Greg, I can assure you that there is NO love triangle that's about to happen there. I've got no interest in doing that story, either.

Batman is a great idea, poorly executed.

I liked that great idea much better when it was stripped of the pretentious metacommentary on comics and called Knightfall.

I offer Oxidation Age as an alternative.

I could see it getting better though, there were some flashes.

I should point out that I still hold Don DeLillo (my favorite modern author) to the standard he set with White Noise in 1986. He's approached it (with Libra and even Mao II) but hasn't surpassed it. So maybe it's just my problem.

I understand it's important to understand what the author is trying to do, but every single review I've read of a Morrison comic has to delve into his pet themes, his character tics and breakdowns, hell, almost his favourite foods. Reading a Morrison review is almost as author-indulgent as half the stuff he writes, which often focuses solely on his role as author in the comic industry, or on some other random meta-commentary. It does work in titles like Animal Man and All-Star Superman but... dammit, see? Now you've got me doing it!

He's a talented, prolific writer who's done his share of flops, but not every Morrison book needs to be read through the lens of "what's he doing now?" That's what reviews of entire arcs/collections are for. Look at the comments that surrounded issue 666, it was almost all "what's the greater picture here" or "where is this leading?" rather than simply examining the issue in and of itself (from what I've observed, anyways).

It's the Silver Age's colors and costumes and camp with the Dark Age's ambiguity and blood and mutilations. This is where the Silver Age Reconstructionists largely seem to have ended up: with silver tarnished by exposure to air and unhealthy reading and writing environments.

That's been the real weakness of this story: it's too busy making metacomments like "Batman is cool! He wears black!" and trying to fit together tonally mismatched Batman stories of decades past to bother getting on with being a well-structured, intelligently-paced plot. Theme has swallowed plot whole, and unfortunately theme seems rather thin here because theme is just an argument about How Batman Should Be Written and Hasn't Been. (To that extent, criticizing the story on the grounds that Batman's not being written as smart enough or detective enough seems to me to be part of the problem, too invested in the same things the story is too invested in to do its narrative job.)

My major problem, for instance, with the Joker here is that he isn't in the story to provide much of a plot element. He's here because this is a big final Batman story (for however little time that ever lasts) and the Joker has to be there for it to be thematically final. Ditto Robin and Nightwing being there, and Damien and Talia and Gordon. They've been forced into an already rather messy plot because they're "supposed" to be there.

If the Joker seems sort of pointlessly crazy and self-contradictory, it's less because he's a wild card ruining the scheme or living chaos (as the dialogue tries to tell us rather than letting the story show us) than because there's no damned room for him to do anything terribly interesting or complex at this late stage of the game. He shows up and cackles madly and does silly, oversymbolic things because that's as close to a weighty presence as this cluttered and tangled arc can manage to give the character.

It's a nice symptom of the story's underlying problem, and especially the issue's: Morrison has something to say about Batman in Batman R.I.P., but he hasn't really worked out how to say it and is sort of tossing out all his ideas and theories at once as if he's afraid he'll forget them.

So why does Bruce love Jezebel so much? Because she does humanitarian work? I have always been consistent in saying that Jezebel is a poorly-written character. As I noted, maybe that's the point - she's evil, so Morrison didn't write her particularly well, but that's a lousy reason.

Why am I reading the comic? Did you not read what I wrote? I love Morrison, I love Batman, and I have mostly enjoyed his run. I think "R.I.P" up to now has been as good as "The Club of Heroes" (well, without the fantastic art), and just because this one issue goes off the rails doesn't mean I'm going to give up on it.

I'm not suggesting Jezebel is the Black Glove, as the ending is, you're right, obvious. But she's still evil, isn't she?

I would argue that the Joker seems to be in control, as he cuts a swath through Dr. Hurt's little group. As for a new villain taking down Batman and not the Joker, the Joker has never wanted to take down Batman. That's not his thing.

As for this being a mockery of Batman ... well, it seems that if you want to mock Batman, you probably shouldn't write Batman. But that's just me. Maybe that's what Morrison is going for. If so, that's kind of stupid.

stealthwise: This issue sucks. How's that for judging something on its merits? I thought I was doing that, pointing out that if anyone but Morrison had written this, we'd be ripping it to shreds. I think that you always have to consider the author's intent when judging the book, especially because Morrison, as Greg H. points out, is always talking about what he wants to do.

Greg: That's always a good point with regard to Batman, because he never does enough detecting. My problem with a lot of what Morrison writes is when he is on, he does change my outlook on how comics can be done, so when he's slumming (and no matter what you think of the quality of the books, working with Superman and Batman is slumming), it frustrates me. I want him to reach for more, and he often settles for stuff like this. That makes me sad.

What's so great about Supergirl, anyway?

I don’t get the need for every reader and/or commentator to have to mention the author when reviewing the story or discussing comics in general.

Well, I won't presume to speak for Mr. Burgas, but it seems to me the only review approach that makes any sense is to

A) decide what the storyteller's trying to do
B) determine if he actually did it
C) decide if it was worth doing.

I like that approach because it's value-neutral, it leaves out personalities. But I'm afraid even there you have to talk about how the writer's intent comes across to the reader, and with a fellow like Grant Morrison who often gives interviews about what he's HOPING to do, it's worth asking if he actually pulled the stated intent off or ended up completely askew from that place.