Did I Miss Something?

And so BATMAN R.I.P. draws to a close and, I hope, so does all the hype about it.

With the release of BATMAN #681 last week, Grant Morrison brought his bat-saga to a close to the confusion of many. Batman meets his demise in a typically superhero fashion (very similar to that once faced by Green Arrow and you all know what happened to him after that!) and one that doesn't feel a body. In comic book jargon, "No body, no death." So, like I postulated in my last missive here, we'll see Bruce back in tights sooner or later.

But what seems to be the big bugaboo about this ending is, in fact, it's NON-ending. That is, for issue upon issue the theme of BATMAN R.I.P. has rested on the question of "WHO is the Black Glove?" Just who was this mysterious person who called himself Dr. Hurt and who was not only dedicated to destroyed the Dark Knight but knew all of Batman's secrets? Fans and critics alike played a guessing game running down a list of suspects. Was he Alfred? Tim Drake? The continuity displaced older brother, Thomas Wayne Jr.? Or Bruce's father, Thomas Wayne himself? Or maybe The Devil?

Ya got me!

Because the final issue doesn't give that answer. Dr. Hurt taunts Batman by claiming to be Thomas Wayne who faked his own death so many years ago. Bruce was supposed to die along with his mother in Crime Alley but Joe Chill botched the job. And yet the taunts ring empty and hollow. Some fans cling to that solution and use it to basically decry Morrison for defaming the Batman myth.

In the end, The Devil ends up being the most likely candidate but even this fails to satisfy. Maybe if we hadn't been treated to Marvel's version of the Devil being used so poorly in the vomit-inducing Spider-Man story, "One More Day", it wouldn't be so disappointing.

However, I'm reminded of another DC 'event' that didn't work out as planned and wonder if the same thing has happened here.

Back in 1991, DC's company wide crossover event, ARMAGEDDON 2001, was built around the secret identity of main baddie, Monarch. In this series, a survivor from the future comes back in time to warn Earth that one of its heroes will go insane, kill all the other heroes and take over the planet. Originally, Captain Atom was slated to be the hero who would become Monarch but because the secret was leaked too early, Hawk (of the superhero team Hawk & Dove) was substituted in his place. This was widely regarded as a STUPID idea (on the level of Marvel's "Spider-Clone" series) and many fans felt that DC had not played fair.

I get that feeling here. For some reason, and I have nothing to prove it, I have the impression that Morrison had always MEANT for Dr. Hurt to be Bruce's father and that was the solution he had left all the clues for. After all, Morrison had said in interviews that the identity of Dr. Hurt would be "the most shocking revelation in Batman history in 70 years." But, somewhere along the way, someone stopped and said, "Whoa, no way that's going to happen" and put the kibosh on it.

Not that I disagree. Thomas Wayne being the head of the Black Glove is an awesomely BAD idea. It doesn't add anything to Batman's myth and actually detracts a great deal from it. Thankfully, no future writers will have to spend time fixing that conceptual error.

And I still think Dr. Hurt being The Devil is a boring answer. It's certainly nowhere near "the most shocking revelation".

Stuff happens

Something seems to be going on at DC comics these days.

By 'something', I mean chaos.

Coming off the critical and fan debacle that was COUNTDOWN, DC put a lot of it's eggs in one basket. A basket held by Grant Morrison. FINAL CRISIS was supposed to be Morrison's epic conclusion to all of his previous DC work. Instead it has produced a nearly universal 'eh' from the fans.

To make it worse, every week seems to bring up some new rumor or revelation from DC. We've got the major FINAL CRISIS artist who resigns from the book in mysterious circumstances (much blogger fodder came from this) then the announcements of more delays in the last issues of the series. Delays first because of new artists and, the most recent rumor, delays because Dan Didio didn't like the way the story ended and asked Morrison to rewrite. Now, I'm a big Morrison fan but even I'm not digging FC very much but the story is that the big M wasn't happy about having to make changes to a story that was written as it was approved.

Plus that would put not only FC behind schedule but all the comics that were to follow. The dominos are falling, folks!

Then comes word that fan favorite writer James Robinson supposedly had a big, public fight with Didio and quit the Superman books as well as DC. No one, least of all Robinson, has verified that. I find it hard to believe that DC didn't have a contract for Robinson to write X amount of issues and that they wouldn't hold him to it.

Now Didio is apparently courting Hollywood writers for his comics. The blogosphere is all agog that it's because he's alienated all of the writers and everyone refuses to work for him anymore. I didn't know that Didio was really Jim Shooter's secret identity.

I'm not a fan of Didio and still maintain that he is the worst thing to happen to DC comics since Infantino cancelled Kirby's Fourth World books. Still, the level of fecal matter hitting the fan where Didio is concerned is truly mind boggling.

All of this has done what I never thought COULD be done... I almost feel sorry for the guy.

It's hard not to have some sympathy when someone gets pounded on as much as Didio is lately. And, to his credit, he's never responded with a "oh, yeah? Well F-U!"

But it's weird to feel bad for someone whose every decision I've disagreed with. Thank God for Prez Bush! At least some part of my universe has remained normal! No way I'll feel sympathy for him anytime soon.

Strange too how we hear so little about Marvel these days. Sure, some books have been cancelled but no real stories about misbehavoir or fighting. It's like everyone's forgotten about "One More Day". But I haven't forgotten! Quesada is still as bad as ever but Didio's seems to be everyone's favorite whipping boy these days.

Comics is weird bizness.

Teflon Dan Strikes Again!

Dan Didio truly amazes me.

How he can say and do the things he does and still keep his job is an acrobatic act truly worthy of the Flying Wallandas.

Last weekend, at the Fan Expo in Canada, Didio talked about several interesting things including the fact that the reboots of old characters (like Blue Beetle) hadn't really caught on. No surprise there that readers didn't embrace unimaginative rehashes of old concepts.

What caught my eye was a report where Didio talked about the return of Barry Allen to the DCU. In a talk with Comic Book Resources, Didio says how he "loves that Barry Allen is back" and that he "...was a big Barry Allen fan from Day One.”

That's interesting to me because, for years now, Didio has always been the one to say that Barry wasn't coming back, no way, no how. As recently as September 2007 at Baltimore Comic-Con, Didio said, "No Barry Allen plans, he's not coming back. It's the first time I can say that without screwing it up."

So either there were no plans at that time or Didio was simply b.s.ing. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that there were no plans for Barry's return then... but, in the words of my hero, Lewis Black, "I have doubts."

In a 6/9/08 interview with Newsarama, Grant Morrison had this to say about his blockbuster DC series, FINAL CRISIS:

"GM: Well, the way it worked out was that I started writing Final Crisis #1 in early 2006, around the same time as the 52 series was starting to come out, so Final Crisis was more a continuation of plot threads from Seven Soldiers and 52 than anything else. Final Crisis was partly-written and broken down into rough issue-by-issue plots before Countdown was even conceived, let alone written. And J.G. was already working on designs and early layouts by the time Countdown started. There wasn’t really much opportunity, or desire, to modify our content at that stage."

Now, I'm not a math professor or anything. I'm just some dumb nerd that reads comics but, unless I'm mistaken, 2006 was BEFORE 2007! That means that FINAL CRISIS was well under way when Didio said there were no plans to bring Barry back. But bringing Barry back is a MAJOR factor of the plot of FC. So, did no one TELL Didio? Was he left out of the loop so he could have plausible deniability in 2007? Did Morrison have WMD and, if so, when did Didio find out and how much did he know when he found out? What did he know and did he know what he knew when he knew it?

No wonder I have a headache.

Didio is quickly becoming the George W. Bush of comics which means you can't trust a word he says. Unless he "crosses his heart and swears to die" first. Or pinky-swears. That might work.