Batman R.I.P. - Page 2

Yeah, Batman does not die in the events of BATMAN RIP, which was a really anti-climactic, instead he dies in FINAL CRISIS, which was a comic series that I did not enjoy either.

Paul, those last two issues tacked on to the end of the graphic novel are supposed to tie in with FINAL CRISIS. Even then they are not very good and quite confusing, so I'm sure without any knowledge of the situation I'd feel the same way you do.

I feel sorry for any kids trying to read this. I got my copy from a library. Imagine some kid going in there, seeing a Batman comic on the shelf, getting all excited, and then having all the life and joy sucked out of them.

I'd love to go through this, page-by-page, and getting clarification on what the hell was going on, but there's just too much.

I'll just start by bitching about the first scene. It says "6 months earlier", then shows a hunchback riding a horsedrawn carriage to a 16th-century castle. Is "6 months earlier" some sort of horrific typo?

Although I admit RIP was a bit of a mess, I really enjoyed the two volumes that preceeded it, Batman & Son and The Black Glove.

The problem with RIP is not needing knowledge of obscure 1950s Batman comics, but needing knowledge of all of Morrison's previous work. RIP and Final Crisis build on stuff that originates in Morrison's JLA run and Seven Soldiers pretty heavilly.

While I completely understand the complaint about having to read Final Crisis in addition to Batman to understand what Morrison is doing, I'm sorry, nobody really needs to read those Silver Age stories to understand what Morrison is doing. Creating a crazy Batman backup personality in case of psychological attack, has nothing to do with "Batman - The Superman of Planet X" other than being a cute reference. Bat-Mite being a spirit guide/pscyhological construct is quite clear and you don't need to read anything more to understand that. You don't have to read "The First Batman" to understand the costume that Dr. Hurt wears was once worn by Thomas Wayne. There's not a single plot point, other than what Darkseid does to Batman and perhaps his relationship with Talia, that relies on knowledge not contained in Morrison's books themselves.

Those are references on top of pretty straightforward plot points. And people looking for hidden meanings are missing the forest for the trees. Batman fighting ninja Man-Bats in a pop art museum, contains a 60s reference, but works just fine if you don't know the reference. The Island of Mr. Mayhew doesn't rely on actually having read those 50s comics. There's perhaps an added pleasure if you know the references, but trivial easter eggs aren't plot points. And Morrison doesn't treat them as plot points. The plot of Batman and Son, is Batman discovering he has a crazy, son via Talia and having to stop Talia's next plot. The plot of The Island of Mr. Mayhew is someone is bumping off a meeting of costumed heroes on an island. The plot of R.I.P. is Batman being broken down pscyhologically by Dr. Hurt and rallying back with a deeper buried Batman personality. Nothing particularly hinges on reading Robin Dies at Dawn, which is recapped in Morrison's run anyway, except knowing that Batman once took part in a psychological experiment.

Morrison's allusions aren't plot points.

And, symbolically, he's been using Batman's history to show the many faces of Batman. We've had Man-Bats, the son of Batman, the three ghosts of Batman, international Bat-men, crazy Batman, the villain wearing a modified Batman costume, Dick Grayson as Batman, Caveman Batman, Puritan Batman, etc. And plenty of father-son relationship stuff as well. Morrison is trying to show the various guises of Batman throughout history and then bring Batman back in his current form.

This is pretty straightforward stuff when looked at as a whole.

See, your post makes about as much sense as Morrison's comics. Your post is OK, because it's just a short blurb on the internet trying to elucidate and clarify some weird shit in a comic. In the actual comic, in what's supposed to be a NARRATIVE, just mentioning things and jumping from reference to reference, point to point, is unforgivable.

Wouldn't it be much more satisfying to see Batman go through a "story" of some kind? Instead, this is just a bunch of (bad) drawings of Batman doing wildly different, even unrelated, things on every page.

Is there a sense of accomplishment when it's all over? That Batman fought against the odds and won? No, because we never saw him fight, we aren't sure what or who he was fighting against, and we're not even sure if he won or not.

Oh, please, there's a very straightforward story in R.I.P. Batman's attacked by Dr. Hurt and the organization the Black Glove psychologically, he rallies back, and he defeats Dr. Hurt. Complete with escaping from a coffin with a lightning bolt in the background and helping send Hurt's escape helicopter plummetting into Gotham bay.

We do see him fight. We know he's fighting against Dr. Hurt and The Black Glove, which Morrison established in his run. We know he beats Dr. Hurt in the end by sending his helicopter crashing into the bay and the rest of the Black Glove is rounded up by Batman's allies. That's all in the text.

I've read obscure, difficult Morrison comics. R.I.P. isn't one of them. While I'd agree that it is often disjointed, with more emphasis on individual money shots such as crazy ersatz Batman beating the snot out of henchmen with a baseball bat and the earlier mentioned coffin escape, with the linking scenes sometimes leaving something to be desired, and the lead in to Final Crisis is awkward to say the least, it's a far way from "incomprehensible" and other nonsense criticism tossed at Morrison. Morrison has done better work elsewhere, sometimes much better, but I think much of the hyperbolic invective hurled at Morrison says more about the reader than it does about Morrison.

And the idea that you have to read Silver Age Batman to understand Morrison's run is pure out and out nonsense. Yeah, there are allusions, but allusions aren't plot. Morrison isn't as successful here as he was in All Star Superman, but he's using the hero's own iconography for effect.

And, heck, your complaint seems to be with the art. Morrison didn't draw R.I.P. That's the mediocre Tony Daniel.

Depends how you enjoy your stories, I guess.

If you enjoy watching an adventure unfold, and your favourite character getting themselves out of jeopardy, then sucks for you. If you enjoy sitting around after the fact and making excuses for the disparate images and captions you were just presented with, then Grant Morrison may just be the writer for you!

And what was that part where Batmite points out to Batman that Gotham is surrounded by a glowing transluscent green "grid"?

And how was the Joker defeated? He was driving an ambulance, for some reason. Then the ambulance was, uh... slightly higher in the air, or at a different angle, or something? End of scene? Yes, a satisfying narrative, that one.

I would like Grant Morrison to rest in... pieces!

That's a sub-Fleed pun.

And, really, the above proves my point that people are going out of their way to claim Morrison is incomprehensible.

Here let's look at the page in question.



Why, it looks like the Joker, who is escaping from Arkham which is surrounded by cops, is running a police roadblock with an Arkham ambulance. And getting run off the road by Damian and Alfred in the Batmobile.

While I agree that there's no flow to that page and several odd angles are chosen, pointing at Tony Daniel failing as an artist, that's hardly an "incomprehensible" page. I think arguing that means that you're willfully either not engaging or indulging in hyperbole.

I don't think R.I.P. is any masterwork on the part of Morrison. Certainly, I think it's less than the Black Glove collection and it does indulge in cool moments over a smoothly flowing storyline, it's heavy handed in it's symbolism, and Batman's "backup personality" seems more than a bit of a deus ex machina. But, I literally can't take seriously anyone that argues that it's incomprehensible.

Even "the grids" is Morrison playfully arguing that history has been laid out in a predestined way and that Batman's caught up in a big game. Like a game of chess that the black and red symbolism throughout Morrison's run emphasizes. Morrison is being purposely trippy here, but again it's hardly incomprehensible. It's not like he was particularly subtle with his black and red symbolism.

Yeah, it's a pretty straightforward story. I'll agree Morrison's run has been plagued with artists who have trouble with basic narrative, but that's hardly his fault. And he's clearly trying to work in the mode of (and comment on) modern superhero techniques of relying heavily on past continuity. That's the whole point. You can argue that it's not entertaining for you (though I'm hardly a hardcore superhero fanboy and had never heard of the Bat-Radia or Zurrh-en-Arrh either, and I enjoyed it) but it's not exactly fair to complain about a superhero comic referring to past continuity. That's the whole point of what Morrison's doing here. It's like reading the Odyssey and whining that you can't follow it because there are all these gods and heroes who have their own off-screen backstories.

And for the record, Batman never died, here or in Final Crisis. He was sent back in time and everyone thinks he's dead, but he's not. You don't have to read Final Crisis to follow this story.

There were cops around Arkham? That's an Arkham ambulance? What's the Joker even talking about? And for that matter, what's "Damian" talking about? He changes subject between speech bubbles. And he appears to be telling us stuff we should have actually seen happen. Damien rescued Alfred from the mortal danger he's been in for the last three issues? Wow, a potentially exciting scene! That happened offscreen somewhere! And Alfred doesn't seem to care that they just made an ambulance levitate - sorry, that they just ran an innocent ambulance off the road!

And it's not just that page. The whole fucking thing was like this. And there was nothing - no character insight, no laughs, no thrills, nothing - to make up the shortfall left by the incoherence.

It's all so undercooked. This should have been a big event in Batman's life. There was no sense of scale, or anything. It was like something that happened to Batman over the weekend.

I dug Batman RIP a lot.

You mean when the Batradia activated the security system of Arkham a few pages before trapping the Black Glove and alerting the police, there wouldn't be police around Arkham in short order? And, gosh, the Joker going on about being a wild card, why that's unprecedented? With the Black and Red Batmobile (get it, irony) knocking him off the road. An ambulance that just ran a police blockade which certainly points that there's a villain trying to escape inside.

Really, do you need someone to hold your hand and point out all the obvious plot points? Seriously, R.I.P. has plenty of problems, but you pointing out that we should have seen Damian rescue Alfred is the first real argument you've made instead of hiding behind vagueness and hyperbole.

I think Morrison goes too far with Batman as the undefeatable master planner that thinks of everything. And I certainly think that Tony Daniel is a certified mediocrity. And, really, I'm not generally a fan of stories revolving around a villain targeting a hero. And, certainly, I think Morrison should have confined his story to Batman, not transitioned over to Final Crisis. That's B.S. R.I.P. is a story written around cool moments and disjointed otherwise.

But, you start throwing out words like "incomprehensible" and that's nonsense. There are plenty of valid criticisms to throw at the story without that kind of internet hyperbole. Really, I think The Black Glove tpb and Batman and Robin have been the highlights of Morrison's run, not R.I.P. And, still, Morrison's excesses are a whole hell of a lot better than a few years before when we got War Games/War Crimes, Hush, and Judd Winick's Red Hood story which devolved into yet another "Is this the time Batman, when you're finally going to kill the Joker?" stories.

Even if you think that Batman RIP is underwhelming, it paved the way for the excellent BATMAN & ROBIN series, as well as the (so far) brilliant RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE.

I've said this before in other threads, but when I was a kid I didn't read comics for the story. I read them for the pictures, the spectacle. I don't think the criticism that comics aren't accessible due to continuity is valid, because kids aren't reading comics for the stories. It's the adults that are obsessed with such minutiae.

Personally I love having to research all the little references. Isn't that the big appeal of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, or of Lost?

This I can agree with. I usually love Morrisson, but RIP was truly, truly shit. Even so, B&R has made it all worthwhile.

Wait... story is 'minutiae' now?

Anybody pick up Batman 701, billed as the first of a two-issue "missing chapter" of R.I.P.? Looks like it's going to serve as a bridge between the issue where the helicopter crashed and Batman's capture by Darkseid's agents. I'm guessing that the next issue will probably end up revealing Hurt's identity and tying into Return of Bruce Wayne.