Batman by Grant Morrison Omnibus Vol. 1

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Grant Morrison’s run is predicated on his embracing some of Batman’s pre-Crisis history as canonical – or, at least, as being a hyper-exaggerated take on canonical tales. like alot of his other work it can be somewhat mindbending and incoherant to follow but its a bloody enjoyable adventure.

I also have a (very minor) issue with the fact that a good deal of the pages are not numbered, especially considering it has a pretty comprehensive table of contents. We get one storyline set across three time periods, as well as a number of epilogues which illustrate that Batman cannot die.We’ll get more into this frustratingly confusing plot point in our review of the next omnibus volume, which spends much of its opening issues trying to make sense of this bizarre decision. The Red Hood was the identity the man who would become the Joker was acting under when he fell into a vat of chemicals that turned him into the now classic (and certainly overused) villain. This reveals to us that Bruce Wayne did not die but was sent hurtling through time from Darkseid’s Omega Beams and found himself in the prehistoric period of humanity. For the record, while Colin makes great arguments, I don’t see a major moral difference in Gordon passively condoning Dick riding a suspect through the streets of Gotham or using information Bruce got by dangling a perp off a rooftop, threatening to drop them. Sure, it’s nice Morrison puts the information in “a storm of shrieking ad jingles from hell”, but it just makes it seem more like Morrison is spending a lot of time explaining in more detail ridiculous concepts that he articulated perfectly clearly before.

Come omnibus time, which I think starts around Feb-Mar for Grant’s run, justice will be done for it. Morrison delivers an above average Batman arc which miraculously pulls off many things I would’ve considered ill-advised. By having Dick Grayson leave behind his Nightwing identity and become Batman, you immediately have a new take on a familiar character. There was a time when his name was synonymous with absolute quality, and just the mention of his name on any book was enough to warrant an instant, anxiety free purchase. Without knowing any behind the scenes the details of how it all came together, the way these events absolutely derail Morrison’s story is upsetting.Over the course of the book, Batman meets his son, fights Man-Bat ninjas, falls in love, battles a vast conspiracy, and winds up buried alive.

Then, Batman and a group of global heroes face a killer on a mysterious island, and Batman relives an adventure in the life of young Bruce Wayne: the hunt for his parents’ killer. By the way, while we’re listing random things I love about Morrison’s run, I love the fact that this Mad Hatter’s obsession with hats to the point of sending Batman back in time to recover “the brim size of Alexander the Great” renders him “tediously sane”in comparison to the rest of Batman’s foes. It’s interesting that, as the title implies, the story affords Batman a chance to reflect on his origin and whether – in the magical world of the DC Universe – Batman would ever take the chance to change things as they unfolded. Together, this masked Odd Couple must stop a rising tide of villainy whose savagery and brutality are unlike anything Gotham City has ever seen.

Another new villain who doesn’t get to do much but is an intriguing figure is introduced, The Flamingo. If you are a fan of Batman, it would be a travesty to miss out on this collection of his dark times and some of the best villain interactions, and the stories that include his son. Quizá esto dicho así, no sea muy llamativo, pero hay que recordar que Batman tiene más de ochenta años de historia, y que ha pasado por muchas etapas. Die komplexen Stories lesen sich nicht ganz einfach und sind ziemlich abgedreht, und man darf hier wohl von einem Dark Dark Knight sprechen; ich glaube, soviel Splatter gab es vorher noch nie im DCU. It holds up, but even more so it reads better after years of reading Batman stories from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.