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Yeah, the art was… passable, which is the kindest thing you can say about a lot of Morrison’s lesser collaborators, and I quite enjoyed the issue for most of the reasons above that you named. I’m not sure why Scarlet killed her father, other than her scarring driving her mostly insane. Was that spurred on by Jason? It kind of fits with his warped interpretation of how to be a hero, as Bruce, Dick, Tim, and even Jason himself had all lost parents in this tragic history way that seems befitting of most of the Bat-family.

Of course Jason Todd’s early hair color was blond, not red (and I think that was only Pre-Crisis Jason Todd.)

(That said, the choice to make it red is likely deliberate: both to evoke the phrase red-headed stepchild and for the visual resemblance to Rorschach out of costume.)

I found the hair color thing weird too…what about when Jason was in Countdown to Final Crisis and related titles? His hair was black then.

Incidentally, I think my faovrite moment may have been when Jason tells Batman that Scarlet isn’t his girlfriend, and Batman responds with “Backstory. Not interested.” It was one of the first moments since Dick took on the Batman role that it really felt to me like there was someone new in the costume. Before it kind of seemed like Batman was Batman and that was it, that Batman was only Dick if the mask wasn’t on, but in that moment and several after it in this issue, Dick’s personality really came through, I felt.

Yup, the hair color was pre-Crisis Jason Todd, the one who was basically a re-hash of Dick Grayson. The angsty kid who was lifting the tires from the Batmobile has always had dark hair. But it IS another Grant-ism: meshing multiple age continuities into new ones.

I don’t mind the continuity of the hair color, because I like the idea of Batman pushing Jason into being more like Dick. The art was awful, but the plot made it worthy, I can’t believe I actually like Jason Todd as the Red Hood (the part where he tells Scarlet that she should act like a sidekick is so silly and appropriate for his character).

The plot is dull; any redeeming value in the comic is found in the way Morrison writes the characters.

The characters ARE the plot here, no?

The characters ARE the plot here, no?

Yep, basically.

That’s another cop-out of people who love Morrison and can never admit he does anything wrong. If the characters are the plot, then why even have any kind of plot? And if the characters are the plot, then this isn’t that great, as his characterization isn’t THAT good, it’s just better than the overall plot. But it’s not a great character study. It’s characters working through a dull plot saying a few clever things here and there. It’s definitely not top-notch Morrison, even though middle-of-the-road Morrison is, to be fair, better than almost anyone working in mainstream comics.

That’s another cop-out of people who love Morrison and can never admit he does anything wrong.

Well argued.

That’s not an argument, it’s a statement. The rest of it is an argument, though.

It’s something.

It’s a difference between pre-Crisis Jason (who had dyed hair) and post (who was a brunet). Either this is an imposter or Morrison screwed up royally.

More dismissiveness. Nice.

This isn’t unusual when people like something – they make excuses for the weaknesses because they don’t want to admit that what they like might not be great. Everyone does it (including me). When someone says that Morrison’s plots aren’t that great, his fans bring up the great characterization. When someone says the characterization isn’t great, his fans bring up the fantastic plots. When someone says the story isn’t working well, his fans point out that the artists are letting him down. Morrison doesn’t “juggle a lot of plots” in this issue; he tells a fairly straightforward “the heroes need to become more extreme than ever because the villains need to be killed!” tale. That’s fine, and he does it better than, apparently, James Robinson is doing, but there’s only a little bit in here that shows why he’s Morrison. Those few bits make it worthwhile, but it’s certainly a lesser Morrison issue. It doesn’t even feel like the “grand narrative” he was doing when he wrote Batman before, because this isn’t Bruce Wayne. Some of those issues weren’t great, but they fit into his bigger story. I know this fits into a bigger story, but as an individual issue, there’s a lot that’s not great, and we can’t blame it all on the art.

If you’re going to write something to intentionally and knowingly piss me off, then don’t expect to get much in response.

Why would you get pissed off about a comic book?

It’s a difference between pre-Crisis Jason (who had dyed hair) and post (who was a brunet). Either this is an imposter or Morrison screwed up royally.

Infinite Crisis made pre and post-Crisis fairly meaningless distinctions, especially for Morrison’s “everything happened” approach.

Why would you get pissed off about a comic book?

Comic books can’t give rise to emotions?

But in any event, it is not a comic book at issue, but rather, your petulant comments.

Criticizing a comic book is petulant? Maybe “cop-out” is, but other than that, I don’t see it. I apologize for using “cop-out,” because it’s a bit personal. Other than that, it’s just regular criticism. Isn’t it? Am I missing something?

Nah, that was basically it. You know how irritated I get at “you’re just saying that because of ____” stuff about people’s reviews of comic books (or really, anything). That’s the one thing that really pisses me off.

Thanks for the apology!

Also, I’ll throw in an apology of my own. I complain about the whole “don’t tell someone what they REALLY meant with their review” thing so often that I was sure that you knew about it. For instance, if it was some stranger making the comment, I’d just shrug it off, but coming from you was like “Huh? From GREG? That dude knows that that pisses me off.” I realize, though, that you might honestly not have known, so sorry.

No, you’re right. I was trying not to say “You think that,” because that does piss you off. I do apologize for implying that. I wasn’t trying to get into anyone’s head, I was pointing out what people write when someone does pick on Morrison. I thought I was doing a good job with that, but I wasn’t. I didn’t think I was saying, “You think this,” because this is what people state. We disagree on a simple point: you think that the characters are the plot, while I think that’s not true and that the plot is a bit weak. The rest was not in response to you at all, just what I see in general regarding Morrison. I guess I didn’t make that clear.

Come on, Dread Lord and Master, let’s be pals again!

There’s a fairly weird subtext to this issue, at least from my perspective, in that Morrison seems to be playing straight with “big event” multi-writer storytelling for one of the few times in his superhero genre work. All the way back in his first real DC work on Animal Man, he tended to come at crossovers and events with a rather cockeyed or deliberately contrarian take.

So you got one Invasion! tie-in that wasn’t much different than the previous issue’s “Coyote Gospel,” which likewise dumped the main character on the margins to tell a parable about entertainment fiction. That story studiously ignored the “present” Invasion! crossover plotline to do a series of character flashbacks regarding one very atypical invader. Many years later, on Flash, we saw Granty and Mark Millar do their third of a straight-ahead action story crossover as a metahuman courtroom drama with the big battle setup by Chuck Dixon and Ron Marz relegated to very brief flashbacks in an entirely different story structure.

More cheekily, he relegated the genebomb of Invasion! and the Genesis Wave of, uh, Genesis to last-page teases and came back the next issue with the crossover already some ways behind the characters and the plot. And on JLA, excepting *his* One Million stuff, he otherwise let other writers fill in on the crossover issues. Likewise, his New X-Men at Marvel pretended for the most part that the other X-books didn’t exist, and offered radically different takes on the Claremont characters he brought in for arcs like “Murder at the Mansion” and the Magneto memorial story. (Even the powers of Sage and Thunderbird were off-model.) Ditto his hilarious take on Christopher Priest’s Triumph, who he rapidly disposed of in a JLA sequence far more concerned with introducing Jakeem Thunder. Similarly, the JL Task Force characters and, before them, Gerry Jones’s prior League were brushed off with minimal fuss.

So Jason Todd as the Red Hood is almost exactly the sort of character you’d expect Grant to avoid, or at least avoid playing straight: in his current form, he’s essentially a one-writer character, Judd Winick’s pet, with Tony Daniel having followed Winick’s blueprint rather closely for a series Grant didn’t want to write anyway. Having him turn up here and largely as he is elsewhere is, well, out-of-character….for Morrison.

Weirdly, the rest of the book seems affected, too. Dick Grayson is a far more conventionally expository character here: some of his explanations of who Jason Todd is are even written as relatively sincere, for heaven’s sake, rather than arch or cleverly oblique. And Dick’s revelatory character moment in the issue, likewise, is that he explains to Alfred just how he sneaks up on people like, well, Alfred. That’s a nice moment, fitting some technobabble in with a telling moment of difference between Dick and the taciturn, secretive Bruce. But there’s no such added dimension to his quick summary of “A Death in the Family,” which reads like anyone’s dialogue; for the sarcastic meta-humor there, you have to get to the poll graphic in the next panel.

It’s no accident that the two characters getting real development here are both Morrison creations: Damien and Sasha. Nor is it coincidence that Sasha was introduced for this arc, mainly so that Morrison can tell a story featuring the Red Hood without actually having to do much with Todd. A few quips about “branding”
aside, there’s not really any dynamic between Jason and Sasha: he talks past her, retaining his characterization from elsewhere, and she gets interior monologues that indicate sher’s not really listening. Similarly, Damien gets to comment on the plot that Dick is saddled with bluntly spelling out. His needling query is what prompts Dick’s little “Previously in Non-Morrison Issues of Batman” bit, and it’s his interactions with Sasha that get to be the climactic moments of the fight scenes.

This is what Morrison looks like when he’s trying genuinely to play with other people’s toys while those other people are still around. Generally content to stick to iconic characters he can riff on or create his own people, his usual method of taking a wittily distant approach to the more “contemporary” creations of others is absent in most of #5. It’ll be quite curious to see how he wraps this up, though his bringing in a convenient extra antagonist — the Flamingo — probably speaks volumes.

(On a side note, there’s one nice theme in this story in that every single character, from Dick to Sasha to Jason and even to the Flamingo, is the survivor of some sort of violent crime. Even Damien is this, considering his upbringing and what Ra’s nearly did to him, but importantly he doesn’t see himself as a damaged victim. Thus, as the least knowingly victimized character he’s also the least serious and considered of anyone when the various confrontations occur.)

Likewise, his New X-Men at Marvel pretended for the most part that the other X-books didn’t exist, and offered radically different takes on the Claremont characters he brought in for arcs like “Murder at the Mansion” and the Magneto memorial story.

Well, his book was the lead book for that run, which the others were to take their cues from – something Claremont did a very good job with – and also worth noting, I believe the Magneto Memorial was something he was told to do.

The art is definitely doing its best to kill the momentum on this book for me. Tan’s Batman looks like Bruce (aka the most generic version of Batman possible), and the composition is bland as all get-out.

Tan’s Batman looks like Bruce (aka the most generic version of Batman possible), and the composition is bland as all get-out.

The fact you can say the layout is bland, and not incomprehensible is a sign that Tan really is stepping up for this job.

I’m not bashing what Morrison did on X-Men or elsewhere, just noting the way he usually interacts with shared character and plotline elements. In fact, it usually works better that way. The “Three of a Kind” Flash crossover issue was, for example, loads more interesting than the paint-by-numbers punch-up of the other two parts, for example.

I’m not trying to stir the pot here or anything, but Brian, it does seem like you only get upset by “You’re only saying that because ___” statements when they deal with Morrison. Maybe I have just noticed it on Morrison related posts, and not others. And I’m honestly not trying to be a dick here. But it seemed like Greg had some pretty valid criticisms of the issue, and based on my experiences reading this blog for the past 2 years or so, it seems if he made the same comments about a non-Morrison related review he wouldn’t have gotten the same response. I’m not really sure what my point is, other than there seems to be different rules when it comes to commenting on a Morrison related post versus a non-Morrison related post. I know I feel like I need to walk on eggshells when commenting on something about Morrison around here, while I don’t with other posts.

There’s a fairly weird subtext to this issue, at least from my perspective, in that Morrison seems to be playing straight with “big event” multi-writer storytelling for one of the few times in his superhero genre work. All the way back in his first real DC work on Animal Man, he tended to come at crossovers and events with a rather cockeyed or deliberately contrarian take.

which i remember reads like something he got from moore, or at least from moore’s SWAMP THING. moore also does bits of this in his ABC stuff. more moore-morrison mashes.

with the art: i love tan, but i must say he’s an ill-fit with what morrison’s trying to do in B&R, which is really to tell light-hearted tales, or as light-hearted as possible with the characters and premise. tan’s art doesn’t project the formal glee that quitely and stewart and (to a lesser degree) irving have, and that’s what basically “kills” the story. i’m with greg here about morrison’s writing, which is largely in the quippy one-liner everyone’s-so-hip mode, which actually works with quitely and stewart as their styles have that same vibe – cool, poppy – but i suspect with irving, the disconnect will be more like with tan’s, unless morrison actually tries to write to irving’s strengths (as he promised with tan’s). tan would’ve been more suited for the BATMAN RIP books, where dark and brooding and angsty were the words for the day.

I know I feel like I need to walk on eggshells when commenting on something about Morrison around here, while I don’t with other posts.

just wanna chime in and say yes, i feel the same way about morrison posts here, even as a reader. not saying it’s a bad thing. just saying that maybe it’s a blind spot.

No, that’s just a projection. Brian’s always extremely fair in his discussion and criticism of books.

No, that’s just a projection. Brian’s always extremely fair in his discussion and criticism of books.

how does that work exactly?

Come on, Dread Lord and Master, let’s be pals again!

Like I said, I was only put off because you, of all people (heck, just by virtue of being with the blog for so long), know how much that irritates me, so when I saw you do it, it seemed like it couldn’t possibly NOT be intentional, so it was like, “Huh? Why the heck is Greg saying that when he knows it irks me?” But sure, if it was a misunderstanding, then fair enough.

So we’re certainly good in my book (heck, it wasn’t like I was even pissed at you before, I was more taken aback at what seemed like you being pissy with me out of nowhere).

I’m not trying to stir the pot here or anything, but Brian, it does seem like you only get upset by “You’re only saying that because ___” statements when they deal with Morrison.

Morrison discussions tend to bring them out a lot, true, but they come out plenty of other times, too, for instance, every time Brad Meltzer is discussed.

I’m not really sure what my point is, other than there seems to be different rules when it comes to commenting on a Morrison related post versus a non-Morrison related post. I know I feel like I need to walk on eggshells when commenting on something about Morrison around here, while I don’t with other posts.

So long as you don’t say stuff like “You’re just saying that because _____” (i.e. ascribing motivations in the discussion), then you will be fine.

“how does that work exactly?”

I don’t know how any part of my post could be confusing.

I disagree with you, Apodaca, at least in it just being a projection. If you were to go back and look at the reactions to people disagreeing with a review on non-Morrison comics, and people disagreeing with a review on Morrison comics, I think it’s pretty obvious that disagreeing with a Morrison related post brings much harsher responses than the non-Morrison. And I don’t mean from Brian specifically. There’s plenty of posters who do it too. I mean anyone who’s been visiting this site for any length of time should be aware that it’s a very pro-Morrison site. And that’s fine. But to think that a negative comment about a Morrison comic doesn’t get a harsher response than a negative comment about a non-Morrison comment is just ignoring reality.

Again, I’m not trying to stir up debate for the sake of debate. The only reason I even bring it up is because the main thing I like about this site over the hundreds (thousands?) of other comic sites out there is that the discussion on this site almost always is fairly civil. People may disagree, but there’s not any of the “You’re gay because you don’t like this comic” type of stuff you get on most of the other comic blogs I’ve been to. And in my opinion Brian is the main reason for this civility. His comments and/or posts only seem to get into the curt and/or angry territory in two instances: when there are numerous comments from people being rude and/or unreasonable (the reaction to the 9/10 If Only… post comes to mind) or if it’s a comment that is negative about Grant Morrison.

And as much as it’s a no-no to ascribe motivations to people’s comments here, after being here for quite a while it’s pretty easy to predict that certain people are going to love whatever Morrison comic is being discussed, and certain people aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with that. But trying to pretend that discussions about Morrison comics are as fair and balanced and non-biased as the discussion of other comics on this blog just doesn’t hold up.

His comments and/or posts only seem to get into the curt and/or angry territory in two instances: when there are numerous comments from people being rude and/or unreasonable (the reaction to the 9/10 If Only… post comes to mind) or if it’s a comment that is negative about Grant Morrison.

I was also curt recently with a poster who said something along the lines of “Any top five list that doesn’t have Cover X on it is just wrong.”

In any event, as I just noted a few posts earlier, it is not “negative comments about Grant Morrison,” it is people saying “you’re only saying that because ____” (or variations thereof), which happen with perhaps more frequency when Morrison is the topic, but they plainly exist in non-Morrison discussions, and I react the same each time they present themselves.

But sure, since Morrison discussions DO tend to bring out the “you’re just saying that because ____”/”Groupthink” arguments, then I suppose you could say that Morrison discussions bring out the negative responses from me, but that sounds like putting the cart before the horse.

Find me an instance where I got curt at someone simply saying they disliked a Morrison comic and… well, you won’t, so I don’t have to finish that thought.

I don’t know how to do the quotes thing, so my comment won’t be as easy to follow as Brian’s. Sorry.

I think someone saying “Any top five list that doesn’t include …” falls under my statement about people being unreasonable. But I guess that’s just semantics at this point.

Yes, Brian, I am sure you’ve haven’t been rude with anyone who has simply said they didn’t like a Morrison comic. Many posters here have, though, in my opinion, which relates to my “walking on eggshells” line from before.

And I also agree that Morrison discussions more than any other seem to bring out the “you’re just saying that because___” arguments. But at the same time I disagree with you that you can never ascribe motivations to someone else’s posts or comments. After visiting this blog for a while, it’s become noticeable to me that in a review of a Morrison comic you will focus much more on the positive, and to your credit will note the negative, but then will end with a “recommended” rating. Other comics might have the same positive to negative ratio, and will get a “not recommended.” Other posts by yourself and others have made it pretty clear you’re fans of virtually everything Morrison does. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I do think it’s a fair argument to make that your opinion of a Morrison comic is going to be slanted favorably by your positive feelings about him. So while I’m not about to pretend I know what you’re thinking, I’m reasonably sure – based on quite a bit of past evidence – that anything by Morrison is going to be received favorably by you, and that negative aspects of the work will be more easily forgiven than if they were done by another writer. And I don’t have a problem with that. I guess what bugs me is that it seems to me that the pro-Morrison people on this site refuse to consider the idea that they may just be biased in favor of anything Morrison does, and that bias caused them to react more harshly to anyone that disagrees with them on a Morrison related topic.

I think someone saying “Any top five list that doesn’t include …” falls under my statement about people being unreasonable. But I guess that’s just semantics at this point.

Yeah, I wasn’t pointing that out as an argument either way, I was just helpfully giving you another recent example of me being curt.

After visiting this blog for a while, it’s become noticeable to me that in a review of a Morrison comic you will focus much more on the positive, and to your credit will note the negative, but then will end with a “recommended” rating. Other comics might have the same positive to negative ratio, and will get a “not recommended.” Other posts by yourself and others have made it pretty clear you’re fans of virtually everything Morrison does. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I do think it’s a fair argument to make that your opinion of a Morrison comic is going to be slanted favorably by your positive feelings about him. So while I’m not about to pretend I know what you’re thinking, I’m reasonably sure – based on quite a bit of past evidence – that anything by Morrison is going to be received favorably by you, and that negative aspects of the work will be more easily forgiven than if they were done by another writer. And I don’t have a problem with that. I guess what bugs me is that it seems to me that the pro-Morrison people on this site refuse to consider the idea that they may just be biased in favor of anything Morrison does, and that bias caused them to react more harshly to anyone that disagrees with them on a Morrison related topic.

Here, though, I reject practically your entire premise, really.

Let’s break it down….

So while I’m not about to pretend I know what you’re thinking

Suggesting that I am giving Morrison reviews that I would not give a writer of the same work but a different name is doing exactly that.

and that negative aspects of the work will be more easily forgiven than if they were done by another writer.

Please, show me the “quite a bit of evidence” that demonstrates this claim. Because I reject that claim completely.

I guess what bugs me is that it seems to me that the pro-Morrison people on this site refuse to consider the idea that they may just be biased in favor of anything Morrison does, and that bias caused them to react more harshly to anyone that disagrees with them on a Morrison related topic.

I’ll consider anything, I just reject the idea.

Morrison gets good reviews from me because I determined that the comics I reviewed of his were good. Hell, I don’t believe I’ve ever given Ennis, Gaiman or Moore a “Not Recommended” either (a quick look shows that no, I have not given a “Not Recommend” to any of those three writers, and only once did I give one to Warren Ellis for that one issue of Fell that I did not like – and even that one was probably a bit harsh by me, although I really, really had a problem with that issue). Like Morrison, those guys are really good comic book writers, so the odds are their comics are going to be good. It’s their “goodness” that makes their comics good, not any bias I have towards them.

That isn’t to say that I would recommend everything Morrison (or any of those other writers) has written since the blog started – just the issues that I recommended on the blog (and admittedly, I HAVE reviewed more Morrison works than those other writers – I don’t think that really means anything one way or the other, but I suppose it makes my Morrison recommendations more noticeable).

And sure (here’s the part of your premise I don’t reject), I bet some other people not me have been rude to someone who criticized a Morrison comic. Sure, I’ll agree they shouldn’t do that. Bad on them.

I get that there isn’t any malice in your overall position, so it’s not like I’m offended or anything like that, but at the same time, I just don’t agree with it.

Oh, and the way you do quotes is to surround the text you want to quote with the following

< blockquote > < / blockquote> just without the spaces.

The Greg/ Brian “tiff” (for lack of a better term) was kind of surreal, and I thought it was just for show until the first apology post from Greg.

On the main topic of Batman & Robin issue #5, I thought it was a fairly pedestrian issue that could have been written by any number of capable writers at DC today. As a stand alone issue it was not too impressive (and I say that as a big Morrison fan too. I certainly don’t criticize him very often outside of Vimanarama). When I read the whole of Batman & Robin and this is just a chapter of a larger piece I’m sure I will feel differently about the issue (for better or for worse). But for now I feel like it was just OK. However I do wonder if tan is replaced by one of Morrison’s other collaborators, not even a Quitely or a J.H. Williams, but say Tony Daniel, would I feel a 100% differently, and say this issue was great? Maybe. It would certainly have been easier to read.

Wasn’t there a comic we were discussing once? Anyone want to discuss that?

While I agree that projecting motivations should not be used as an opening argument, debates will often come to a point where the decision is either to give up the argument entirely or to point out a non-logic-based influence that may be at work. While Brian may argue that it’s time to quit the argument at that point, I don’t think it’s right to just yield points over to people who are not being reasonable. This may sound stubborn, but really, you don’t want to encourage bad reasoning to the point where poor or, in the extreme case, fanatic reasoning becomes a good way to WIN an argument.

Take, for example, the contentious point of this thread.

The characters ARE the plot here, no?

Taken literally, it’s a fairly ridiculous statement, since plot cannot be characters, just by virtue of their respective definitions. You’ll never read something that says “Plot Summary: Jason Todd and Batman,” or you’ll laugh if you do. Plots are complete sentences with transitive verbs (Character X went from point A to point B), while characters are nouns with descriptive terms (the pompous, vain Character Y).

But of course, I doubt the original poster intended that statement as a strict equality: plot = characters in this comic book. Instead, he was implying that the emphasis of the comic is on the study of its characters. While this suggestion can be discerned with little difficulty from the statement he wrote, the phrasing here makes a difference. In its first form – “The characters ARE the plot” – the assertion is that there is no flaw in the comic book. It implies that Greg is perceiving weaknesses in the plot that do not exist because the characterization is the plot, and even Greg acknowledges that the characterization is well-handled. In its second form – “Well Greg, it’s really more of a character study than a plot-oriented issue” (btw I haven’t read the issue yet, so I couldn’t say whether any of this is true or not) – it concedes that Greg may have a point with what he’s saying, but also, observes that the flaws he’s noting aren’t key points in the text (though they are still flaws). It’s much more in the spirit of friendly debate.

But to get back to my main point, statements like “So you say that there are problems in the plot but the characterization is good? Well, the characters ARE the plot,” statements which attempt to mask or cover up real, recognized flaws (probably recognized anyway, as I don’t see why he wouldn’t argue the quality of the narrative if he had thought the actual plot was good), it’s these statements that cause people to question motives, since if the motive was to critique the comic “objectively” and a flaw was perceived, why would it be ignored? De-emphasized maybe – for example, you wouldn’t call a comic horrible because it had a typo on page 11 – or forgiven, but not completely stricken from the discussion. And if one’s points are being continually dismissed w/o a sound logical argument, naturally this will raise the question as to why, and, in my opinion, it’s a question that should be raised publically as well when the dispute gets to a certain stage.

Just a couple of things I wanted to note in addition:

1) I’m not saying it’s okay for someone’s first posted response to this review to be “Oh, Brian liked a Morrison comic? Big surprise. He’d like any piece of crap Morrison put out.” Motivation should only be questioned when the argument has turned into someone making several sound points and the other person effectively responding to them all with some variation on “No, dude, you’re wrong,” or “Who cares about that? What about the part where…”

2) I don’t have anything against Matt D, who innocently posted the seven word comment that my fussiness built into a four paragraph essay.

If nothing else, this debate has definitely reinforced my thoughts on the general civility on this site. There’s a fairly lengthy “arguement” going on here and yet everyone has remained very civil and respectful. Not something you find too often out there.

I meant that the projection was being cast onto Brian. You’re surely right that there are many prominent posters on the blog who are big fans of Morrison’s work, but I think you also have to give credit to people like myself and FGJ for easily acknowledging when something’s lacking.

The plots in this book, so far, have been pretty lackluster. I think that’s a byproduct of the fact that that it’s been focused on establishing the main characters and their relationships. I hope that as we get further into the run, they can breathe a little bit in some idea-space.

Omar:

So Jason Todd as the Red Hood is almost exactly the sort of character you’d expect Grant to avoid, or at least avoid playing straight:

I’d argue that he’s not really playing Jay straight, here.

Jay, as he has existed since his return, is a man who has no identity of his own – Azrael and Batgirl are about the only major bat-related identities he hasn’t taken!

But Morrison has him pushing himself back into himself – while he’s still using the Red Hood identity and the helmet is more like the original than the one he’s been wearing, his costume is neither a direct lift of the original, nor the generic (if attractive) bike jacket and jeans he’s been wearing. Even the scene that marks the return of his red hair points out the lack of identity up to this point – he’d been dying it to look like Dick, even after he stopped being Robin…and Nightwing. He’s no longer ‘the Angry Robin’ (a role now filled by Damien), nor ‘the Nightwing That Kills’ or ‘the Batman With the Gun’…he’s not even Red Hood: minor crime boss, as he was briefly in Robin – he’s the Red Hood – Crime Killer.

While not ‘wittily distant’ (a good description of much of Morrison’s use of characters that are actively in use elsewhere), it’s not really playing him straight, to my mind.

Also, does anyone else think the grey streak in his hair makes him look a bit too much like Jason Blood, or Jim Corrigan (the original) circa 1992?

Okay, lets see if that works.

On debating Morrison, even without putting words in people’s mouths or providing motivations for other people’s words, it gets tricky, because he writes quite differently to a lot of other superhero writers, leaving some work to the reader, and it gets very different reactions from different readers – some think it’s brilliant, others think it’s senseless gobbledygook, and it’s very hard to find a middle ground there…
Especially when one side looks down on those who don’t get it, or one side resents the other side for acting like they know something their side doesn’t…. and yet, it does often break down into the like/hate camps based on what some understood and what some didn’t.

On the DC boards recently, we were talking about the Countdown novelization, and what the FC one could be like.
Someone suggested the seen where Superman sings would be tricky to do, but harder to mock, and I said ‘the only people who mock it are those who don’t understand it’ – two posters popped up instantly to disagree with me demanding to be shown how it wasn’t stupid and didn’t come out of nowhere.
Well, the Final Crisis fans posted explanations and scans showing where and how it was set up, and what the panel actually meant.
One poster seems to have accepted it a bit more now, and seems happy with it – the other stopped posting in the thread.
My (looooong winded) point is, the people who were mocking the panel truly didn’t understand the scene at all, and nobody really likes it getting pointed out to them that they didn’t understand something (especially in a superman comic) – and as things like this happen a lot with Morrison, people are already edgy going into a conversation about his work.
And when you get people who refuse to re-read something, or think about something to come to a different conclusion than their initial one, he becomes one of the hardest superhero writers to discuss… and that’s before you start putting words in peoples mouths!

(And I should drink less coffee before posting it seems).

The plots in this book, so far, have been pretty lackluster. I think that’s a byproduct of the fact that that it’s been focused on establishing the main characters and their relationships. I hope that as we get further into the run, they can breathe a little bit in some idea-space.

I dunno, going by the books prior to RIP, his Batman seems all about nice little character moments and the big picture, with not much holding it together in-between.
I’m enjoying it, just not as much as I enjoyed, say, New X-Men.

Do we know how long he plans to stick on the title?
If it’s a limited run, I’m a bit worried, but if he’s decided to stay longer, I’ll be a happy man.