Okay, I’m gonna say this here and risk having my nerd credentials revoked: What is the big deal about Grant Morrison?  I read “All Star Superman” and thought, “Eh.  It’s all right, but it’s a little tough to follow.”  Then I read all the hype about “Batman R.I.P.,” and how it was gonna change everything forever and be so important blah blah blah so I had to check it out, but I just don’t get it.  It left me angry and confused.

I confess, I haven’t read Batman in years—not since Joker killed Jason Todd, really—so I wasn’t up on the Bat-son storyline, and Tim Drake’s solo book (as well as Nightwing’s) have never even come close to catching my eye, but if there’s gonna be a book that’s going to affect arguably the most important comic book character in the universe, shouldn’t anyone be able to pick up the story and understand it?  I mean, if D.C. is going to promote the hell out of it, they must be trying to draw in folks other than those who’ve bought every issue for the last year and half, right?

Argh.  Here’s some questions.  If any of you have answers, don’t hesitate to drop a comment.

1.  Is Dr. Hurt really Thomas Wayne, or not?

2.  Why does Bruce care if Dr. Hurt will “expose” the “truth” about the Wayne family, i.e., that Martha cuckholded Thomas with Alfred?  I mean, he’s supposed to be this crazed lunatic at this point, is he really worried about his father’s rep?

3.  And why would Bruce even believe that threat?  In order to make good on it, Dr. Hurt would have to expose the fact that he hired an assassin to kill both his own wife and his young son.  I don’t care how rich Dr. Hurt supposedly is, I don’t see how he could do that and get away with it.  At a minimum, it would affect the number of rich folks who wanted to show up at his stupid death parties where nobody even comes close to dying.

4.  Why did The Black Glove make the same rookie mistake that every villain from The Penguin to Liberace made back in the 1960s camp TV Batman show: They put Bats in a death trap (this time burying him alive) and then leave the scene and watch from afar, assuming that Bats will never be able to get out of it.  Of course, next issue, same Bat-time and channel, he got out.  And this time, it didn’t even seem difficult.  They didn’t explain it all, in fact.  Are we really supposed to believe he can dig himself out of a thousand pounds of raw Earth?  He must have had a bat-shovel in his utility belt.

5.  And what about the “trap” Batman himself set?  He locked everyone in Arkham with The Joker, but Joker didn’t do much of anything to them, and they all seem to have escaped fairly easily.  What was the point of that?

6.  Oh, and puh-leeze don’t tell me we’re supposed to think anyone but the most naïve retard would think that Batman couldn’t jump off of a helicopter before it exploded, OVER WATER, and get to safety?  I mean, he just managed to get out of a coffin buried underground, I’m pretty sure he can swim.  Why was that such a cool way to end the story?

7.  As for the “back story,” which consisted of flashbacks of Bruce, Dick, and Tim globetrotting: Why do I care about any of that?  Was it supposed to be philosophical?  If so, it was badly written.  It pretty much seemed irrelevant.

8.  WTF happened with Alfred?  At the end of one book, he looks dead.  Then he appears to be okay later on.  Is he dead?  If not, then did ANYONE end up R.I.P. at the end of the story?

9.  Why does the entire story have be told in such a disjointed fashion?  Are comics “dumb” if they actually tell a story with a beginning, middle and end?  If so, paint my ass red and call me stupid because if I saw a movie that was as confusing and jumbled as Batman R.I.P., my head would spin.  And if I spent about sixty bucks for the ticket–the cost of all the issues of R.I.P.–I’d be furious.

10.  All in all, there were some good story elements in the series, but no real story, not much of a plot, no conclusion, and absolutely no character development.  Not a bad story as far as stories go, but hardly an epic.

Tags: Superheroes