years. Now for Christ’s sake, give me a fucking cigarette. You don’t smoke yet? Well c’mon, let’s get you a pack. You like Marlboros… no, trust me: you like Marlboros.”

Because that’s the fantasy, isn’t it? If we could just go back in time and spend a few minutes with out younger selves, we could impart the wisdom that we wish we had when we were younger, and maybe avoid pain, heartache and perhaps an embarrassing social disease. And in this fantasy, we always assume that we will be grateful for these pronouncements from on high… even though, if you stop and think about it for a second, these pronouncements are largely the same as the ones that came from your father at the time. And not only did you ignore those bits of wisdom at the time, now you look like your father, meaning that the response to your benevolence would likely only be, “Um, when did we decide that lard was part of the food pyramid, fat man? And no, you can’t have any of my cigarettes! They’re, like, a buck-eighty a pack!” And then you will kill your younger self in a fit of rage, and then where will you be? But I digress.

The point is that All New X-Men has, for eight issues now, been an excuse to address that fantastical question: if you could talk to yourself 20 years ago, what would you say? And would it make any difference? Which is not particularly new ground for a science fiction story – hell, Van Damme did it in Timecop, and attempting to follow in the footsteps of Van Damme-age has never been a good long-term plan for anybody. But here, writer Brian Michael Bendis addresses the situation in s slightly different way: what if meeting yourself when you are older corrupts you? What if seeing that things didn’t turn out the way you planned when you were 20, rather than inspiring you to try harder to achieve your plan, instead hardens you, and makes you more cynical and ruthless? Or maybe it just fucking horrifies you, to the point where you’ll do anything to avoid whatever makes you into whatever you become?

It’s an interesting take on your standard Travel-Into-Your-Own-Past (or Future) story… but the question is: with five different original X-Men to follow, along with a bunch of new X-Men, is there enough of a focus to really make any particular point?

No Comics For You: Comixology Suspends Marvel’s Free Download Offer

Wow, remember the good old days when Marvel announced their Marvel #1 initiative? And they they were offering around 700 different first issues as free downloads from their comic store and from Comixology until Tuesday? You know, those good old days that started, oh I don’t know, 30 or so hours ago?

Yeah, like most time periods we call “The Good Old Days,” those days are over, at least for now. It turns out that, once the word about the free downloads got out, Neither Comixology nor Marvel’s own digital comics store was able to handle the load from the demand. Marvel’s comic store is, as of this writing, completely down, and Comixology has announced that they need to suspend their part of the giveaway until they can figure out how to handle the demand.

Oops.

I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This: New Star Trek Into Darkness Trailer Released

A cocky starship captain with a problem with authority yells at his partner to stop complaining about the fact that they’re being chased. Then he pilots a largely saucer-shaped spaceship, again, while being pursued, and escapes by turning the ship on its side and shooting a narrow gap. And then he snarls at his co-pilot to, “punch it!”

Yup, J. J. Abrams sure is the guy to direct Star Wars… unfortunately, these are all elements from the latest trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness.

Which I am okay with – as far as I’m concerned, the Star Wars-style elements in the first Star Trek showed he’d be a good guy to drive Star Wars: Episode VII – but then again, I am not the biggest Star Trek fan in the world. Based on some of the chatter at my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me not to offer to show my dilithium crystals to the paying clientele, there are people out there who own the technical manual for the Enterprise and can use the word “nacelle” in a sentence that isn’t, “What the fuck is a nacelle?”, who are looking at this new trailer and losing their shit.

And you can watch the trailer and lose your shit, right after the jump.

Hipster Outreach: Marvel Announces Free Digital Comics, Music For Comics At SXSW

We are not currently at South By Southwest, partly because we have already pissed our meager convention budget on preparations for San Diego Comic-Con in July, and partially because I learned during a visit in 1998 that Austin’s motto of “Keep Austin Weird” does not constitute a legal defense. Let’s just say that, somewhere in a computer in Austin Police Headquarters, there is an active arrest warrant for “Batroc Z. Leaper” that I wouldn’t want compared to my current driver’s license photo.

However, Marvel Comics is at SXSW, and earlier today that ran a panel that included a few announcements, including whatever the hell they were talking about last week with that whole “#1” teaser poster.Turns out they were talking about some free first issues.

Digitally, anyway.

For a little while.

Robert Kirkman Talks Rejected Walking Dead Merchandise On Conan

You ever finish an episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead and think “I wish I could smell like the zombie apocalypse?” Just me? Well, turns out that was very nearly a possibility. Robert Kirkman discusses The Walking Dead merchandising opportunities he’s passed on, including perfume and energy drinks, in this clip from Conan.

The Walking Dead can be seen Sundays at 9 PM Eastern time on AMC.

Via Bleeding Cool

Occasional Personal Discomfort: Powers: Bureau #2 Review

This is a hell of a thing to say, but Brian Michael Bendis’s creator-owned books remind me of having herpes.

Hear me out.

To get herpes, you have to get laid (or really enjoy the taste of toilet seats, but I’m going to assume that if that’s your thing, this isn’t the Web site you’re likely to be visiting, what with the lack of the words, “girl” or “cup” in the URL). And that’s good. But then after a while, there is an itch. And that itch lasts for a good, long while, and while you’re waiting for it to pass, it is maddening. And then one day the itch is satiated, and that is awesome… until the itch comes back. And the itch stays for an indeterminate period of time, until the next respite. Which is great… but the whole time, you’re hesitant to get laid again, because as weird and satisfying as the agony-and-the-ecstacy cycle might be for you, it would be a hell of a thing to pass it on to someone else.

[ED. – Rob – this is STUPID. Bendis’s books have nothing to do with herpes. You just seem to want to write about herpes. Get to the Goddamned point… unless there’s something you want to tell me… Amanda]

Okay, here’s the point: Powers: Bureau #2 is the middle of a story in a book that is known as much for being delayed as it is for it’s general excellence. And this issue delivers the best of Bendis’s dialogue, with delightfully perverse imagery and some well-executed suspense and action, albeit with some leaps in logic and mildly confusing story points along the way. However, this issue was a week late from its last solicitation in November, and while the next issue is currently set for two weeks from now, I’ll believe it when I see it. So even though it’s a good issue, it’s like walking in mid-boink… and not knowing when the itching is likely to stop.

Nearing The End – Review Of Glory #33

Ed. note – Ahead lies a blood soaked tale, rife with blood, sacrifice, and spoilers. You’ve been warned.

Glory #33 is the penultimate issue in Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell’s sadly abbreviated relaunch. Why only 12 issues? Keatinge had this to say when asked about it by Comics Alliance back in December:

Sometimes, what you start off doing and what you end up doing are two different things. When I first came on, even before I had an artist, I wanted to have a massive story that went on for 70 issues, but the combination of actually working with Ross and, it’s so cliché to say it but it’s so true, the characters kind of take over sometimes. In this situation, it wasn’t really as grandiose a story as I initially thought as much as it was a story about the relationship between these two different people, Riley and Gloriana, and how they each affect these huge and small situations. When we really started re-plotting things out as it went along, after the 12th issue, without saying too much, it would become a totally different book. So maybe we should just leave the party early before our welcome’s worn out and tell this one story that seems to be what it’s about anyway.

Glory was shaping up to be an epic war story with a complex plot line spanning across the reaches of time, gorgeously drawn by Ross Campbell. Having now read issue 33 and seeing where the story is going, I get what he’s saying about the characters taking over. Riley and Glory’s relationship is the thread that ties the tale together, but I do still wonder, perhaps selfishly, if maybe Keatinge and Campbell are leaving the party a little too early.

Call Me Snakeeye: Age of Ultron #1 Review

Look, let’s get the obvious out of the way right out of the gate: Age of Ultron #1 is what happens when you take The Terminator and Escape From New York, throw in a dash of John Carpenter’s The Thing and mix in Alan Moore’s Captain Britain for comics flavor, and chuck in a couple of superheroes.

You have seen flying killer robots ruthlessly enforcing order over the ruins of New York City while the citizens scuttle under cover and sell each other out for the favor of authority. You have seen isolated and paranoid people willing to turn each other out because there is a chance that they have been possessed by an infiltrator wearing their faces. And you have seen superheroes working from the shadows against an incredibly powerful authority figure while the general populace either cowers or appeases the dictatorial force. Frankly, given artist Bryan Hitch’s penchant for photorealism in his faces, I kept expecting to turn the page and see Mel Gibson in the background, telling Hawkeye that he can drive that truck. Or maybe Linda Hamilton, circa 1984, getting soft-focused railed by some filthy animal from the far future. For which I am available for photo-reference, Bryan. But I digress.

The point is, Age of Ultron #1 is not the place to go is you’re looking for ground-breaking, perception-altering science fiction. But it also doesn’t make any bones about that fact; of any book I’ve read in the recent past, this is one that wears its influences on its sleeve. And the good news is, I like The Terminator, Escape From New York and The Thing, so a story that’s obviously influenced by them isn’t gonna be a deal breaker… provided the story is rock-solid and entertaining.

So therein lies the question: is it entertaining?