Obviously this has gotten a ton of praise: my question for you guys is even if you loved it, what were your complaints/where did it fall short? What do you think wasn't handled as well as it could've been and what changes would you make?
Also, semi-related, but did anyone dislike it simply because Morrison doesn't click for you when he writes Batman? I thought he was a solid choice, but perhaps better suited for a book like X-Men (which I preferred his work for).
Morrison is in love with himself and believes that if something is prohibitively confusing, that makes it smart. There are tons of weird little details in the timeline of his run that don't quite add up, but it's been over a year since I've read it so I'd have to go back through to brush up on specifics.
Overall though, his run is one of the most audacious and well thought-out Batman sagas ever and the amount of love and research he put into the character's history really shows.
He does kind of retroactively fuck up past stories and characters, namely Ra's al Ghul and Talia, and there is some cringey dialog. But I like his run and consider it a must-read. Doesn't hurt that he was teamed up with such great artists.
I’d change how it came out to add more dickbats stories like he planned and also that artist that did the issue before rip is bleeding eye level bad
But yeah it’s one of my favorite runs and
I nothing since cough Snyder is anywhere near as good
Oberon Sexton. He took would could have been an amazing Riddler reveal and turned into a pretty obvious Joker reveal. As far as complaints in general, I didn't like how he retconned a broad swath of Batman's late Golden Age and early Silver Age stuff into hallucinations - I thought that was a particularly lazy thing to do - and I have never liked Damian.
In general though I take more issues with Grant's fanboys than Grant's writing.
I like the run a lot, though the prose issue was a mistake, and the later parts of Inc bore me.
My favorite parts are RIP, B&R, and some of Inc (I really like the issue about Man of Bats for example).
t. Massive Morrison fanboy
Adding to this, I do think that like a lot of Morrison's stuff, certain elements are jumbled and constructed strangely. For example the scene where Batman visits Joker in his cell right before RIP. That dialogue is fucking garbled.
But the run has enough genius for me to work through stuff like that. Batman's hobo journey with Honor Jackson alone is enough for me to re-read RIP every once in a while.
Also the fact that the story relies on 52 for setup is classic Morrison. The foundation of your run isn't even in the run.
And man do I wish that prose issue didn't exist. It takes the steam out of every reread I do.
Was it ever explained who Dr. Hurt was and why he looked like Thomas Wayne?
Is Hurt Darkseid or Barbatos? Or both? Also, how is Morrison’s and Synder’s Barbatos differ?
I think it took WAY too long for Morrison to become comfortable. From the start to RIP was meh slowly getting better as it went but once Dick was Batman it started to really shine and then Incorporated it became genuinely a must read run.
Fuck you that prose issue is amazing.
he can't write Bruce or anyone in the family, can't write personal relationships whatsoever
????
>believes that if something is prohibitively confusing, that makes it smart
I think that's bullshit. I haven't read a single piece of Morrison writing that didn't have an understandable logic to it, and unlike a lot of the stereotypically weird and inscrutable writers / artists out there he also never plays the "I refuse to explain what I mean" card, so if you really want to you can usually look up an interview where he'll say exactly what the work you're wondering about meant.
To get the whole scope of his Bat Epic you need Final Crisis. And if you read Final Crisis you definitely need to read Superman Beyond. His Seven Soldiers is tied into Final Crisis as well. Shit JLA Classified 1-3 is basically a prequel to Seven Soldiers. JLA Classified and Seven Soldiers is about the cubed universe Qwewq and his corrupt adult version named Neh-Buh-Loh A.K.A. Nebula Man the Celestial Huntsman. Qwewq was raised in Wonderworld (part of Morrison's JLA proper Rock of Ages arc). All of this has to do with the influence Len Wein's Justice League had in him. Look into issue 100. It's a team up of the League and the original Seven Soldiers of Victory as they do battle with Nebula Man who was summed by the Iron Hand. Another hand/glove villain motif. Libra was another Wein character from that same run.
If you're reading Final Crisis you should check out Johns' Rogues mini. Legion of Three Worlds is also good and he uses this book to connect it with Infinite Crisis and that is a whole other can of worms, OP.
If anything the real issue is the opposite, in that a lot of Morrison's work can be claimed as relying on references to make it feel more substantial than it actually is.
In all honesty you can just skip Final Crisis if you've read Seven Soldiers. Also JLA Classified 1-3 isn't really about Qwewq and really feels more like a bit of trivia to Seven Soldiers rather than a proper prequel or lead-in.
It did irrevocable damage.
>Was it ever explained who Dr. Hurt was and why he looked like Thomas Wayne?
It was, during Return of Bruce Wayne and Batman and Robin.
Dr. Hurt was a Wayne ancestor also named Thomas Wayne, who was around during the time of the 1700's (in Dark Knights, Dark City). Things go similar to Milligan's storyline, only you see what happens afterwards, where it turns out the bat/Barbatos that appeared was Darkseid's Hyper-Adapter from Final Crisis/Return of Bruce Wayne. The Hyper-Adapter possessed Thomas Wayne and that was how he managed to live centuries to the present-day.
Final Crisis is literally the climax of Seven Soldiers
>was the last run before a complete reboot
What did he meme by this?
>what were your complaints/where did it fall short?
Damian's introductory arc fucking sucks. Dickbats didn't go on long enough.
All of its thematic beats are presented and resolved in Seven Soldiers; Final Crisis is just a rehash, the blockbuster action film adaptation.
>resolved
Boss Darkside was beaten in SS? News to me.
All I read of his shit was Batman and Robin with Dickbats and Damien and found it really fun. Should I bother reading the other shit?
Everything after the renumbering (I think it was New 52) was weakish (from a writing perspective). But the rest was good to great. Talia's death sort of came out of nowhere. And I don't particularly care about the woman who shot her, either. I believe that is what they call a Day-Us Ex Ma Kina
I'm talking about just Batman Incorporated, of course. It's a shame the comic ended on a relatively weak note.
Thank you for your "honesty" but you be wrong here. Of course you can skip and read any of these books as a stand alone story in itself, but the idea is each work is a gear within a larger overall machinery of Morrison's design. While yes Final Crisis' thematic beats are presented as blockbuster action film, they are not so much resolved but rather pushed forward into their logic conclusion alined with Morrison's view. As Beyond's ending states, "To Be Continued" is a powerful phrase. The Fourth World ended and it was the creative team's intentions to continue producing a Fifth World as shown in the book's ending. Sadly the event was mismanaged and poorly managed by the editors. Morrison was not given the backing needed for this scale of production and so the whole thing fell apart. Even the artists didn't come through creating a rushed product in the end.
As much of a mess Death of the New Gods was it gives one version of the New Gods' death and Darkseid dies in Countdown to Final Crisis #2 and this sets up why he becomes Boss Dark Side.
The Earth Qwewq also leads into All Star Superman. This is the Earth Superman creates to see how the world will cope without a Superman. JLA Classified hints on how this Earth is one similar to ours with superheroes. This idea is carried over or more correctly, brought over from Flex Mentallo. Here the superheroes escape a Crisis style event from their own world into our universe. Similar to how the League were stuck on Qwewq. All Star Superman also makes references to DC One Million, another event done by Morrison way back in the day.
>I didn't like how he retconned a broad swath of Batman's late Golden Age and early Silver Age stuff into hallucinations
So you're a big fan of Batman fights goofy aliens stories, huh?
My only complaint
>Damien dies
>I didn't like how he retconned a broad swath of Batman's late Golden Age and early Silver Age stuff into hallucinations - I thought that was a particularly lazy thing to do
That was literally the only way he could get DC to acknowledge that the Silver Age happened at all beyond making joking references to how retarded it was.
Damien and Batwoman were a mistake.
I didn't like either of these.
Probably a tumblr landwhale crying about muh bat family
Morrison brought the silliness back to Batman adventures and Snyder aped him, if this is good or bad I don’t know but the changes done to the Batfamily in 2006 after Infinity Crisis were terrible the Batfamily becames bloated, good characters like Tim Drake Robin and Cass Cain Batgirl get both nuked so Batlesbianjew and Damien can look better, and New52 just made everything worse.
I don’t know if you can blame Morrison for all this, most of the fault is Didio and the editorial probably.
So. This is useful
He ruined Talia.
I can’t stand Morrison’s Batman run. I hate Damian and I think his original villains like Professor Pyg are dumb. In fact, I find most of Morrison’s comics to be pretentious postmodern twee trash. We get it. You do drugs. And everybody thinks it’s so great. I’m sorry, but “Darkseid Is” is tiresome. Only stories from him I like are when he harkens back to the Golden Age and doesn’t write like he stereotypically does. He is talented. He just more often than not does that kind of weirdness that makes my eyes roll back into my head.
He made Talia more interesting that just Batman's 70s Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
>what were your complaints/where did it fall short?
Where's Damian Bats and Arkham Asylum 2?
Your post is more eyerolling.
t. Stoner Morrison Fanboy
I knew it would trigger you to make another buzzword-filled response, so I win yet again.
>what were your complaints/where did it fall short?
Like a lot of Morrison's stories, it sometimes felt a lot like it was more interested in self-referential 'gotcha's than anything resembling interesting storytelling. Zur En Arrh/Zorro in Arkham should make anyone halfway reasonable groan. Once Bruce comes back everything kind of fizzles out, too. The "big" Kathy Kane reveal reminded me of when the Scooby-Doo movie made Scrappy the villain and felt like Morrison approaching self-parody.
His run on Batman & Robin in particular is very strong, though.
I like it when his shit feels like one simultaneous story, like Final Crisis, Buttman, Assman, JLA, Action Comics, Multiversity
I don't really like how his Action Comics is filled to the brim with back ups not by him
Really? I thought the stuff by Sholly Fisch actually enhanced a lot of stuff more.
That was legitimately somebody else responding. This is me again but that was my only post in the thread.
Wasn't Paul Dini's Batman run turned into a machine dream because of Morrison doing his huge story?
Just about every single person was written out of character.
There's an old Final Crisis interview where he literally refuses to explain what certain things meant and says if you're a true fan you'll understand. I'm not being obtuse, but as a young innocent reader a few years ago I was nearly brought to tears trying to connect all the dots of his work. The big picture is easy enough to work out, but... I dunno.
Also that bit in Arkham Asylum where Batman drives a glass shard through his hand for no reason is so emblematic of all Morrison cringe.
No. The first arc of Dini's Detective run was retroactively placed before the start of Morrison's run even though Harley's reform contradicts Batman 663. It also contains a Joker-in-disguise arc before Morrison did it with Sexton.
Listen.
You know what Crisis on Infinite Earths meant for the DC? A real canon.
The silver age stories were supposed to end there, the Crisis happened for making up a real continuity.
Before COIE everything was canon, Batman used to kill and then he stopped to kill...Oh wait! That was Earth 2 Batman....in some comics....in others it was Earth 1 Batman all along...
See what I mean?
The silver age stories don't neet to be aknowledged since these stories aren't supposed to be aknowledged anymore since a real canon was made.
Ignoring what COIE meant for the DCU for "Lmao it happened!" it's stupid if you stop for a moment and think for 2 seconds that the reasons these stories didn't happen was because a canon and a continuity were made.
Batman's golden and silver age villains?
They were all canon before COIE, even if they were retconned in Earth 1 or 2 they were canon.
And there were some explanations like the one where they changed dresses and lied about their origins, like Joker in top of that.
So Morrison referencing these stories is insulting to what COIE meant for all the DC's story, he insults the first story that set up a real canon and a real continuity in the DC mythos. He wants to reference stories that aren't even supposed to have happened since an event made them non-canon? Then do like Alan Moore and make up your own elseworld, WHTTMOT was a real silver age story that didn't pretend to be canon, because it wasn't and was aknowledged as such
But what else could we expect from Morrison? He ressurected Barry because it was DC's greatest mistake ever!
>I'm not being obtuse, but as a young innocent reader a few years ago I was nearly brought to tears
The type of drooling retard who hates Morrison.
>Also that bit in Arkham Asylum
Not even close to being part of his batman run.
The run is good, but Batman Inc vol 2 has some huge issues that drags the whole run down.
You have this huge run that celebrates batman and then it just has this huge downer ending for no reason.
Thanks you stupid fucker, did you miss the part where I said I actually liked his run. And Arkham Asylum was literally a story by Morrison featuring Batman. Fuck you.
>So Morrison referencing these stories is insulting to what COIE meant for all the DC's story
.....nope.
It ended on such a low note compared to the rest of the run.
>He wrote one of the most audacious and well thought-out Batman sagas ever
>Let me still assert my superiority over him
Morrison “criticism” everybody
Zorro in Arkham is the furthest thing from a “gotcha”. It literally sums up the entire seven years in three words.
But it is???
I liked Dr. Hurt and I was disappointed that Morrison only brought him back for a cameo in the Batman in Bethlehem verse
Another of Len Wein's works Morrison references a lot is The Untold Legend of the Batman
Personally I'm just not a big fan of Batman Inc. as a concept, even though it's mostly well written and drawn. The rest of his run I absolutely love thought, I'll always love him for making Year One and the Golden Age canon to each other.