Just thought I'd start a thread about the new graphic novel that hit shelves this week. There are some big changes to some of the characters, but it still feels very much like Batman. I think that, for some reason, Batman as a character can be very different (Adam West, Bill Finger, Paul Dini, Frank Miller, Dick Sprang, the Brave and the Bold comic and animated versions) and still be, really, Batman. When JMS tried to change up Superman, it felt horribly wrong - both in his Earth One book and the Grounded storyline in the regular Superman comic. Spider-Man kinda has strict perameters, too, to feel like Spider-Man. But Batman can be dead serious (Nolan) or crazy, loopy ("outrageous!") and it weirdly feels OK.
Anyway...here's the thread. Go for it. I'll add more of my thoughts later. BUT, I think the big change to Martha Wayne's family history was kinda awesome.
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At first I was waiting for this one to appear on Instocktrades.com. Then I looked through it, and even though the art is pretty, I just can't bring myself to buy it. I was the same way with the Superman one. Meh. I'm just not interested in it.
Check out the excerpt from The Killing Joke in the middle of this article about Commisioner Gordon.
Here's what it says about Commisioner Gordon's stance at the end of his ordeal in TKJ:
In fact here are his exact words to our friend Batman:
In Batman, Earth One however, Commisioner Gordon can only become a true hero once he breaks the law, tortures information out of a suspect by beating him with a baseball bat, and then incite his colleagues and possibly impressionable officers below him in the chain of command to likewise forsake the law.
Good article on it here.
Depressing to think that Geoff Johns has no clue what Gordon meant by those words in the Killing Joke, nor any clue how hard those principles were to establish, why they were established, or how fundamental they are to a truly civilised society.
Depressing and a little chilling.
Geoff
Johns
must
live
in
a
bubble.
So what's the change to Martha Wayne's family history?
Man, remember when Geoff Johns wrote Stars and STRIPE? Seemed like he was such a bright force in comics writing. I have actually loved large percentages of what he's done in the past. But now it seems he's either over-the-top violent or just a little bit amateurish (as in JLA). Come on back to quality, Johns!
Figserello said:
Figserello said:
Thanks for talking me out of getting this book, Figserello. I don't mind antiheroes -- heck, I've read the adventures of Jonah Hex and John Constantine since Day One -- but I do want the heroes to be heroes.
Figs and CK -- Check out Kristen Page-Kirby's thoughts about Colorado, "The Dark Knight Rises" and Jim Gordon (especially the last paragraph) here. I thought of your exchange above when I read this over lunch.
Don't anyone show her Batman: Earth One!
Love that. I love her economy of words, too. Well put, and never once are you tempted to skim. It's all good.
Doctor Hmmm? said:
A while back, Wizard magazine did a feature ranking the top 50 heroes in comics. No. 1 on the list was Jim Gordon. That's right -- a man with no powers, no gizmos or gimmicks beyond standard police gear, no super strength. What he does have is integrity.
Remember "No Man's Land"? Jim Gordon could have bugged out from Gotham like anyone else, but instead took his charge as an officer of the law so seriously that he stayed to protect those left behind who still needed protecting, leading a band of like-minded souls through sheer force of will. And his reward was to have The Joker murder his wife minutes before order was restored and he was reinstated.* You know he wanted to kill The Joker good and dead, to personally throttle him -- but after living through a nightmare, at great personal hardship, to establish order and prove, in word and in deed, that the system is valuable and necessary, he didn't do it. He didn't give in to the passions of the moment. Well, he did a little, in that he shot The Joker in the kneecaps, but I can't blame him for that.*
That's the Jim Gordon I want to read about, not this chump in "Batman: Earth One."
*I've said it before: On Earth-ClarkKent_DC, the way that story ended, after Gordon kneecapped The Joker, Harvey Bullock took the pistol and shot him full of holes.
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