Batman R.I.P
It’s been a long time since I’ve last written and I’m going to attempt to be better at this blogging thing. I’m unfortunately the type of person to get really excited about a project, work on it for a while and then push it aside for the next “big idea”. I won’t let this become one of them.
So, I’m going to spend today catching up on some posts long overdue, and the first is a review of Batman R.I.P. written by the amazing Grant Morrison and art by Tony Daniel. Now, I say Grant Morrison is amazing because he has written two of my favourite books – All Star Superman and Batman: Arkham Asylum – and since I’m a girl the fact he’s a snappy dresser and has a wicked accent also helps me give him this label.
When I first heard about R.I.P at Emerald City Comic Con last year (April 2008) I was fairly excited to see what it was about, but I wanted to wait for the trade to be released since I hate jumping into a series where I don’t have all the floppies. Call me a completionist if you must. However, during the run of the series I had heard many reviews that it was incredibly convoluted and that a person needed a Batman Encyclopedia to understand it. This really put me off from picking it up, especially since Final Crisis has lost me as a reader for the same reason.
Flash to a few weeks ago. I’ve started picking up the Battle for the Cowl one shots, which are very good by the way, and I realized that I’m missing a huge chunk of the story since I never read R.I.P due to the poor reviews. I finally break down and decide to read it. Luckily, I actually do own and have read the Batman Encyclopedia so I was prepared for this endeavor. It still wasn’t enough.
Batman of Zur-En-Arrh?
I don’t think convoluted was the right word for it. I don’t think it was overly complicated at all, it was just really stupid in parts. I was expecting this big epic story, but I received a fairly disappointing story that used incredibly obscure references as its main driving plot device.
The story surrounds the creation of a new group of villains called the Black Glove that manage plant a hypnotic suggestion Batman’s mind wiping his memory. However, before all this Bruce had planned for such an event and planted an alternate personality in his brain that would emerge if the real Batman disappeared. This I can handle. Unfortunately for the readers, the alternate personality is an obscure reference to a alternate dimension that barely gets a paragraph in the Batman Encyclopedia.
I mean, who the hell is going to remember, or even care about, Batman of Zur-En-Arrh? And why the hell was Bat-mite there? I’m aware it was all a part of Bruce’s mental defense system but Bat-Mite…. seriously? Grant Morrison, you can do better than this.
There are 2 reasons to read this book:
1. To fill in the gap before reading Battle of the Cowl (which you should read)
2. One of the best Joker cameos I’ve ever seen. (See picture)
Overall, one hell of a disappointment.
WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with you! Totally was looking for something more since Grant Morrison
is the writer! I also agree that the Joker cameo was friggin’ BRILLIANT!
i DID NOT have a Batman encyclopedia when I read this, but I knew enough of the stories to get
most of it, with the exception of the Zur-En-Arrh part, which threw me… that actually has a
reference in the encyclopedia?
All in all, I’m glad my brother got it for me as a gift… I definitely did NOT see me buying this, but
granted I might’ve broken and bought it too… haha!
see you in school!
-Anthony