Who is your Batman? Is it the Adam West, Michael Keaton, or
Christian Bale Batman? Or do you prefer the writings of Denny O’Neil, Frank
Miller, and Jeph Loeb? Also what about animated movies and Cartoons from the
90s? Who is your Batman? Grant Morrison takes all batmen from all times
neglecting none of his stories in the past seventy years and throws them into a
magical caldron mixing them with masterful writing, philosophy, great art, and
imagination. Making one the best batman stories of the century; showing that
you should respect all batmen from all times no matter the silliness. This is
why it’s so great.
The Good
The book begins like an old comic from the fifties with
batman and joker going at it. There’s a flying joker copter and batman fighting
with swords man bat assassins it’s a hell of a lot of fun! In this book we are
introduced to a brand new character Damien Wayne and it turns out that he is
the son of Talia al ghul daughter to the league of shadows leader Ras al
ghul. Honestly I believe Damien is one
of the better batman characters to be created in the past couple of decades. He
is different from all the members of the bat family and the way he treats Tim
Drake is awesome, he is a cocky little shit and is every way different from his
father but in some many ways he is just like his dad for example he is a great
detective and a good fighter and deep down he wants to do right. In this book
there is a one shot story about Damien being batman in the future and its great
he is even more dark and gritty batman then his father plus he has a trench
coat and uses guns! After the batman and son arc is over it begins the black
glove half of the story it deals with the three ghosts of batman and the club
of heroes. Batman’s three ghosts are cops that have been trained and driven
insane by Dr. Hurt in an attempt to kill batman. The club of heroes which was
my favorite part in the book is a story where batman and robin are invited for
a reunion of the club of heroes. It’s basically a justice league with all
batmen from different countries. It happens to be that they were all invited to
be ambushed and killed by the black glove but the batmen and sidekicks foil the
plan and escape. I loved all of these stories because they took parts from all
of batman’s old continuity use them in interesting new ways that have never
been done before in a batman comic, such as the club of heroes which was in a
comic from the 50s and Damien comes from the story batman son of the demon
where Bruce and Talia get it on, but it doesn’t end there are lots of
references to old batman stories in here. This is a story that will be
remembered for ages to come and it’s just the beginning of Grant Morrison’s
critically acclaimed run on batman. As for the art Andy Kubert does a great off
drawing batman and the more silly things that happens like this
he is
masterfully in every way. The other artist J.H Williams draws the club of
heroes story which is awesome if you loved his Batwomen then you’ll enjoy
seeing him draw other members of the bat family his art and style is on a whole
another level. There is so much to enjoy from this book if you love batman like
I do it is a must read.
The Bad
There is not a lot of bad in this book just a couple gripes
I had such as in the middle of the book there is a short story with computer
generated images, for me it was off putting so I skipped it. Also the changes
in the art might bug some people but perfectly fine since there great artist.
And finally it might take more than one read to understand fully what grant
Morrison is trying to say, there are very complex ideas in this book so don’t
be afraid to read more than once for a full understanding and to catch stuff
you missed.
THE SCORE: 8/10
If you love batmen of all shapes and sizes, then you’ll love
this great tale of the batmen as we go through some forgotten parts of his
history. It’s a great read and if you want to start Grant Morrison’s epic run
on Batman this is the place to start
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