Well, well, well. USA Today interviews Grant Morrison about the RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE in April 2010. Read all about it here:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2009-12-09-morrison-bruce-wayne-st_N.htm
See, I told EVERYONE Bruce wasn't dead! Ha, I was so totally right!!! (Mike says I'm still wrong, but read the interview yourself, I was right!) So the basic gist is that Bruce has been tripping through time, making his way to the present. In this aptly titled "Return of Bruce Wayne" storyline we will thrill to the exploits of Pilgrim/Puritan Batman, Pirate Batman, Pulp/Noir Batman and more. Thanks Grant, for bringing Elseworlds back to the DCU, and making it part of continuity no less. 2010 is shaping up to the year of the Bat, (oh and the year of the Man of Steel if Robinson has anything to say about it, and hopefully it will be the year of Girl Power. Important things are in the works for my gal in 2010, I can feel it, after reading Blackest Night: Wonder Woman.)
See, I told EVERYONE Bruce wasn't dead! Ha, I was so totally right!!! (Mike says I'm still wrong, but read the interview yourself, I was right!) So the basic gist is that Bruce has been tripping through time, making his way to the present. In this aptly titled "Return of Bruce Wayne" storyline we will thrill to the exploits of Pilgrim/Puritan Batman, Pirate Batman, Pulp/Noir Batman and more. Thanks Grant, for bringing Elseworlds back to the DCU, and making it part of continuity no less. 2010 is shaping up to the year of the Bat, (oh and the year of the Man of Steel if Robinson has anything to say about it, and hopefully it will be the year of Girl Power. Important things are in the works for my gal in 2010, I can feel it, after reading Blackest Night: Wonder Woman.)
If a person has been reading superhero comics for more than three months of their life, they should know better than to think that Bruce Wayne was ever dead and gone.
ReplyDeleteDC brought back Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, two characters that I was convinced were never coming back.
Barry Allen because Wally West adapted to the role very well and is a far more interesting character than Barry could ever hope to be. DC seemed to really get behind Wally as the Flash, and the best Flash stories, hands down, are Wally's, in my opinion. Mark Waid's Flash defined the character forever in my eyes.
Hal Jordan because the way they turned him into Parralax was so embarrassing and poorly written that just hearing his name as it relates to current DCU continuity makes me cringe at remembering how shitty it all was and I was convinced DC would just bury it all and acknowledge it as little as possible. But at least Geoff Johns did a good job unfucking all of those crappy comics from back in the day.
/geek rant on
Although it needs to be said there is no way in the world Hal Jordan ever lands a non superpowered punch on Batman.
Ever.
I would have a better chance punching Geoff Johns at a comic convention than Hal would have catching Bats offguard with a 'simmer down' backhand spinning knuckle. That is some bullshit, Johns. I know you are totally on GL's jock, but accept it: in a fist fight, unassisted by super powers, Bats would wipe the floor with Hal, Guy Gardner AND John Stewart all at the same time. Maybe even Kilowog, too.
No, I don't care that Batman was 'infected' with a sliver of the Parralax force when it happened. It's bullshit of the highest order.
I don't care what rationale people want to bring into it. I don't care how many decades of continuity people want to drub up. I don't care what DC Universe minutiae people want to fall back on. And I don't care if it makes the story more interesting or empowers Hal for the GL fans in doing that. It's irresponsible writing. What's next, Red Green Lantern?
Wait, they're already doing that and they're all eating each other's flesh or something.
/geek rant off
Regarding Bruce Wayne's return, we knew it was going to happen and anybody who thought otherwise was fooling themself. I think it's too soon, but if it makes for some good, intelligently written stories I'm game. I've enjoyed the Batman family since the Reborn story arc started. As long as it stays good, I'll stay a reader.
Odd how the two bestest characters in the Marvel and DC universes (Cap and Bats) have to time trip to get back home. A miniseries crossover with these two fighting bad guys side by side and overcoming obstacles together to get back to their respective worlds would have been sweet. Seems like a no brainer, really.
There aren't enough Cap/Bats crossovers in comics for my liking. Needs to be more.
Tom, I think it is too soon too. But then, I thought Steve Rogers coming back was too soon and he's been gone much longer than Bruce Wayne, so what do I know. At least with Bruce, they are going to have him bum around through time for a while, which means he won't be part of the main storylines. This could potentially be a good compromise, as we get more of the "new" Batman and Robin along with the "return" of Bruce Wayne. And if anyone can make something like "Pirate Batman" good, its Grant Morrison.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with you. It probably IS too soon for Bruce to come back.
ReplyDeleteBut we know he's coming back so at this point all we can do is hope it's a good return.
As for Steve, I never agreed with offing the original Cap so it's not too soon for me, even though I really respect Brubaker as a writer and I know he'd planned this arc with or without Civil War. Civil War was just padding to give the event extra meaning in the MU. But Brubaker totally cops to the fact that he'd always intended to bring Steve back anyway.
Another interesting parallel (to me) between the characters of Cap and Bats is in their heirs apparent:
Dick seems ready to actually BECOME Batman now. If he stayed Batman forever, with this recent transition and the Reborn story arc, I would have no complaints whatsoever. I think they can get away with this in the DCU because they've pulled it off successfully with other characters.
But Bucky is NOT Cap. Never was, never could be, never will be. He is a GREAT character under Brubaker, no question. I really like him. But not as Cap. He didn't grow up beside Cap, he didn't have adventures after WW II with Cap, he hasn't always lived in Cap's shadow and had to live up to anything or butt heads with him on anything during his youth the same way Dick did with Bruce. There is just that brief period in WW II, a very short span of time in Cap's life, canonically. For this reason, I don't beleive the promise of Bucky as Cap was prevalent, and the realization of this means nothing to me as a long time Cap fan the same way that Dick actually ACCEPTING the cowl resonates in my heart as a fan.
Bucky is great and Brubaker did the impossible in resurrecting a character that should have stayed dead and making him a viable player in the MU, but get him out of the Cap outfit already. He doesn't belong in it. It's Steve and it always will be. Period.
If they want to keep nim in a 'Cap-ish' uniform, give the outfit a makeover and give him a different shield. But there is only one Cap, and that's Steve Rogers.
On a marketing level, having all these 'flashback' Captain America stories running during his death probably hurt the impact of the return. It might have been better to just tell as few Steve Rogers Cap stories as possible during this time period. But what's done is done. I'm enjoying Reborn quite a bit and am looking forward to reading the climactic chapter this week.
Again, at this point we know these characters don't stay dead. Better not to kill them at all.