Digitally Speaking...#5 "Batman"

Batman #13 (DC)
From 2012.  This is Scott Snyder's introduction to the "Death of the Family" arc.  And surprise to say, but it's kind of shockingly bad.  Not bad as in it's written or drawn poorly, but conceptually it's so poorly executed that it's surprising something like this would be the start of a major story arc for a major character in a major company.  Internet critics say that sort of thing all the time.  I was following a blogger who trashed just about every issue of AvX that way, and that was an event written by Marvel's top creators.  I've ragged on Snyder in the past.  I know he's supposed to be the best Batman writer in years.  I even recently came to his defense in terms of the conclusion to this very arc and what he might have planned for some grand greater scheme.  But in terms at least of this issue, out of all the "Death of the Family" issues I've read, it's easily the worst.

It begins randomly, Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Bullock talking about omens, and then the next page taking all the steam out of the conversation, and then transitioning to Gordon's smoking habit, and then the Joker randomly appears, and then Batman arrives, and then we have a recap of an apparently aborted story Tony Daniel began at the start of the New 52 in the pages of Detective Comics, the one that got the Joker's face peeled off in the first place.  Snyder never really convincingly explains any of that, but it's okay, because it's the creepy Joker.  Then the Joker becomes all methodical, copying the events of the first time he ever struck Gotham, which becomes a pastiche on how the character operates in Tim Burton's Batman.  And finally we reach the Joker and Batman, and the real story is teased.

Honestly, I have no idea why Snyder had to be so obtuse about it.  Damian mocks the whole thing right from the start.  Maybe that's why Grant Morrison realized he had to go, because he's a barometer.  Unlike how Snyder attempts to present Joker, it's really Damian who cuts every situation down to what it really is.  So it's no wonder that the best "Death of the Family" issue came from Batman and Robin.

It's certainly not this issue.  Definitely not.  I have no idea what Snyder was thinking.  He's not really that bad a writer.  To start a major arc like this, though...When Kyle Higgins started at DC, he was paired with Snyder for the Gates of Gotham mini-series.  But now I'm thinking it's Snyder who needs a co-writer.  There's no great shame in this.  Geoff Johns had co-writers, too.  Snyder had one when American Vampire began (some dude named Stephen King).  He needs someone to help formulate stories better.  He's apparently reached the point where editors can't approach him that way (although the buzz in Negative DC Talk is that all the writers who've abruptly departed the New 52 have done so because of meddling editors), but seriously, reading this issue alone?  Any objective analysis begs for Snyder to get a little help.

That's all he needs really.  He has a lot of good instincts.  He also has a lot of bad ones.  Comics are ripe with this kind of talent.  Ed Brubaker, for example.  Brian Michael Bendis.  Even Mark Waid.  Fans like to lump Morrison in with them, Johns too.  I put Brubaker in with that lot because the best and really only good stuff he did with Captain America involved the Winter Soldier arc.  He got his reward with a whole movie based on that work.  Bendis is an undeniable talent, but he suffers from an acute case of verbal diarrhea that constantly gets in the way of telling real, actual stories (then again, sometimes maybe that's the point).  Waid is his own worst enemy.  He's literally a comics savant, but all his best instincts are usually stymied by his nervous need to rebel.  I don't include Morrison or Johns because it's really a matter of creative differences.  Whereas with Snyder, he can't formulate a story completely.  At a certain point, he just throws out whatever he's got.  He's at a point in his career where most people don't care.  But in the long run, it'll absolutely matter.

And this issue is proof of that.

Batman 101
This compilation is a primer comiXology has that at once serves to provide a checklist for a few noteworthy stories from throughout Batman's publication history, as well as provide previews for all the original New 52 series (plus some vintage covers to round out the set).  As far as the preview pages go, they certainly illuminate the original worth of those series.  Scott Snyder's Batman starts out as promising as most Scott Snyder series.  He's usually good at setting a mood (the above example notwithstanding).  He also helps set the tone for most of the other entries, dominated as they are by caption narration (which as a rule I love in comics).  Tony Daniel's Detective Comics comes off extremely well.  At the time, Tony was more or less being demoted.  After serving as artist during pivotal Grant Morrison issues, he'd become primary writer/artist on Batman.  When the New 52 began, he was shifted to the secondary Batman title.  I'd hoped he'd stick around for a while, but he was one of the earliest disappointments in that regard.  Since being booted from Detective Comics, he's bounced from Superman to Justice League to Superman/Wonder Woman.  I'd prefer the guy have some permanent home.  There's also Peter Tomasi's Batman and Robin, which kicks off a more visual story (which is only fitting, given he's working with ideal collaborator Patrick Gleason).  If these few pages intrigue you, know that there's much more interesting material that follows.  David Finch's Batman: The Dark Knight, a title I never had much faith in, reads about as well as any other in these opening pages.  I guess this one's my bad.  Kyle Higgins' Nightwing doesn't come off as well as it could.  I read a lot of the early issues, and it was pretty good stuff, but here it's surprisingly incoherent.  (Maybe Snyder and Higgins ought to stick together more often?)  Gail Simone's Batgirl might presumably be in the same ballpark as Tomasi's relatively feet-first introduction, but as I have far less faith in Simone than Tomasi, I never found out where she went with it.  Judd Winick's Catwoman is a highlight, but then Winick is far better than most fans care to admit.  Which might explain why his role was so tiny in the New 52, because the stupid fans never admitted as awesome he is.  The only real quibble here is why Catwoman has by default become Sexy Catwoman for the past twenty years.  I mean, I know there was the Jim Balent era in the '90s, but then by default every female character in the '90s was presented that way.  It was more the inexplicable fetish version from the early '00s that decided because she wears latex Catwoman must be Sexy Catwoman, her zipper apparently never able to find the top of her costume (and more often than not, finding it incredibly easy to find the bottom).  Winick is also responsible for the similarly impressive Batwing.  This incredibly long paragraph ends by wondering why the hell J.H. Williams' long-anticipated Batwoman ended up becoming one of the earliest lost titles of the New 52.  Seriously.  Sure, it's still being published (and now written by Manhunter mystic Marc Andreyko), but you'd hardly know it.  What's up with that?  It's enough to make me have to read it myself.  And people, I can't read everything I want to anymore.  I learned the hard way.  But it looks like I'll have to make another exception...

Batman: Black & White - A Black and White World (DC)
From 1996.  This is an excerpt from Batman: Black & White #2, from an innovative anthology series DC recently revived.  "A Black and White World" is written by Neil Gaiman, which pretty much by default makes in the best story featured in today's column.  The story more than earns the distinction, and in classic Gaiman fashion, deconstructing the world of Batman so that he and the Joker are filming their own roles in a movie straight out of a comic book script (or perhaps are simply aware that they are characters in a comic book).  The funny thing is, Grant Morrison has had them participate in similar conversations, so it wouldn't be so much of a stretch to assume that between encounters, Batman really does visit Joker at Arkham Asylum and they talk exactly like this, the Joker especially, just as if it's all a game.  It's enough to wish Gaiman would write more Batman (he also wrote "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?", a coda to Morrison's "Batman R.I.P." arc), and especially more Joker.  This few pages is more insightful to the dynamic between the two than everything Snyder did in "Death of the Family" (besides my supposition as to his ultimate, as-yet-unrevealed purpose), especially in the above opening issue.  But that's Neil Gaiman for you.