COMICS BREAK-The state of the Cowl
Time for another guest post from my man CD . . .
The state of the Cowl
Art from “Battle for the Cowl”
For those of you that are unaware, Bruce Wayne is dead. Maybe. but probably not.
Batman . . . Dead at the end of final Crisis.
I was a bit shocked when someone commented on my previous comics post on green lantern that he had no idea DC had killed off Batman. It got me thinking—when marvel did the same with Captain America (though it turns out he wasn’t really dead), it was all over the media, from the Washington post to the new York Times. Why didn’t the Dark Knight receive the same kind of coverage? could it be because the Bat family of books has been sucking for a couple of years or so now? Let’s discuss.
Amidst the current moves of killing off franchise heroes, DC made a decision to up the ante by apparently killing off possibly their greatest franchise player, Batman. quite frankly, Bats was the only character I even bothered with in the DC Universe, so it came as a bit of a shock. For those of you that are not hardcore comic book fans, Batman is to the DC universe what Wolverine is to marvel in that both characters are in damn near a dozen of their own books. To get rid of a character that takes up that lots of titles seemingly would be disastrous. Not so, sayeth DC, we’ll simply re-title all the books and stock them with new and/or different characters.
To start off this mess, all the Bat books (Detective, Batman & the Outsiders, Robin, Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Batman) went through R.I.P. apparently to confuse the hell out of readers, each book dealt with a completely different scenario, from Bruce going outrageous to Hush kidnapping Catwoman. readers weren’t sure which of the storylines would result in Wayne’s actual death, and to be honest, the individual storylines were confusing as hell. As the utmost slap in the face, Bruce wasn’t even killed in one of his own books, but in the final crisis mini-series, with little fanfare. SPOILER ALERT: Darkseid blasted him with his Omega Effect. The reader sees him get blasted and then Superman appears holding his charred skeleton. Of course, savvy readers know that the Omega effect doesn’t kill a person, it transports them to another dimension, burnt carcass or not. after all the R.I.P. build-up, it was a monstrous let down. Neil Gaiman, one of my all-time favorite writers, did a two-part special to wrap things up, essentially telling a story of a dead Bruce Wayne enjoying his own funeral (kind of). even that was pretty weak, and Gaiman doesn’t make those kinds of missteps very often.*
*Editor’s Note: Ekko here. I have to forcefully disagree with CD on this one point: The Gaiman two-parter was brilliant–one of the best comic book stories I’ve read in years.
Next up was battle for the Cowl, and based alone on the discount picture of a bunch of different characters in Batman costumes, it looked like it was going to kick ass. Sadly, wrong again. The main tiny shows Gotham in total chaos, with criminals getting a lot more and a lot more bold (and crazy) without Bats there to keep things in order. This led Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl before Joker shot her in the spine, to start a network of heroes to cover the bases that Wayne previously had handled himself. A bunch of posers, including the recently resurrected Jason Todd, took up the Cowl. There were a few other minis, one focusing on Babs, one on Azrael (but not THAT Azrael), none of which seemed to have any impact on the storyline whatsoever. This led to additionally anarchy, as a lot of of the “new” Batmen were even a lot more violent than the original, and it was made a decision that there had to be one, and only one, Batman. To no one’s surprise, Dick Grayson gave up being Nightwing and donned the Bat symbol himself.
This essentially brings us to today. As pointed out previously, each of the series re-launched, and now we have Batman & Robin, streets of Gotham, Gotham City Sirens, Red Robin, Batgirl, Batman, Detective, and Outsiders. Taking the books one by one, nearly all of them swiftly are becoming let downs.
Batman & Robin: Dick takes up the cowl and Bruce’s bastard son, Damien, becomes Robin. The main problem here is character development. quite frankly, Grayson comes across as a whiny wimp, so not sure of himself as to become annoying. This is problematic for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the fact that it makes no sense. He’s been wearing a cape for years and has led the teen Titans and Titans for nearly as long. Why the sudden loss of self-confidence? The character readers have come to know over the decades has been recast to fit a mold in which he does not belong. add the fact that Damien is maybe the least likeable character in DC, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. and I say this knowing full well how people felt about Jason Todd.
Gotham City Sirens: When I first learned onull