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thehefner
This story. Ohhhhhh, this fucking story.
One of the biggest problems with BATMAN R.I.P. is the villain. The villains in general, actually: a group of all-new characters who get absolutely zero background information (aside from the hunchback), thus we have no reason for anybody to give a good goddamn about their characters and motivations other than that they're EEEEEEEEEEEVIL. But the worst of all is the mastermind, Doctor Hurt:
No, he's not Dr. Thomas Wayne, clearly. So who is Dr. Hurt?
*waves hands* Nooooooo one knoooowwwwws!
Morrison never makes it clear, which many find intriguingly ambiguous, but strikes me as being more wishy-washy than anything else. We're led to believe that, in all likelihood, Hurt is the uncredited military scientist from the classic Silver Age story, "Robin Dies at Dawn!" ...
... which makes the most since, consider that Hurt looks like this:
But then again, maybe there's more to him than that. Maybe he's a disgruntled former actor, which would be fine if Morrison gave that idea any real thought or development (or did he? Was there something in the "Club of Heroes" story that I missed?). Or maybe he's much more than a mere human being. No, Morrison hints that Hurt could actually be ssssssssssssssSATAN????
Yes, he could be the Devil himself! Never mind that there's already a Batman villain who fills that role, and that character pretty much explains why Hurt is full of shit. That's the thing, though: he does it IN MORRISON'S OWN STORY, thereby exposing the utter hollowness of the threat presented by Hurt. In the end, the Joker's words there totally undermine the integrity of the story as anything other than "a bunch of posturing monologuing nobodies show up, try to out-Joker the Joker, then fail pathetically."
Even when the Joker is depicted as stupidly as he is here (and hey, let's totally just reduce a richly complex trickster/devil figure into a one-note grinning nightmarish ghoul, thus making him the polar opposite of the Hamill and Ledger Jokers alike) he still rightly points out that Hurt himself is a joke.
Which would be great if that's what Grant Morrison intended. But no, it wasn't. Morrison has outright stated (in BATMAN: THE PRIVATE CASEBOOK, for one place) that Dr. Hurt was literally intended to be the ultimate villain for Batman.
Remember when Loeb tried to do that with Tommy Elliot in HUSH? Remember how contrived it was then? It's even worse now, because it's coupled with Morrison's trademark self-seriousness and grand posturing.
Just like Hush--the last time someone created a new out-of-nowhere character to be Batman's OMG ULTIMIT NEMISIS--they seemed to neglect the fact that, guess what, Batman already has an arch-enemy. Hell, he has several! Just like Spider-Man has arguably equal arch-enemies in Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, and (ugh) Venom, because they all represent the ultimate opposition to different aspects of Peter, Batman has Joker, Two-Face, Ra's a Ghul, and hell, even Joe Chill himself!
A character can't just show up and be declared to be the Ultimate Villain. That title is earned through years of actual stories, through which the villain proves by action that he is an enduring threat. And there are at least a dozen characters who will endure much longer than Hurt, characters long established over 70 years of canon.
But I don't think Grant Morrison gives a shit about canon. Oh, many will say he does. "But the whole point of this story was to employ all his wacky Silver Age adventures, the stuff that nobody uses! He's creating an ultimate Batman story that ties together all of his iterations over his history!"
Except that no, he isn't. Yes, Morrison digs out obscure shit--so obscure that no one would have any reason to know about them, thus giving Morrison fans yet another chance to pat themselves on the back for "getting it"--but he only digs out the obscure shit so that he can Morrison-ify them.
If Morrison were actually planning to have it be that, say, there was an actual alien Batman from Zur-En-Arrh, and they really did have their Silver Age adventure, that actually could have been fun! It would have felt like the kind of wacky crack in BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD! But no, no, it's all just a hallucination and a state of induced madness, used expressly to explore the kinds of metaphysical psychological bullshit so beloved by an old chaos-magick-practicing acid-head like Morrison.
I get that Morrison has a point that he wants to make about Batman. I get that. I just resent that he does it by taking nearly-totally-forgotten paper-thin characters and conceits, then throwing them in with a bunch of new boring, one-note characters that we have absolutely zero reason to care about, and then ultimately reveals just how hollow and pointless they really were all along. As opposed to, I dunno, using some characters with actual established Batman history rather than the history that Morrison MADE UP expressly for his story.
Because if Morrison really cared about the integrity of Batman's rich universe over his own ideas...
... if he really wanted to come up with an ULTIMATE VILLAIN for Batman, someone who knows how to get under Batman's skin, someone with the ability to take Batman's sanity apart piece by piece, someone with a vested interest in destroying and thereby becoming Batman...
... if Grant Morrison really wanted a character like that for BATMAN R.I.P., he would have remembered that Batman had an arch-nemesis before the Joker even came along. Batman's original arch-enemy:
I've been rereading BATMAN ARCHIVES vol. 1 and I firmly believe that Strange was originally intended to be Batman's Professor Moriarty. Of all the mad scientists, racketeers, would-be despots, and other early enemies, Strange was the only opponent to appear more than twice, the only one never to be killed off but rather sent to prison, where the last panel is devoted to him behind bars, swearing to escape and have his revenge. He was clearly the first stab at giving Batman an arch-enemy.
And then the Joker showed up, kicking off Batman getting his own DICK TRACY style rogues gallery. And very soon after that, Professor Hugo Strange was killed off. He was of another era for Batman, an era seemingly lost forever right alongside Dr. Death and the Mad Monk, never to be seen again.
That is, until more than 30 years later, where he resurfaced in 1977, right in the thick of Batman's return to darkness in the Bronze Age.
In the legendary run by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, Strange returns and discovers that Batman is, in fact, Bruce Wayne! Armed with that knowledge, Strange gains a new ultimate goal: not to merely destroy Batman, but to BECOME him! In fact, he becomes so obsessed with the idea--the very concept (!!!) of Batman himself--that he willingly sacrifices himself rather than betray Batman's secret to "unworthy" scum like Rupert Thorne.
This obsession becomes one of Strange's defining character traits, following him through the post-CRISIS re-imagining where he is no longer a mad scientist, but a dangerously insane pop psychologist who becomes obsessed with becoming Batman. I normally dislike the writing of Doug Moench, but BATMAN: PREY from LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT is, for my money, one of the finest Batman stories ever (and why the hell is it out of print?!), and truly established Strange as a formidible opponent.
But no one remembers this. No one has any idea how to write Strange, and instead we get the watered-down versions of the character that we've seen in Will Pfeiffer's CATWOMAN and other minor recent appearances. The Mad Hatter is a bigger threat than Strange (and it kills me to say that, as a Jervis fan, but that's a rant for another time).
Hugo Strange is a formidable opponent expressly because he has a unique wealth of knowledge and insight into what makes Batman tick, and how best to exploit him. Ra's may know who Batman is, but he was no interest to attack the Detective in the ways that Strange, the Joker, nor Dr. Hurt do. But if Hugo Strange ever truly got his act together, he could have pulled off a scheme that even the Joker would have had to respect (to a point).
Because if anyone could come close to the Joker for breaking down Batman psychologically, it'd be Hugo Strange.
And that's what really burns me about BATMAN R.I.P. Because if Grant Morrison had simply used that character instead of creating an ambiguously one-note enemy with Dr. Hurt, then this truly would have been a Batman story that touched right at the roots of who he is and how he came to be.
That end of that last line is a reference, but it's okay if you don't get it. Because unlike Grant Morrison, I don't expect you guys to have read every single obscure Batman comic to understand what I'm writing.
...
God, it feels good to get that out, even if I'm still nervous about any backlash I might get from Morrison fans. Henchgirl asked, "You're just posting this to your LJ, right? Because if you post this at scans_daily, you're gonna get your ass handed to you."
I think many would agree with me, but I'm definitely not up for that level of fighting. Not with those kinds of fans just yet.
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Date: 2010-01-19 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-19 06:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-19 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-19 06:53 am (UTC)If you can find them, I wholeheartedly recommend tracking down BATMAN: PREY and BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS. The latter is the classic '70's stuff, and it also features the Joker clasic, "The Laughing Fish." The Joker wants to trademark fish, he doesn't care who he has to kill to make it happen! Live the dream, Mistah J!
Say, do you happen to have a link to your entry about the dream Ralph/Sue book you and Meg were cooking up? I want to show it to Henchgirl, who has recently fallen in love with Ralph and Sue. Mainly because they're kinda us.
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Date: 2010-01-19 07:15 am (UTC)I hope you guys don't end up Meltzer'd :(.
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Date: 2010-01-19 07:19 am (UTC)It's funny you say that. When she read IDENTITY CRISIS, she turned to me and said, "I'm gonna get killed by a supervillain, aren't I?" "And raped retroactively!" "Oh swell."
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Date: 2010-01-19 11:01 am (UTC)I can understand the push to create new villains like Hush or Dr....Hurt (That name, that terrible name!), I can even understand why the writers want to make them such overblown threats (ineffectual new villains tend not to last long after their creator leaves the title), but I HATE the clumsy attempts to shoehorn them into Bruce's past and current life. I actually think Tommy COULD have worked, if he was introduced more slowly and subtly, but NO, he was just tossed in there. 'Childhood friend of Bruce Wayne who is his polar opposite! Why? Just....because! Yaaaay!'
Basically...I don't mind them creating new villains rather than constantly using another individual's creations (especially overused ones like the Joker), but the results are often so clumsy it hardly seems worth the effort. Dusting off seldom used classic characters sounds like a reasonable compromise.
I've actually only read one story that I can remember with Beardy Bat, and that was 'Batman: Prey.' I wonder if the hesitation to use him comes from the fact that pitting a middle aged, balding former psychologist against Batman lacks a certain...dramatic appeal (obviously it doesn't have to, Dr. Lecter isn't what I'd call physically imposing, but it's something that may take a lot more effort to pull off than many writers are willing to put into it)?
More likely they just forget he exists.
I want to talk to you about Jervis for a second. I'm actually reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass' for the first time (I seem to read more classic kid lit as an adult...) and I keep thinking that it could easily be read as a very dark story (not exactly a stunning or original insight, but eh...). There always seems to be that underlining suggestion that everyone in Wonderland is quite dangerously mad, and that includes the seemingly normal Alice. Has Jervis ever made a concentrated run at Batman's sanity, or has he always been about the hats and cosplay?
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Date: 2010-01-19 02:29 pm (UTC)Basically...I don't mind them creating new villains rather than constantly using another individual's creations (especially overused ones like the Joker), but the results are often so clumsy it hardly seems worth the effort. Dusting off seldom used classic characters sounds like a reasonable compromise.
And that's the thing: there should be new villains. They just shouldn't can't be created to be the Ultimate Villain off the bat. It won't work that way. What did you think of Dini's HEART OF HUSH? Many people seem to hate it--mainly for what happens to Selina--but for its flaws, I hate to admit that it actually made me kinda care about Tommy.
Oh! So you've never read the Englehart/Rogers run collected in BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS? This is the collection which also features the first appearance of Deadshot in his trademark costume, plus "The Laughing Fish!" If you can find that trade--it's out of print, I believe--oh, do, do!
Jervis! Man, one day I'm totally gonna do my post about why Jervis is mismanaged in comics, and an underappreciated character in general.
No, I don't believe he ever really has specifically targeted Batman's sanity, although there was a BKV story where he targeted his own psychiatrist by using a hypnotized Kirk Langstrom to create a serum that would turn the doctor into a raging giant Jabberwocky, thereby giving the psychiatrist insight into how Jervis himself has no control over his own madness.
So no, he's pretty much just been about hats and cosplay (god, never thought of him that way before, but it's true), but to varying degrees depending upon who's writing him. I wish comics!Jervis would be more like animated!Jervis: a dangerously unhinged and whimsical man obsessed with ALICE but also a character in his own right, with his own distinctive mentality and physical features, rather than... the way he pretty much appears everywhere else.
Mainly thanks to Grant Morrison in ARKHAM ASYLUM. Ever since then, everyone writes Jervis as a pedophile. Sigh.
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Date: 2010-01-20 01:46 am (UTC)Hahaha, I just noticed you ran into a Morrison fan at scans_daily who isn't treating you all that nicely. I've had a 'discussion' with him/her before...it was 'fun'!
I liked 'Heart of Hush.' Tommy is amusing when his delusions of grandeur prevent him from realizing how sick (and out of his league) he is. Awesome ending too.
I haven't read 'BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS,' I'll keep an eye out for it. My LCS tends to have a lot of obscure and out of print trades.
I remember Jervis' origin episode being pretty good, but I don't recall any subsequent episodes being very strong. Are there any episodes you recommend?
I'm trying to think of a way to keep Jervis whimsical and imaginative without making him seem ineffectual. I always worry people are going to go to the extreme and have him impaling people with a teapot or something.
You know, I actually really loved 'A Serious House On Serious Earth' (especially after reading the script included in the fifteenth anniversary edition) but it's one of those things I wish was read/viewed entirely in isolation and had little or no impact or influence on the main continuity (Pedophile Jervis=BAD).
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Date: 2010-01-20 02:31 am (UTC)If you manage to track down STRANGE APPARITIONS, do let me know what you think! It's a bit dated, but the awesomeness elevates much/most of it to timelessness.
The number one greatest (IMO) Jervis episode barely has Jervis in it at all: "Perchance to Dream." Far as I'm concerned, his bit at the end is the defining Mad Hatter moment in the whole series. At the risk of sounding sickening, Henchgirl asks me to reenact it from time to time.
I wish Jervis could be the Willy Wonka of Gotham. The Gene Wilder Willy Wonka, mind you.
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Date: 2010-01-19 12:10 pm (UTC)I could have been in the SUPERMAN MOVIE!
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Date: 2010-01-19 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-19 05:46 pm (UTC)Which would be great if that's what Grant Morrison intended. But no, it wasn't. Morrison has outright stated (in BATMAN: THE PRIVATE CASEBOOK, for one place) that Dr. Hurt was literally intended to be the ultimate villain for Batman.
Morrison's problem is that he, like many other people in the field (Joe Q., for example) seem to be stuck in the mode of Taking the Piss Out Of Fanboys, which I'm assuming is what he's doing here.
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Date: 2010-01-19 06:22 pm (UTC)For the past fifteen, twenty years (particularly since the whole Hal/Kyle thing in the 90's), there seems to have been increased clashing between creators and fans, with both sides throwing out their own moments of asshattery.
On one hand, you have the fans who feel entitled to put demands upon the writer to feed their own whims. On the other hand, you have the creators and editors who have a "fuck the fans, you'll buy the shit anyway and complain about it, so we might as well insult and manipulate you" mentality.
And when you have a writer who's at rock star status like Morrison is, then he has the freedom to let his ego explode and trash-talk the fans who don't like his work.
Really, fanboys need the piss taken out of them, but so do creators. Especially ones like Morrison, who purport to tell grand, "important" stories.
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Date: 2010-01-21 03:50 am (UTC)I have a theory that Joe Q. just wants to set everything back to how it was when he was a kid and then write it the way HE thought it should have gone.
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Date: 2010-01-19 11:04 pm (UTC)I myself have become a Hugo Strange fan as well and as someone who dreams to write and draw comics one day, even to have the great chance to write for Batman, Strange is definitely one of Batman's old villains I would love to play with. I feel that Matt Wagner's two Batman books actually would and could help in bring this villain back into cannon.
Anyway, I do agree with your rant and agree it would have been one hell of a book and a great lead into Blackest Night if it was Hugo Strange who had pulled the trigger and sent Batman through the gauntlet to his untimely demise.
Oh and one final note: BATMAN DOES NOT EVEN F^%$KIN DIE IN RIP. You have to go and read through the mind fuck that is Final Crisis to get to see how Bruce is killed. FUCK
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Date: 2010-01-20 10:00 pm (UTC)Joker's a lot of things, kids.
David Bowie is not one of them.
Hell, even David Bowie isn't the David Bowie we all wish he was.
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Date: 2010-01-20 10:06 pm (UTC)Then again, I think that's how all stories should be done, some times.
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Date: 2010-01-21 08:43 am (UTC)and I am totally interested in your thoughts on The Mad Hatter. *pokes you to make a post on him*