I think both the strengths and the weaknesses everyone is pointing out stem from a basic decision Morrison is making on this: he’s trying to fuse every Batman era and style into one portrayal, one “Bat-verse” if you will.

This is what the opening pages are about, for instance. On the one hand, we have a very Silver Age story: the Joker vs. a fake Batman, cheerfully absurd dialogue, and so forth. But then it’s executed in the manner of a grim 1980s story, right down to the bloody crowbar imported directly from “A Death in the Family.” The red skies are from the Animated series.

And the idea of the Joker mistakenly killing a fake Batman an then trying to melt his face off is from a Bronze Age comic, the David V. Reed-penned conclusion to the “Where Were You on the Night Batman Was Murdered?” story, an arc so dementedly odd in its own right — Batman is rumored dead, so the villains set up a fully-functioning court to assess everyone’s claims! — that Morrison must have read it at some point. And at the finish, we get a little homage to the very first issue of Batman and the very second Joker story ever, with the villain being declared dead in an alley, and then suddenly being declared alive again.

The rest of the issue works in much the same way. It’s there in explicit things, like Alfred literally listing his chief 1940s, 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s love interests, Batman making a Milleresque grim joke about a decapitation victim in the newspaper, and the return of the Bat-pole. It’s there in plot element things, like having Batman’s 1980s son, the current all-evil version of Talia, and the very 1970s Man-Bats having been created via a generic Silver Age hostage bit.

Pages 22-3 are all about announcing this intention via the easily overlooked Lichtenstein-esque painting whose Morrison-scripted contents are actually homages to all eras of comics — everything from a Vietnam panel with the words “The jungle lit up like the Fourth of July” to Bendis-y “…” dialogue balloons on a blank background. And then on page 23, of course, we get all of those panels framed by that most stereotypical of 1980s and 1990s devices, the bank of monitors. (Cf. Watchmen‘s Ozymandias and Ira Levin’s Sliver).

And it’s why the dialogue in the cave scene falls a little flatter than it should — because to keep the fusion of these various elements, themes, and styles, some of them grossly contradictory as handlings of the character, Batman has to keep in motion at all times, and the plot likewise needs to be chugging uphill on all cylinders. The cave scene’s dialogue, spaced out, paced for conversational beats, winds up having a talky, unnatural, at times even nonsequitur feel as a result.

Of course, dissociation is one of the story’s themes in itself. Two Batmen, one of whom uses a gun as the post-1940 version of the character never would (save for Julie’s slipup in the first “New Look” Batman story of the 60s. Hmmm….). Dissociation in the cave scene, with Bruce forgetting how Bruce Wayne’s — his real — voice works, and Tim thinking his mask is his face. And the very real threat of dissociation in the form of the Man-Bat, the representation of what you’d get if Bruce’s Bat-avatar/totem/archetype really did become completely unmoored from Bruce Wayne.

And the threat in the story? The living proof that Batman is flesh and blood, that he has the sexual needs of a real human, and at the same time the threat of family, fatherhood, and domesticity represented by identification. The threat to Batman is the threat to his necessary dissociation. And it is inaugurated by two people quite literally and plainly fusing Bruce Wayne and Batman, someone who wants to force Batman to identify with Bruce and both of those “persons” to identify with them as beloved and as father.

It’s intellectually what onme expects of Morrison. But what he’s trying out is a real tightrope act, and just as on the high wire, slowing down for a moment makes it almost certain you’ll slip and set the line to wobbling for another moment before you’re righted and running again.

Overall, I still think the issue was good, but it wasn’t great, and I guess that ties into Morrison more than anything, because with a typical comic book I’m not disappointed by “good.”

Woudl you folks say this a case of disappointed expectations wherein Morrison has written an above-average story, while everyone was expecting sublime greatness; or is part 1 of “Batman and Son” simply too hinky, silly, or incomplete to satisfy in and of itself?

Though even when he’s in a rush he can design a page liek WHOA. The page where Northstar appears to Aurora, or the double-page spread with the “guardian angel” appearing in Northstar’s head? Freakin’ gorgeous.

I guess I’m both a Communist and a Nazi, though, because I don’t like Astro City (well, to be fair, I’ve never bothered to get into it, due to my general dislike of Busiek) or Godland (which I gave up on after #1, because I am an elitist bastard).

I totally would’ve bought Shark Man if the shop had ordered it. But I don’t even think the shop I went into orders Casanova. So…

Batman. Yes. Well… it was okay. I liked Dini’s issue better. The terrible art did not help (the layouts and blocking were piss-poor, to where it made some events more confusing than they had to be). I didn’t really like the opening sequence… it picked up halfway through. I’m sticking with it, of course, because of The God of All Comics. I mean, it *did* have Joker-copters and Bat-Poles. You can’t go wrong with those. Plus… Ninja Man-Bats. (Men-Bat?)

The little moments in Batman were great. The “big” moments, not so much. Still… best-written Alfred in ages.

Matt, you may have a cool point!

/that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
//I love Captain Marvel and it’s my hope that I am correct

Where can I bitch about 52? I’m almost numb to DC’s consistent abuse of Captain Marvel by now, but making Billy Batson insane is really too much.

You are correct, that is apparently the tweak. I missed the DNA thing too, the artwork is too distracting to me. I wasn’t paying attention to the actual text.

You’re right, but it used to be just a bight flash. Now it seems to have a concussive/incendiary capacity as well. That, I believe, was the tweak.

As far as I can tell, Edward, the spelling of the characters is consistent throughout. I just zipped through it again, though, so I may have missed it. You’re right – things like that bother me too, and usually I catch them, so I think they fixed it.