[QUOTE=godisawesome;4808791]Cassandra Cain had a neighbor she befriended for a few issues.[/QUOTE]
Brenda, who was probably nuked with Bludhaven. :(
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[QUOTE=godisawesome;4808791]Cassandra Cain had a neighbor she befriended for a few issues.[/QUOTE]
Brenda, who was probably nuked with Bludhaven. :(
[QUOTE=Wrestler;4808434]They say it's mentioned he was actually in coma in Robin: Year One, but I don't remember that, I'll have to give it a look again, if he was indeed alive, his pulse should be extremely weak to Batman commit this kind of mistake.
I'll definitely read Year Three, I'm reading some separate good stories people talk about sometimes.[/QUOTE]
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I went through all the pages in Robin Year One, and that's the only one which mentions Zucco, that he is actually DEAD. That's why you can't believe those editable fandom pages.
The most odd thing is that they go along with Zucco's fate in Dark Victory, but when Harvey is putting that judge on trial, he tells his story of how he ended up with half of his face destroyed by Maroni, but that's different from The Long Halloween, in this last one, the coin is given by his father, it's not the lucky silver dollar from Maroni as he says on Robin Year One, and Maroni wasn't facing trial on TLH, he was a witness. This is one of these things you have to ignore to go on with your reading order.
[QUOTE=David Walton;4808211]Denny O'Neil's [B]Legend of the Dark Knight [/B]#100 re-telling also has Zucco dying of a heart attack and that was before [B]Dark Victory[/B]. Not canon, but it seems like the idea of Zucco dying immediately stuck with most writers familiar with the original story. But I like the idea of Bruce and Dick working to solve Zucco's murder as his final transition out of Batman's shadow. (I know he can never fully escape the shadow of the bat, nor should he, but it's when he finally feels comfortable as Nightwing).[/QUOTE]
Dang. The O'Neil Dick and Bruce story wasn't my fave - the art was a bit too static, though lovely in rendering (I have the same feeling about a lot of hyper-rendered comic art), and O'Neil's writing for the Bruce and Dick relationship doesn't really wow me (the insistence on him not being a father to Dick was a really jarring reminder just how radically Batman an the Robins have shifted over the last 20 years).
But darn. That backup. Not only was Weeks a master back then (which I knew, from his Daredevil work), but goodness. I might finally see why people like Robinson (My exposure to him has all been Cry for Justice or later, and none of it has impressed me at all). I almost feel like the Under the Red Hood film read this comic and cribbed from its emotional beats.
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4809500]Dang. The O'Neil Dick and Bruce story wasn't my fave - the art was a bit too static, though lovely in rendering (I have the same feeling about a lot of hyper-rendered comic art), and O'Neil's writing for the Bruce and Dick relationship doesn't really wow me (the insistence on him not being a father to Dick was a really jarring reminder just how radically Batman an the Robins have shifted over the last 20 years).[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty much agreed. The art is static and that's a very poor fit for Dick Grayson, one of the most dynamic characters in all of comicdom!
The story itself doesn't add anything to Robin's origin that I can tell. Bruce's line is troubling, though in context, Alfred is off to the side going, "Sure, Master Bruce. Sure." So it's very much of a time when Bruce was written as being incapable of perceiving his true emotional state and Alfred and others have to play that role. I'm not personally a fan of Bruce being that stunted in his emotional development. And the contrast sticks out even more because of the back-up!
[QUOTE]But darn. That backup. Not only was Weeks a master back then (which I knew, from his Daredevil work), but goodness. I might finally see why people like Robinson (My exposure to him has all been Cry for Justice or later, and none of it has impressed me at all). I almost feel like the Under the Red Hood film read this comic and cribbed from its emotional beats.[/QUOTE]
Robinson is great. I hadn't made the UtRH adaptation connection but you're spot on.
[QUOTE=David Walton;4809887]I'm pretty much agreed. The art is static and that's a very poor fit for Dick Grayson, one of the most dynamic characters in all of comicdom!
The story itself doesn't add anything to Robin's origin that I can tell. Bruce's line is troubling, though in context, Alfred is off to the side going, "Sure, Master Bruce. Sure." So it's very much of a time when Bruce was written as being incapable of perceiving his true emotional state and Alfred and others have to play that role. I'm not personally a fan of Bruce being that stunted in his emotional development. And the contrast sticks out even more because of the back-up![/QUOTE]
I mean, clearly I think the contrast is deliberate - Dick opened Bruce up for that level of direct love for Jason to be possible.
I do wonder why we've made such a huge shift from "friends" to "sons" for the Robins.
[QUOTE=David Walton]The story itself doesn't add anything to Robin's origin that I can tell. Bruce's line is troubling, though in context, Alfred is off to the side going, "Sure, Master Bruce. Sure." So it's very much of a time when Bruce was written as being incapable of perceiving his true emotional state and Alfred and others have to play that role. I'm not personally a fan of Bruce being that stunted in his emotional development. And the contrast sticks out even more because of the back-up![/QUOTE]
One thing I dislike in that telling is having Bruce comes up with the name "Robin." There was this unfortunate tendency in this era to rob Dick Grayson of agency to the point where all he's ever doing is reacting to Bruce and it's unclear what drives him at all beyond that. I feel like being Robin should be a very active choice from Dick, rather than it being presented as he's drafted into this and kinda just goes along with it.
[QUOTE=millernumber1]I do wonder why we've made such a huge shift from "friends" to "sons" for the Robins.[/QUOTE]
I don't love that shift — which definitely occurred during O'Neil's editorial reign, especially in Knightfall/Prodigal and beyond — and I think it mostly hurts the characters. I feel like the New 52 was onto something with framing "Robin" like a prestigious internship, more than as a bunch of adopted children. It's a mentorship.
Actually I think the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Spider-Man/Iron Man might be the ideal version of the Robin/Batman dynamic, for me... I don't think those movies capture "my" Spidey, who I prefer as more of the Lee-era rebel/loner than someone who would want to be anyone's protege... they're better Robin movies than Spidey movies, imo.
Batman/Iron Man is paternalistic, and is a fatherly figure, but doesn't need to be housing, clothing, and feeding. Still "Family" but they're not literally dad/son, adoptive or otherwise. Because if Batman is more literally Robin's dad, then basically he needs to be able to say "I love you" to his children. But of course he can't because he needs to look cool, so instead it becomes like this weird Fonzie story point where because Batman is so cool he's slightly broken.
That's why I like the 90s Tim Drake Robin so much, because he does have that extra bit of independence with Jack being his Aunt May. Batman doesn't "own" him. It makes it a bit more of Robin choosing to go into this on his own, rather than inheriting the family business.
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4810760]One thing I dislike in that telling is having Bruce comes up with the name "Robin." There was this unfortunate tendency in this era to rob Dick Grayson of agency to the point where all he's ever doing is reacting to Bruce and it's unclear what drives him at all beyond that. I feel like being Robin should be a very active choice from Dick, rather than it being presented as he's drafted into this and kinda just goes along with it.
I don't love that shift — which definitely occurred during O'Neil's editorial reign, especially in Knightfall/Prodigal and beyond — and I think it mostly hurts the characters. I feel like the New 52 was onto something with framing "Robin" like a prestigious internship, more than as a bunch of adopted children. It's a mentorship.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the whole thing felt too by the numbers. It throws the Year Ones into much stronger light - they take the time to develop to big moments and ideas.
Hmm. I actually prefer the Robin=Son thing, and the Batgirl=semi-daughter thing to just "friends." Because, to me, Batman is defined by his loss of family, and finding and making a new family is a really powerful development of his story.
I like to think of the family relationships as varied: Bruce and Dick are very much a mix of a brotherhood and master/apprentice being closer on age than the others (with Alfred as more the paternal figure there), Bruce and Jason were actually a surrogate father and son relationship, Bruce and Tim was initially strictly master/apprentice... but shifted to the paternal relationship kicking in when DC decided to kill [B]everyone[/B] around Tim, and Cassandra as someone who very much views Bruce as a father figure but in her own almost worshipful way, with Babs becoming more the maternal and master there in terms of Cas’s growth.
I love the idea of Batman building a family, but I really do think it should vary more clearly in relationship to relationship.
[QUOTE=godisawesome;4810929]I like to think of the family relationships as varied: Bruce and Dick are very much a mix of a brotherhood and master/apprentice being closer on age than the others (with Alfred as more the paternal figure there), Bruce and Jason were actually a surrogate father and son relationship, Bruce and Tim was initially strictly master/apprentice... but shifted to the paternal relationship kicking in when DC decided to kill [B]everyone[/B] around Tim, and Cassandra as someone who very much views Bruce as a father figure but in her own almost worshipful way, with Babs becoming more the maternal and master there in terms of Cas’s growth.
I love the idea of Batman building a family, but I really do think it should vary more clearly in relationship to relationship.[/QUOTE]
That's a good point. But I think most of the writers do tend to write the Robins and Batgirls with different relationships to Bruce.
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4810944]That's a good point. But I think most of the writers do tend to write the Robins and Batgirls with different relationships to Bruce.[/QUOTE]
That’s actually one of the hallmarks of this era, and was one of the things that lead to my view of them.
I think it’s been lost a bit in the post-Flashpoint era, in part because of the reboot and Didio’s hatred of “redundancy” simply eliminating many of the “required reading lists” you could otherwise depend on as the basis for future writers, and in part because of the different ways the books and characters are handled now.
Speaking of Didio... I often think that the issues caused by his very weird and intrusive creative ideas could best be seen by the impact and dichotomy he wound up having on the Batfamily towards the end of this period. It’s like, on the one hand, he and the Bat editorial post-Denny O’Neil were really, [B]really[/B] good at getting the kind of high class talent you’d want on the books... but almost anytime he made an executive decision, gave a direct storytelling order, or allowed someone outside the Batbooks to do something Over The Top, you could always see it temporarily damaging the Batbooks before they’d usually right themselves.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t he behind the decisions to make Steph a Robin, then kill her, then make Cass go crazy and evil (and to have Adam Beecher not do the necessary research for it), try to exile and kill much of Chuck Dixon’s creations like Blüdhaven?
Because looking back, it feels like the Bat-writers made a whole lot of lemonade out of a frankly huge amount of lemons Didio directly and indirectly shoveled their way. Bryan Q. Miller followed the returning Dixon in exploiting Steoh’s eventual return, Morrison, Snyder, and Higgins manages to exploit Geoff Johns’s fix for Cassandra Cain, and Fabian Nicieza managed to both acknowledge most of the emotional trauma Tim had gone through *and* still pull him forward organically out of it.
Meanwhile, Didio basically interrupted and delayed Batman Inc. at the height of its popularity, tried to get it rewritten through o accommodate the new landscape, and eventually just had to let Morrison deliver a somewhat truncated version eventually.
I feel like the Bat books speak for Didio’s ability to find talent, and his status as a liability towards storytelling when he gets involved there.
[QUOTE=godisawesome;4811007]Please correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t he behind the decisions to make Steph a Robin, then kill her, then make Cass go crazy and evil (and to have Adam Beecher not do the necessary research for it), try to exile and kill much of Chuck Dixon’s creations like Blüdhaven?
Because looking back, it feels like the Bat-writers made a whole lot of lemonade out of a frankly huge amount of lemons Didio directly and indirectly shoveled their way. Bryan Q. Miller followed the returning Dixon in exploiting Steoh’s eventual return, Morrison, Snyder, and Higgins manages to exploit Geoff Johns’s fix for Cassandra Cain, and Fabian Nicieza managed to both acknowledge most of the emotional trauma Tim had gone through *and* still pull him forward organically out of it.
Meanwhile, Didio basically interrupted and delayed Batman Inc. at the height of its popularity, tried to get it rewritten through o accommodate the new landscape, and eventually just had to let Morrison deliver a somewhat truncated version eventually.
I feel like the Bat books speak for Didio’s ability to find talent, and his status as a liability towards storytelling when he gets involved there.[/QUOTE]
So...the question of "who killed Steph" has no real answer, and I've been looking for 15 years. Didio and Willingham, the biggest targets, have both denied it, saying that the decision was made before they got their respective assignments (Didio in a back of the comic interview, I believe, and Willingham in a podcast around 2014). The other writers who have denied responsibility are: Devin Grayson, Ed Brubaker, Dylan Horrocks, and Gail Simone. That leaves pretty much just Andersen Gabrych (one of the co-writers of War Crimes as well, and one of the only people who has on-the-record interviews about War Crimes, in which he is very enthusiastic, which points my suspicions directly at him) and Bob Harras, the Batman Group Editor at the time, who just doesn't give interviews at all. So I personally believe it's Gabrych and Harras, not Didio or Willingham, who made the decision.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Didio actually did make the decision, and forgot or obfuscated later.
I tend to credit Chris Yost more for pulling Tim out of his darkness - yes, he wrote the early part of Red Robin, where it started very dark, but Collision was a beautiful climb into the light. Nicieza stayed in the light for an arc or so, but by the end, it was slipping down into darkness again, which has really affected my view of the second half of Red Robin.
I do think it's interesting that all of the writers who work with Dan consistently say nice things about him. At least the ones who go on the record. I don't actually know if there's NDAs preventing the cranky ones from saying anything mean. Devin Grayson's interview last year seemed to indicate that there was really something rotten in the Bat-offices after O'Neil left, and she said that the same people are still there...which could mean it was Didio or Harras or one of the other long-runners.
[QUOTE=godisawesome;4810929]I like to think of the family relationships as varied: Bruce and Dick are very much a mix of a brotherhood and master/apprentice being closer on age than the others (with Alfred as more the paternal figure there), Bruce and Jason were actually a surrogate father and son relationship, Bruce and Tim was initially strictly master/apprentice... but shifted to the paternal relationship kicking in when DC decided to kill [B]everyone[/B] around Tim, and Cassandra as someone who very much views Bruce as a father figure but in her own almost worshipful way, with Babs becoming more the maternal and master there in terms of Cas’s growth.
I love the idea of Batman building a family, but I really do think it should vary more clearly in relationship to relationship.[/QUOTE]
Agreed 100%... I definitely think they can be a "Family" but more like how they're "family" in the Fast & Furious movies. Vin Diesel doesn't need to be adopting everyone for them to be "family."
Geoff Johns really took a giant steamroller to any nuance in the DCU.
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811154]Agreed 100%... I definitely think they can be a "Family" but more like how they're "family" in the Fast & Furious movies. Vin Diesel doesn't need to be adopting everyone for them to be "family."
Geoff Johns really took a giant steamroller to any nuance in the DCU.[/QUOTE]
I don't read a lot of Johns, because he doesn't touch the Batfamily directly very often, and I don't like team or event books very much. How do you see him destroying the nuance of the Batfamily?
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4811158]I don't read a lot of Johns, because he doesn't touch the Batfamily directly very often, and I don't like team or event books very much. How do you see him destroying the nuance of the Batfamily?[/QUOTE]
Maybe I have the wrong villain. I was under the assumption that Johns and Didio (as chief creative officer and editor in chief) were behind a lot of the drastic creative changes to align all of the IP to their most iconic / silver age forms.
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4811017]So...the question of "who killed Steph" has no real answer, and I've been looking for 15 years. Didio and Willingham, the biggest targets, have both denied it, saying that the decision was made before they got their respective assignments (Didio in a back of the comic interview, I believe, and Willingham in a podcast around 2014). The other writers who have denied responsibility are: Devin Grayson, Ed Brubaker, Dylan Horrocks, and Gail Simone. That leaves pretty much just Andersen Gabrych (one of the co-writers of War Crimes as well, and one of the only people who has on-the-record interviews about War Crimes, in which he is very enthusiastic, which points my suspicions directly at him) and Bob Harras, the Batman Group Editor at the time, who just doesn't give interviews at all. So I personally believe it's Gabrych and Harras, not Didio or Willingham, who made the decision.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Didio actually did make the decision, and forgot or obfuscated later.
I tend to credit Chris Yost more for pulling Tim out of his darkness - yes, he wrote the early part of Red Robin, where it started very dark, but Collision was a beautiful climb into the light. Nicieza stayed in the light for an arc or so, but by the end, it was slipping down into darkness again, which has really affected my view of the second half of Red Robin.
I do think it's interesting that all of the writers who work with Dan consistently say nice things about him. At least the ones who go on the record. I don't actually know if there's NDAs preventing the cranky ones from saying anything mean. Devin Grayson's interview last year seemed to indicate that there was really something rotten in the Bat-offices after O'Neil left, and she said that the same people are still there...which could mean it was Didio or Harras or one of the other long-runners.[/QUOTE]
I'd love to read some of these interviews if you know where to find them! I always loved reading Devin Grayson being candid.
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811197]Maybe I have the wrong villain. I was under the assumption that Johns and Didio (as chief creative officer and editor in chief) were behind a lot of the drastic creative changes to align all of the IP to their most iconic / silver age forms.[/QUOTE]
Well, I know that Johns and Didio are responsible for several changes I think are really destructive. I don't know quite what they're responsible for in terms of the way the Batfamily is characterized though. :)
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811204]I'd love to read some of these interviews if you know where to find them! I always loved reading Devin Grayson being candid.[/QUOTE]
Here's the one I'm talking about primarily: [url]https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2019/3/27/18283867/batman-80th-anniversary-detective-comics-1000-devin-grayson-interview[/url]
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4811211]Well, I know that Johns and Didio are responsible for several changes I think are really destructive. I don't know quite what they're responsible for in terms of the way the Batfamily is characterized though. :) [/QUOTE]
Well, Johns wrote Infinite Crisis which killed Jack Drake so that Tim could be adopted by Bruce, which to me is the point where Tim lost his original characterization. Infinite Crisis segues into One Year Later, which brought forth Evil Cass Cain (I know Adam Beechen wrote those issues but I'm guessing the decision to de-platform Cass came from higher up, ie Johns and Didio).
[QUOTE]Here's the one I'm talking about primarily: [url]https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2019/3/27/18283867/batman-80th-anniversary-detective-comics-1000-devin-grayson-interview[/url][/QUOTE]
Thank you!
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811217]Well, Johns wrote Infinite Crisis which killed Jack Drake so that Tim could be adopted by Bruce, which to me is the point where Tim lost his original characterization. Infinite Crisis segues into One Year Later, which brought forth Evil Cass Cain (I know Adam Beechen wrote those issues but I'm guessing the decision to de-platform Cass came from higher up, ie Johns and Didio).[/QUOTE]
I thought Identity Crisis, by Meltzer (but heavily pushed into the Dark and Edgy direction by Didio at least, and I think Harras) was what killed Jack Drake? I do think that killing Tim's dad, girlfriend, and probably stepmom (when Bludhaven was nuked) (and I suppose Kon, I just have never really read anything of their relationship) was a horrible series of decision designed to strip Tim of his original lighter aspect and turn him into another angstmuffin.
As for Evil Cass...that's another very complicated tale. I once had a link to a blog that laid out the evidence for who made what decision, but have lost it, and searching has not found it again, sadly. Beechen I believe has said that he didn't make the decision. Tomasi was the editor for that time period of Robin (and a big reason I'm not a fan of Tomasi in general). There's tons of rumors that Didio or someone else at the top made the decision that there could only be one Bat-female at a time, and this was during 52, when Kate Kane Batwoman was created. I have no solid evidence on that one, but it does sound kind of like what happened with the Bat-women during the n52, when Kate and Babs were the only ones who stuck around, while Steph, Cass, and Helena Bertinelli were all erased for 3-4 years.
Edit: found at least one interview which seems to implicate Eddie Berganza as the originator of the storyline: [url]https://casscainnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/02/pain-of-being-fan-of-cassandra-cain.html?m=0[/url]
If you could import five things from this era into the ongoing Rebirth continuity, what would you bring?
—Tim Drake's presence as Batman's partner in crimefighting, along with Tim's supporting cast, and his Peter Parker-like relatability/ordinariness. It doesn't work quite as well when Tim or Peter are super geniuses and world renowned corporate tech CEOs. I'd be interested to see how Rebirth Barbara Gordon would interact with 90s Tim Drake. With the death of Alfred, right now 90s Tim's dedication to serving Batman -- because he understands that Batman needs help -- would come in handy and it'd be interesting to see him and Selina interact more too; they had a solid and fun dynamic in the Dixon era.
—Tim Drake and Cassandra Cain's original costumes, regardless of codename. Nightwing obviously has his best costuming in this period too. I also think Batman's look in NML when it's all black, yellow oval, and pouch belt is the best version of his suit. Damn, is there anyone who's costumes have really improved in the New 52 or Rebirth? Huntress, maybe? Hmm. Riddler in Rebirth by Mikel Janin is probably my favorite look for that character more than the BTAS bowler hat and tie, or the green onesie jumpsuit.
—The fullest version of the GCPD roster: Bullock, Montoya, Hardback, Essen, Kitrich, Allen, Josie Mac, etc. For as much praise as The Long Halloween gets for doing Batman+The Godfather, Gotham Central is equally deserving for doing Batman+The Wire/NYPD Blue. I'd love to see more attempts at doing Batman stories from other perspectives, especially the Gotham police detectives.
—Jim Gordon is retired but still in contact with Batman, and new commissioner Michael Akins respects Batman but fundamentally disagrees with his whole operation.
—Nightwing. Rebirth [I]started[/I] so strong...
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4811221]I thought Identity Crisis, by Meltzer (but heavily pushed into the Dark and Edgy direction by Didio at least, and I think Harras) was what killed Jack Drake? I do think that killing Tim's dad, girlfriend, and probably stepmom (when Bludhaven was nuked) (and I suppose Kon, I just have never really read anything of their relationship) was a horrible series of decision designed to strip Tim of his original lighter aspect and turn him into another angstmuffin.
As for Evil Cass...that's another very complicated tale. I once had a link to a blog that laid out the evidence for who made what decision, but have lost it, and searching has not found it again, sadly. Beechen I believe has said that he didn't make the decision. Tomasi was the editor for that time period of Robin (and a big reason I'm not a fan of Tomasi in general). There's tons of rumors that Didio or someone else at the top made the decision that there could only be one Bat-female at a time, and this was during 52, when Kate Kane Batwoman was created. I have no solid evidence on that one, but it does sound kind of like what happened with the Bat-women during the n52, when Kate and Babs were the only ones who stuck around, while Steph, Cass, and Helena Bertinelli were all erased for 3-4 years.
Edit: found at least one interview which seems to implicate Eddie Berganza as the originator of the storyline: [url]https://casscainnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/02/pain-of-being-fan-of-cassandra-cain.html?m=0[/url][/QUOTE]
Ah you're right, it was Meltzer and Identity Crisis not Infinite Crisis, and thanks for the additional context. But yeah, all of these choices were really shortsighted for the long-term health and growth of the characters.
On the other hand, you know, it's interesting to me to also try to look at this whole era as [I]one giant story[/I] that does, more or less, have a beginning, middle, and an end.
The story is very much a tragedy, and it's exceedingly bleak for everyone involved. Bruce experiences nonstop loss for like two decades... it's sort of rosy for Tim and Dick for a minute, and then accelerates into a series of brick walls for them. In the "end" of the story, Tim is no longer someone with a way out of this life -- he's as committed as Bruce ever was, if not more so, and same with Dick.
Barbara starts the story at a lowpoint with The Killing Joke, but it becomes a blessing in disguise as her life actually generally improves, relatively speaking. She does lose her stepmom and her home and she's almost murdered by her brother.... she still lives in Gotham. But compared to the losses accumulated by Bruce, Dick, and Tim, she becomes more powerful than almost any Justice Leaguer, and she's doing it all at a computer, eventually becoming Batgirl of the meta-internet or something in Batman Inc. Plus she mentors two successful Batgirl proteges and, under her watch at least, neither of them die.
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4811211]
Here's the one I'm talking about primarily: [url]https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2019/3/27/18283867/batman-80th-anniversary-detective-comics-1000-devin-grayson-interview[/url][/QUOTE]
Fantastic interview from Devin Grayson... sounds like for a time it truly was a dream job and Denny O'Neil sounds like a dream editor. And it seems like she's pointing to Didio most of all at the end?
Googling around for less than a minute yielded this interview from 2014 which is also great, and she more explicitly names Didio. [url]https://thebatmanuniverse.net/tbu-exclusive-3/[/url]
More of her interviews are nicely compiled on her site: [url]http://www.devingrayson.net/links.html[/url]
Devin Grayson is someone who, unfortunately, I first got to know via her Nightwing run, and only really towards the end, when she made a few bad decisions right at the most unfotunate time, with War Games interrupting her “Born Again”-esque tale for Dick. I saw her work at its worst, and right at arguably the nadir of the Batbooks as a whole.
Only later did I actually get ahold of some of her earlier stuff and start to realize she was one of the best Batfamily writers, particularly for odd ensemble pieces.
I’m also that odd duck who actually really liked Nicieza’s runs on Robin and Red Robin, though in hindsight I understand people’s issues with them. Not to say I didn’t love Chris Yost’s take - I really like that as well. Looking back, you can see how maybe some of the reason I liked Tim’s Nicieza characterization was because it was trying to simultaneously fuse his old Peter Parker-esque days with Bruce Wayne’s Post-acrisis and Bronze Age characterization - [I]because Bruce was at first gone from the ensemble, then transitioning into a new phase with Inc.[/I]
I like Spider-Man, and I like Batman... so I was a sucker for Nicieza’s take on Red Robin. It also helped that his sense of humor is genuinely good, and he was doing some great worldbuilding with his, Dixon and Yost’s pieces. Again, though... I do get the complaints about Tim going darker and more, frankly, Machiavellian.
This era though... I feel like you could make [I]several[/I] good TV shows with it, if you selected the biggest and most memorable interconnected arcs from it, cleaned up a few of the inconsistencies, and even reworked some of the lesser stories.
Imagine if you were doing a Robin cartoon series, and knew you were going to launch a Spoiler/Batgirl III story... and so you revised some of War Games to better serve that story, removing the “Spoiler did it twist,” maybe faking out the audience with Steph’s death, before revealing that the whole Batfamily is faking her death and she’s becoming one of Batman’s personal spies, before returning to become Batgirl back home.
Or if you replaced “Evil Cass” with “dislussioned Cass,” having her go through something like her book’s final arc, and needing to do some soul-searching outside of Bruce’s purview, she leaves the mantle for Steph, before returning as Black Bat.
Or if you embraced the way Judd Winick restructured Under the Red Hold in the movie version to save time and create a better story for Jason’s resurrection... which is incidentally what I think Greg Weismann is doing on the side in Young Justice, while also incorporating Jason’s return with Damian’s early years.
Or you want to give Babs a good las story as Batgirl that directly ties into Killing Joker and her rise as Oracle - you want to keep Joker’s awesome monologue, but you want the more important event to get handled actually well (i.e., to do the [I]opposite[/I] of what Brian Azzarello thought was a good idea for the animated TLJ movie.)
Or maybe, you rethink how to do Talia’s transition from someone Bruce loved to his enemy, instead of weirdly combining stories where, at first, she was more ambiguous and more believable attractive to Bruce before being brainwashed, then rewritten to just always be bluntly evil. I mean, you’d want to use stuff like the seven where she confronts Bruce to get him back in the game when he’s out of Gotham during NML (great issue), with stuff like her having Damian, and heading Leviathan, but maybe playing it up more tragically and with more real heartbreak.
And I think that doing something like that would maybe lead to a more intentional maturation for Tim, rather than the one that the writers had to go with when his kith and kin suddenly started dropping all around him.
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4811017]So...the question of "who killed Steph" has no real answer, and I've been looking for 15 years. Didio and Willingham, the biggest targets, have both denied it, saying that the decision was made before they got their respective assignments (Didio in a back of the comic interview, I believe, and Willingham in a podcast around 2014). The other writers who have denied responsibility are: Devin Grayson, Ed Brubaker, Dylan Horrocks, and Gail Simone. That leaves pretty much just Andersen Gabrych (one of the co-writers of War Crimes as well, and one of the only people who has on-the-record interviews about War Crimes, in which he is very enthusiastic, which points my suspicions directly at him) and [b]Bob Harras, the Batman Group Editor at the time[/b], who just doesn't give interviews at all. So I personally believe it's Gabrych and Harras, not Didio or Willingham, who made the decision.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Didio actually did make the decision, and forgot or obfuscated later.
I tend to credit Chris Yost more for pulling Tim out of his darkness - yes, he wrote the early part of Red Robin, where it started very dark, but Collision was a beautiful climb into the light. Nicieza stayed in the light for an arc or so, but by the end, it was slipping down into darkness again, which has really affected my view of the second half of Red Robin.
I do think it's interesting that all of the writers who work with Dan consistently say nice things about him. At least the ones who go on the record. I don't actually know if there's NDAs preventing the cranky ones from saying anything mean. Devin Grayson's interview last year seemed to indicate that there was really something rotten in the Bat-offices after O'Neil left, and she said that the same people are still there...which could mean it was Didio or Harras or one of the other long-runners.[/QUOTE]
I’d just like to point out that it was actually Bob Schreck, not Harras, who was the Batman editor at the time. Schreck took over when O’Neil retired in 2000, and he was the Batman editor until Tomasi took over with One Year Later in 2006.
[QUOTE=godisawesome;4811494]Devin Grayson is someone who, unfortunately, I first got to know via her Nightwing run, and only really towards the end, when she made a few bad decisions right at the most unfotunate time, with War Games interrupting her “Born Again”-esque tale for Dick. I saw her work at its worst, and right at arguably the nadir of the Batbooks as a whole.
Only later did I actually get ahold of some of her earlier stuff and start to realize she was one of the best Batfamily writers, particularly for odd ensemble pieces.[/QUOTE]
Devin’s run on Gotham Knights was great! For those unaware, there is a lost issue of Gotham Knights soon to be released in the upcoming Arkham Zsasz trade paperback! I posted about it a while ago here [url] https://community.cbr.com/showthread.php?129086-Unpublished-Zsasz-story-from-2000-to-be-released-in-2020[/url]
A year or so ago I read a DCU novel Devin wrote back in 2006 titled “Inheritance”. It starred Batman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Arsenal, Aquaman, and Tempest. She was at her best there and it was a great story.
Just read The Last Arkham, really good story, I wasn't expecting much, but it delivered after all, first time Zsasz appears on my reading order, well, I highly recommend it.
Now it's time for Knightfall saga, but maybe before I go full force in this saga I'll read Joker Killer Smile, it's a story out of my reading order I'm looking forward to.
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811237]If you could import five things from this era into the ongoing Rebirth continuity, what would you bring?[/QUOTE]
1. No surprise to anyone: Steph Batgirl title, with Oracle as her mentor, and preferably Cass as a frequent guest or co-star.
2. The pre-Identity Crisis/War Games Tim Drake status quo - it preserved something different for him out of the Robins.
3. Birds of Prey, with Oracle - first Simone run, not second (second was too warped by Cry for Justice's damage to Black Canary, and Simone was not in nearly as good writing form)
I think, honestly, that's it for me. The other stuff I would like was already mostly done by Rebirth.
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811245]On the other hand, you know, it's interesting to me to also try to look at this whole era as [I]one giant story[/I] that does, more or less, have a beginning, middle, and an end.
The story is very much a tragedy, and it's exceedingly bleak for everyone involved. Bruce experiences nonstop loss for like two decades... it's sort of rosy for Tim and Dick for a minute, and then accelerates into a series of brick walls for them. In the "end" of the story, Tim is no longer someone with a way out of this life -- he's as committed as Bruce ever was, if not more so, and same with Dick.
Barbara starts the story at a lowpoint with The Killing Joke, but it becomes a blessing in disguise as her life actually generally improves, relatively speaking. She does lose her stepmom and her home and she's almost murdered by her brother.... she still lives in Gotham. But compared to the losses accumulated by Bruce, Dick, and Tim, she becomes more powerful than almost any Justice Leaguer, and she's doing it all at a computer, eventually becoming Batgirl of the meta-internet or something in Batman Inc. Plus she mentors two successful Batgirl proteges and, under her watch at least, neither of them die.[/QUOTE]
That's a really great look at the story. It does make me very sad for Tim and Dick. Bruce, though, seemed like he was kind of on top just before Flashpoint - Batman Inc vol 1 was full of victories and cool stuff for him.
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811267]Fantastic interview from Devin Grayson... sounds like for a time it truly was a dream job and Denny O'Neil sounds like a dream editor. And it seems like she's pointing to Didio most of all at the end?
Googling around for less than a minute yielded this interview from 2014 which is also great, and she more explicitly names Didio. [url]https://thebatmanuniverse.net/tbu-exclusive-3/[/url]
More of her interviews are nicely compiled on her site: [url]http://www.devingrayson.net/links.html[/url][/QUOTE]
Haha, that's the website I edit for (but long, long before I started writing for them) :). I do really wonder about Didio sometimes...
[QUOTE=godisawesome;4811494]I’m also that odd duck who actually really liked Nicieza’s runs on Robin and Red Robin, though in hindsight I understand people’s issues with them. Not to say I didn’t love Chris Yost’s take - I really like that as well. Looking back, you can see how maybe some of the reason I liked Tim’s Nicieza characterization was because it was trying to simultaneously fuse his old Peter Parker-esque days with Bruce Wayne’s Post-acrisis and Bronze Age characterization - [I]because Bruce was at first gone from the ensemble, then transitioning into a new phase with Inc.[/I]
I like Spider-Man, and I like Batman... so I was a sucker for Nicieza’s take on Red Robin. It also helped that his sense of humor is genuinely good, and he was doing some great worldbuilding with his, Dixon and Yost’s pieces. Again, though... I do get the complaints about Tim going darker and more, frankly, Machiavellian.
This era though... I feel like you could make [I]several[/I] good TV shows with it, if you selected the biggest and most memorable interconnected arcs from it, cleaned up a few of the inconsistencies, and even reworked some of the lesser stories.[/QUOTE]
My problems with Nicieza's runs on Robin and Red Robin have a lot to do with 1) the way he treated Steph in Robin (she was clearly meant to be on a bad path, and incredibly incompetent as well) 2) the really weird plotting (more in Robin than Red Robin, but there's a lot of weird elements that are either dropped because the universe ended, or just incompetent, like Cricket, Lynx, etc), 3) the really unpleasant feeling that Tim Drake was being put in a very inappropriate harem anime, making out with or being threatened with sexual assault or even just saying weirdly creepy and completely history-ignorant things about "hormonal tension" between him and Steph, and 4) the way he went really dark with the final two storylines (though, to be fair, Johns did a lot of the groundwork for that in the few issues of Teen Titans I have read, mostly the Titans of Tomorrow stuff).
I love your pitches for shows, and it makes me so sad we'll never get it. There's a thread on here for a hard reboot, and if I trusted DC to actually honor their character history and do something like this - like Batman Year One - where they take the raw material of their 80 years of history, and put it together in a new, more condensed, accessible form - I would be all for a hard reboot. But I know a hard reboot would look like what most hard reboots do - ignoring most of what happened, picking the worst aspects, and ignoring the stuff that was dearest to me.
[QUOTE=kevink31593;4811629]I’d just like to point out that it was actually Bob Schreck, not Harras, who was the Batman editor at the time. Schreck took over when O’Neil retired in 2000, and he was the Batman editor until Tomasi took over with One Year Later in 2006.[/QUOTE]
Good point. I got my Bobs mixed up. :)
[QUOTE=godisawesome;4811494]Devin Grayson is someone who, unfortunately, I first got to know via her Nightwing run, and only really towards the end, when she made a few bad decisions right at the most unfotunate time, with War Games interrupting her “Born Again”-esque tale for Dick. I saw her work at its worst, and right at arguably the nadir of the Batbooks as a whole.
Only later did I actually get ahold of some of her earlier stuff and start to realize she was one of the best Batfamily writers, particularly for odd ensemble pieces.[/QUOTE]
After reading a bunch of Devin Grayson interviews last night, I went back to re-read her Gotham Knights run and I think that is absolutely one of the very best runs on any Batman title by any writer, imo.
[QUOTE]This era though... I feel like you could make [I]several[/I] good TV shows with it, if you selected the biggest and most memorable interconnected arcs from it, cleaned up a few of the inconsistencies, and even reworked some of the lesser stories.
Imagine if you were doing a Robin cartoon series, and knew you were going to launch a Spoiler/Batgirl III story... and so you revised some of War Games to better serve that story, removing the “Spoiler did it twist,” maybe faking out the audience with Steph’s death, before revealing that the whole Batfamily is faking her death and she’s becoming one of Batman’s personal spies, before returning to become Batgirl back home.
Or if you replaced “Evil Cass” with “dislussioned Cass,” having her go through something like her book’s final arc, and needing to do some soul-searching outside of Bruce’s purview, she leaves the mantle for Steph, before returning as Black Bat.
Or if you embraced the way Judd Winick restructured Under the Red Hold in the movie version to save time and create a better story for Jason’s resurrection... which is incidentally what I think Greg Weismann is doing on the side in Young Justice, while also incorporating Jason’s return with Damian’s early years.
Or you want to give Babs a good las story as Batgirl that directly ties into Killing Joker and her rise as Oracle - you want to keep Joker’s awesome monologue, but you want the more important event to get handled actually well (i.e., to do the [I]opposite[/I] of what Brian Azzarello thought was a good idea for the animated TLJ movie.)
Or maybe, you rethink how to do Talia’s transition from someone Bruce loved to his enemy, instead of weirdly combining stories where, at first, she was more ambiguous and more believable attractive to Bruce before being brainwashed, then rewritten to just always be bluntly evil. I mean, you’d want to use stuff like the seven where she confronts Bruce to get him back in the game when he’s out of Gotham during NML (great issue), with stuff like her having Damian, and heading Leviathan, but maybe playing it up more tragically and with more real heartbreak.
And I think that doing something like that would maybe lead to a more intentional maturation for Tim, rather than the one that the writers had to go with when his kith and kin suddenly started dropping all around him.[/QUOTE]
Another killer post. Love all these ideas.
I'd love to see an animated series basically adapt this era "Under the Red Hood" style... going from basically "A Lonely Place of Dying" to "Batman Inc" (I'd skip past Killing Joke and A Death in the Family since both were already basically adapted and just reference them as having just occurred before the series began).
Given how important legacy and family is in this era, I think "Batman Family" would be an appropriate title.
It would be killer to see someone do DITF, than a Lonely Place of Dying, integrate Tim into the whole thing, than slowly hint that Jason’s returning and then finally have a confrontation between them during or after Under The Red Hood.
We got a few interesting first encounters between the Robins, but I’d argue that was one area where we didn’t really get a very controlled roll out of the idea, and we could have used it. Johns went with a very Johns-style story in Teen Titans between Jason and Tim thata didn’t really fit Winick’s style for Jason, and I think he and Dick’s first encounter after he was unmasked was in that regrettable OYL Nightwing book... which was probably the first time I realized I may have been too hasty in my judgement of Devin Grayson.
From Devin Grayson's site, I came across this blog post with some good recommendations from the post-NML period.
[url]http://www.gothamcalling.com/great-post-no-mans-land-stories/[/url]
In addition to Gotham Knights and Rucka's work, it also recommends Batman 80-Page Giant #3 and Catwoman (v2) #78, which I don't think I've read yet but am seeking out now on the DCU app.
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4811973]From Devin Grayson's site, I came across this blog post with some good recommendations from the post-NML period.
[url]http://www.gothamcalling.com/great-post-no-mans-land-stories/[/url]
In addition to Gotham Knights and Rucka's work, it also recommends Batman 80-Page Giant #3 and Catwoman (v2) #78, which I don't think I've read yet but am seeking out now on the DCU app.[/QUOTE]
Rucka's work is extraordinary.
For Catwoman, all of Brubaker's run is worth reading.
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4811211]Well, I know that Johns and Didio are responsible for several changes I think are really destructive. I don't know quite what they're responsible for in terms of the way the Batfamily is characterized though. :)[/QUOTE]
Didio is on record that he doesn't like Nightwing because he feels like Dick Grayson's development accelerates Bruce Wayne's aging process. That makes sense when you think about how the New 52 attempted to narrow the age gap between Bruce and Dick to about five years and sowed a lot of confusion about Dick's Teen Titans years. So I think Didio's instincts tend to run contrary to the kind of progression embodied by the 90s Bat-family. Or really, just the 90s in general. He seems to feel the same way about Wally West and the Flash family. (King is on record that the murderer and victims for [B]Heroes in Crisis[/B] were pre-selected and it was his job to craft the story around those choices.)
Personally, I've never had any problem with Bruce being in his late thirties to early forties. To my mind, that's peak Batman--slightly past his physical prime, but he more than makes up for it with the wisdom and skills he's picked up with age. But I tend to think DC should focus more on 'the world's greatest detective' side of things than over-the-top badassery involving hundreds of armed combatants. But if you're going have Batman fight off a thousand ninjas at once, does it really matter if he's thirty or forty? I mean, c'mon, you can't say you were going for realism in the first place!
[QUOTE=David Walton;4812471]Didio is on record that he doesn't like Nightwing because he feels like Dick Grayson's development accelerates Bruce Wayne's aging process. That makes sense when you think about how the New 52 attempted to narrow the age gap between Bruce and Dick to about five years and sowed a lot of confusion about Dick's Teen Titans years. So I think Didio's instincts tend to run contrary to the kind of progression embodied by the 90s Bat-family. Or really, just the 90s in general. He seems to feel the same way about Wally West and the Flash family. (King is on record that the murderer and victims for [B]Heroes in Crisis[/B] were pre-selected and it was his job to craft the story around those choices.)
Personally, I've never had any problem with Bruce being in his late thirties to early forties. To my mind, that's peak Batman--slightly past his physical prime, but he more than makes up for it with the wisdom and skills he's picked up with age. But I tend to think DC should focus more on 'the world's greatest detective' side of things than over-the-top badassery involving hundreds of armed combatants. But if you're going have Batman fight off a thousand ninjas at once, does it really matter if he's thirty or forty? I mean, c'mon, you can't say you were going for realism in the first place![/QUOTE]
I completely agree. I don't mind some hardcore bad-assery, but don't pretend that Batman is "just a human like us" if you're going for that. (And I realize that as a Tom King Batman fan I'm kinda breaking my rule here, but what are comic conversations for if not to highlight our inconsitancies?" :)
[QUOTE=gregpersons;4810760]One thing I dislike in that telling is having Bruce comes up with the name "Robin." There was this unfortunate tendency in this era to rob Dick Grayson of agency to the point where all he's ever doing is reacting to Bruce and it's unclear what drives him at all beyond that. I feel like being Robin should be a very active choice from Dick, rather than it being presented as he's drafted into this and kinda just goes along with it.[/QUOTE]
On the other hand, the story does have Dick Grayson pursue Zucco independently of Bruce.
[QUOTE]I don't love that shift — which definitely occurred during O'Neil's editorial reign, especially in Knightfall/Prodigal and beyond — and I think it mostly hurts the characters. I feel like the New 52 was onto something with framing "Robin" like a prestigious internship, more than as a bunch of adopted children. It's a mentorship.
Actually I think the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Spider-Man/Iron Man might be the ideal version of the Robin/Batman dynamic, for me... I don't think those movies capture "my" Spidey, who I prefer as more of the Lee-era rebel/loner than someone who would want to be anyone's protege... they're better Robin movies than Spidey movies, imo.
Batman/Iron Man is paternalistic, and is a fatherly figure, but doesn't need to be housing, clothing, and feeding. Still "Family" but they're not literally dad/son, adoptive or otherwise. Because if Batman is more literally Robin's dad, then basically he needs to be able to say "I love you" to his children. But of course he can't because he needs to look cool, so instead it becomes like this weird Fonzie story point where because Batman is so cool he's slightly broken.
That's why I like the 90s Tim Drake Robin so much, because he does have that extra bit of independence with Jack being his Aunt May. Batman doesn't "own" him. It makes it a bit more of Robin choosing to go into this on his own, rather than inheriting the family business.[/QUOTE]
Strongly disagree. I love Batman's paternal relationship with the Robins. And those relationships aren't any less unique because they all involve a father/son dynamic.
[QUOTE=millernumber1;4812479]I completely agree. I don't mind some hardcore bad-assery, but don't pretend that Batman is "just a human like us" if you're going for that. (And I realize that as a Tom King Batman fan I'm kinda breaking my rule here, but what are comic conversations for if not to highlight our inconsitancies?" :)[/QUOTE]
I remember reading an interview with Max Allan Collins and he said one of his big creative disagreements with editorial was that he had a random thug knock the wind out of Batman with a baseball bat. And they told him that wouldn't happen, and he was like, "I don't care if you're Batman or not, you take a baseball bat to the gut, you're not just going to shake it off!"
At any rate, it certainly seems silly to me to suggest that a thirty year man can single-handedly take out a thousand ninjas, but no, we totally draw the line at forty! I mean, can't he still take out like eight hundred ninjas at that point if eats his greens and exercises regularly?
[QUOTE=David Walton;4812483]I remember reading an interview with Max Allan Collins and he said one of his big creative disagreements with editorial was that he had a random thug knock the wind out of Batman with a baseball bat. And they told him that wouldn't happen, and he was like, "I don't care if you're Batman or not, you take a baseball bat to the gut, you're not just going to shake it off!"
At any rate, it certainly seems silly to me to suggest that a thirty year man can single-handedly take out a thousand ninjas, but no, we totally draw the line at forty! I mean, can't he still take out like eight hundred ninjas at that point if eats his greens and exercises regularly?[/QUOTE]
I think Collins has a point...but I read Batman very symbolically. So I don't mind if he shrugs off a lot, though I'd like him to have some reaction to pain. I think Batman 1989 went too far in that direction, having Batman be pretty darn incompetent, getting beaten by Joker's thugs pretty easily at the end.
I smile at your logical approach to Batman's age. At this point, Batman can do whatever the story wants him to do. I think it mostly matters whether we buy it or not.
[QUOTE=David Walton;4812471]Didio is on record that he doesn't like Nightwing because he feels like Dick Grayson's development accelerates Bruce Wayne's aging process. That makes sense when you think about how the New 52 attempted to narrow the age gap between Bruce and Dick to about five years and sowed a lot of confusion about Dick's Teen Titans years. So I think Didio's instincts tend to run contrary to the kind of progression embodied by the 90s Bat-family. Or really, just the 90s in general. He seems to feel the same way about Wally West and the Flash family. (King is on record that the murderer and victims for [B]Heroes in Crisis[/B] were pre-selected and it was his job to craft the story around those choices.)
[/QUOTE]
A bit of correction, King already has the plot written, and then he goes to DC asking which three characters he can use as the two suspects and one murderer. DC gave him Wally, Harley, and Booster, but he didn't mention if DC gave him specifics on which character can be used for which role, or if he gets the freedom to choose
[QUOTE=David Walton;4812471]Didio is on record that he doesn't like Nightwing because he feels like Dick Grayson's development accelerates Bruce Wayne's aging process. That makes sense when you think about how the New 52 attempted to narrow the age gap between Bruce and Dick to about five years and sowed a lot of confusion about Dick's Teen Titans years. So I think Didio's instincts tend to run contrary to the kind of progression embodied by the 90s Bat-family. Or really, just the 90s in general. He seems to feel the same way about Wally West and the Flash family. (King is on record that the murderer and victims for [B]Heroes in Crisis[/B] were pre-selected and it was his job to craft the story around those choices.)
Personally, I've never had any problem with Bruce being in his late thirties to early forties. To my mind, that's peak Batman--slightly past his physical prime, but he more than makes up for it with the wisdom and skills he's picked up with age. But I tend to think DC should focus more on 'the world's greatest detective' side of things than over-the-top badassery involving hundreds of armed combatants. But if you're going have Batman fight off a thousand ninjas at once, does it really matter if he's thirty or forty? I mean, c'mon, you can't say you were going for realism in the first place![/QUOTE]
Didio wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t combine a marketing first mentality (note: I didn’t say “market” first mentality) with simply bad taste; the Bat books just tend to feel it more by his perplexingly contradictory and just clearly bad decisions.
Like, Nightwing would have been totally safe if Didio realized the monetary value of the character by that point, or had the taste to recognize the quality in the character over the long run. Dick Grayson is in many ways just as much of a standard bearer as many of the JL7 characters. If you were just looking for consistent IPs people would buy, he’d be clocked as one, and there was exactly zero sign that he was cutting into Batman’s market share at all. A cursory glance would show that the Nightwing and Batman IPs are complimentary goods, that assist each other, not hinder each other.
But Didio was convinced that “old” Batman is scary or less interesting to audiences and new readers. This in spite of the fact that since at least the 80’s, Batman was pretty much always portrayed as being in his mid-to-late 30’s in modern times - and that period saw its first real spike around the time Frank Miller produced the first real “Old Man Batman” book , and when Batman managed to eventually surpass Superman in sales, especially once spinoffs were included.
Similarly, Didio seems to have showed that he and DC were heavily interested in a minority Batman character, so he kept pushing for new flavors of Batwing when the first one didn’t take off as he’d hoped, and he clearly wants to break into more niche and mainstream markets. But he allowed both Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown’s series to get cancelled, even though Cass was an successful Asian-American character, and Steph was making headway in the TPB lists that were appealing to young adults... and then he exiled both of them because he thought that their mere existence was a threat to Babs returning as Batgirl... which meant that he was also removing *two* characters with disabilities from the Batfamily as well, and right after Morrisonn/Snyder/everyone else had proved that you didn’t have to keep Cassandra in limbo to protect the Batgirl IP.
And I have to say that I think part of his problem isn’t that he hates the 90’s - it’s that he seems to think that Marvel’s artificial and doomed market spike in the 90’s is the way to go, compared to DC’s steady quality at the time. I mean, a lot of his New 52 ideas scream someone who tried to replicate Heroes Reborn, cover gimmicks, editorial-driven and artist-over-writing thinking that crashed the comic market.
Which is part of the reason why the Batman and Flash fans are so easily perturbed and annoyed by him - they were the primary beneficiaries of DC’s writing first focus leading to a string of successful runs that added up as time went on, and both arguably exploded more in the 90’s than other brands.
[QUOTE=Restingvoice;4812496]A bit of correction, King already has the plot written, and then he goes to DC asking which three characters he can use as the two suspects and one murderer. DC gave him Wally, Harley, and Booster, but he didn't mention if DC gave him specifics on which character can be used for which role, or if he gets the freedom to choose[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure he got them all handed in the specific roles they filled in the story. (I stand on record as saying that I personally really like Heroes in Crisis, but if Steph had been killed I would probably feel differently - I know how I'd feel if Steph had been in Wally's position...since she basically was in War Games, and I loved her in that, and think if War Games hadn't killed her off, I'd probably think the story was messy, but not necessarily bad - but even though I do like the story, I don't think it should have been published, and I think King is basically in the same spot - he thinks it is a good story, but not one that people wanted, and that was for perfectly legitimate reasons).
So apparently John Ostrander wrote some issues of Catwoman, and nobody told me that.
It starts with #72 of her first series, and is set during No Man’s Land, and features an ex-Joker henchman to stupid to realize his superpowers translate kinetic energy into a high until it splinted out to him, Batman defusing an Angry Catwoman mid attack by kissing her, and Catwoman fighting Mercy.
Aside from the fact that it’s when Jim Balent’s art started to go down hill, it’s actually really fun!
[QUOTE=David Walton;4812483]I remember reading an interview with Max Allan Collins and he said one of his big creative disagreements with editorial was that he had a random thug knock the wind out of Batman with a baseball bat. And they told him that wouldn't happen, and he was like, "I don't care if you're Batman or not, you take a baseball bat to the gut, you're not just going to shake it off!"
At any rate, it certainly seems silly to me to suggest that a thirty year man can single-handedly take out a thousand ninjas, but no, we totally draw the line at forty! I mean, can't he still take out like eight hundred ninjas at that point if eats his greens and exercises regularly?[/QUOTE]
I agree that Batman should be in his late 30s/early 40s, rather than a decade younger. Tom Brady is in his 40s and still playing in the NFL... in hockey and basketball and baseball, athletes playing into their 40s isn't unprecedented.
Batman should be like John McClane in "Die Hard" — it's not that he's physically unstoppable, but that he can take a beating and still keep going because of his determination and cleverness.