Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jimenez taking over Batman after issue 125

[Vordan]

But will anybody still care by then?

Of course they will. There’s a new Batman cartoon coming made by Timm, The Batman II is coming in 2025, The Brave and The Bold is coming at some point after that, Injustice 3 with its Batwank will be out in the near future, and we’ll probably see a new Batman solo game after Gotham Knight and Suicide Squad: KTJL flop. That’s the nice thing about being a Batman or a Spider-Man fan - no matter how bad the comics get there’s always alternatives, and their constant adaptions are creating an endless amount of new fans.

Next up is a freaking Joker story and Batman fanboys never get tired of those so I expect the sales to skyrocket again.

[Frontier]

The core of it is Zdarsky - he deconstructed Daredevil and now he’s doing the same for Batman. Batman is feeling old and on the decline, his need to prep time for every eventuality is biting him in the ass, first with Failsafe, then with Zur. His feeling of having lost his way culminates in his feuding with Catwoman and the Batfamily, to the current point where he’s cutting himself off again. All the while Zur is getting stronger because he’s advocating for just killing all the Rogues, which even without the multiple Zurs riding shotgun, Bruce is feeling susceptible to simply because he’s burnt out on fighting his forever war on crime. Yet he can’t quit or retire because as seen with the Red Mask world, a world without Batman is worse off not better.

There’s some good stuff here, it’s just been marred by a lousy crossover with a writer who is much lower in quality (Tini). Also Ram V is doing a deconstruction of Batman over in his book. Feels like we need another Morrison run of Batman being at his peak since the last three writers - Zdarsky, Tynion, and King - all portrayed a very fallible and broken Batman.

I feel like the deconstruction just doesn't work here because, yeah, we've been dealing with this kind of stuff multiple times in the past few runs but the rest just feels kind of hollow because it feels like he's riffing on other writers' concepts to the point of excessiveness and missing the forest for the trees. It just feels very hollow to me.

And he's not even using other characters well. At this point I'd put Zdarsky down as a weak Batfamily writer for anyone that's not Tim, let alone any hero who ends up in Batman's orbit.

[HsssH]

The core of it is Zdarsky - he deconstructed Daredevil and now he’s doing the same for Batman. Batman is feeling old and on the decline, his need to prep time for every eventuality is biting him in the ass, first with Failsafe, then with Zur. His feeling of having lost his way culminates in his feuding with Catwoman and the Batfamily, to the current point where he’s cutting himself off again. All the while Zur is getting stronger because he’s advocating for just killing all the Rogues, which even without the multiple Zurs riding shotgun, Bruce is feeling susceptible to simply because he’s burnt out on fighting his forever war on crime. Yet he can’t quit or retire because as seen with the Red Mask world, a world without Batman is worse off not better.

There’s some good stuff here, it’s just been marred by a lousy crossover with a writer who is much lower in quality (Tini). Also Ram V is doing a deconstruction of Batman over in his book. Feels like we need another Morrison run of Batman being at his peak since the last three writers - Zdarsky, Tynion, and King - all portrayed a very fallible and broken Batman.

Wild that Ram's story is being published at the same time.

[Aahz]

Feels like we need another Morrison run of Batman being at his peak since the last three writers - Zdarsky, Tynion, and King - all portrayed a very fallible and broken Batman.

I'm more down for something fun, simple and action packed like Waid is doing in Worlds Finest (or Williamson in Batman and Robin), another Morrioson run full of convoluted and poorly explained plots and concepts and I'm going to check completely out.

And I could really do without another event that will "change everything forever" for at least two years.

[exile001]

Of course they will. There’s a new Batman cartoon coming made by Timm, The Batman II is coming in 2025, The Brave and The Bold is coming at some point after that, Injustice 3 with its Batwank will be out in the near future, and we’ll probably see a new Batman solo game after Gotham Knight and Suicide Squad: KTJL flop. That’s the nice thing about being a Batman or a Spider-Man fan - no matter how bad the comics get there’s always alternatives, and their constant adaptions are creating an endless amount of new fans.

Next up is a freaking Joker story and Batman fanboys never get tired of those so I expect the sales to skyrocket again.

I don't really see what being bitter at Batman fans for Batman being popular is doing to enrich your life. Lol.

[thwhtGuardian]

The core of it is Zdarsky - he deconstructed Daredevil and now he’s doing the same for Batman. Batman is feeling old and on the decline, his need to prep time for every eventuality is biting him in the ass, first with Failsafe, then with Zur. His feeling of having lost his way culminates in his feuding with Catwoman and the Batfamily, to the current point where he’s cutting himself off again. All the while Zur is getting stronger because he’s advocating for just killing all the Rogues, which even without the multiple Zurs riding shotgun, Bruce is feeling susceptible to simply because he’s burnt out on fighting his forever war on crime. Yet he can’t quit or retire because as seen with the Red Mask world, a world without Batman is worse off not better.

There’s some good stuff here, it’s just been marred by a lousy crossover with a writer who is much lower in quality (Tini). Also Ram V is doing a deconstruction of Batman over in his book. Feels like we need another Morrison run of Batman being at his peak since the last three writers - Zdarsky, Tynion, and King - all portrayed a very fallible and broken Batman.

It's not the crossover that has marred things it's that editorial hasn't told him to edit things down. The Failsafe, Alternate Universe and the underlying Zur stories are interesting enough as concepts but there was nothing in them that needed as many issues as they got. If we had say two to three issues each for those stories instead of six each then you'd get more of what Zdarsky was trying to say about Batman but instead it just reads as a bloated mess.

[charliehustle415]

It's not the crossover that has marred things it's that editorial hasn't told him to edit things down. The Failsafe, Alternate Universe and the underlying Zur stories are interesting enough as concepts but there was nothing in them that needed as many issues as they got. If we had say two to three issues each for those stories instead of six each then you'd get more of what Zdarsky was trying to say about Batman but instead it just reads as a bloated mess.

I agree, but that's the nature of corporate superheroes nowadays. We rarely ever get a ONE issue one and done story let alone a two parter.

I remember when short two issue "non consequential" stories paid off years later to be extremely consequential and we as fans had our collective minds blown, but now everything has to be explicitly told to us and we have to have our hand held.

No more subtext, just TEXT

[MajorHoy]

It's not the crossover that has marred things it's that editorial hasn't told him to edit things down. The Failsafe, Alternate Universe and the underlying Zur stories are interesting enough as concepts but there was nothing in them that needed as many issues as they got. If we had say two to three issues each for those stories instead of six each then you'd get more of what Zdarsky was trying to say about Batman but instead it just reads as a bloated mess.

But . . . but . . . you need five or six to have a tpb collection!!!

[Frontier]

It's not the crossover that has marred things it's that editorial hasn't told him to edit things down. The Failsafe, Alternate Universe and the underlying Zur stories are interesting enough as concepts but there was nothing in them that needed as many issues as they got. If we had say two to three issues each for those stories instead of six each then you'd get more of what Zdarsky was trying to say about Batman but instead it just reads as a bloated mess.

I'm still not sure why we needed Zur to go from a backup personality to unhinged and out of control Batman...but I guess we needed another "Batman goes off the rails" story.

[Laser_Man]

I'm more down for something fun, simple and action packed like Waid is doing in Worlds Finest (or Williamson in Batman and Robin), another Morrioson run full of convoluted and poorly explained plots and concepts and I'm going to check completely out.

And I could really do without another event that will "change everything forever" for at least two years.

Agreed completely. We need stories like the great Alan Grant used to write in his run. Short, character driven stories where Batman deals with criminals in his day-to-day life.

I too am sick of every writer planning his run as some sort of earth shattering masterpiece. They just make a bunch of retcons, introduce unnecessary characters and then leave the character in a worse place than before, which makes it harder for future writers to ever fix it.

[9AlphaOmega1]

I think getting to writing, I guess a mainstream book, is a big responsibility and sometimes writers think or maybe higher ups want the books to be attention worthy. Maybe that is one of the problems of never ending books of a character, with DC they do reboots to reset their characters, than go back to where they begin few years later. Marvel, they ignore until someone wants to something with it, maybe I guess. But there are creator who thrive on the confusing history and make it to make some sense. The more I think about it, getting the bad or not so great story might inspire future story tellers to do better. Someone once said we need the bad in order to find out what is the good.

[Restingvoice]

The core of it is Zdarsky - he deconstructed Daredevil and now he’s doing the same for Batman. Batman is feeling old and on the decline, his need to prep time for every eventuality is biting him in the ass, first with Failsafe, then with Zur. His feeling of having lost his way culminates in his feuding with Catwoman and the Batfamily, to the current point where he’s cutting himself off again. All the while Zur is getting stronger because he’s advocating for just killing all the Rogues, which even without the multiple Zurs riding shotgun, Bruce is feeling susceptible to simply because he’s burnt out on fighting his forever war on crime. Yet he can’t quit or retire because as seen with the Red Mask world, a world without Batman is worse off not better.

There’s some good stuff here, it’s just been marred by a lousy crossover with a writer who is much lower in quality (Tini). Also Ram V is doing a deconstruction of Batman over in his book. Feels like we need another Morrison run of Batman being at his peak since the last three writers - Zdarsky, Tynion, and King - all portrayed a very fallible and broken Batman.

Yes conceptually I like the character debate he has going on of Batman vs Bruce
It's Gotham War where I feel like... I guess the point was he made decisions that feels like Zur because he IS Zur, he is both Bruce and Batman, he is both extremes and the middle, not separated by some kind of magical split personality... like I get what they're going for, but it's tiring because the past few years concept has been Stressed Batman similar to how New 52 is filled with Possessed Superman. It's tired.

[MAR420X]

[Vordan]

I don't really see what being bitter at Batman fans for Batman being popular is doing to enrich your life. Lol.

How on Earth is that bitter? Batman having so many adaptions is what sustains his sales and brings in new fans. I’m one of the few people here who isn’t being totally negative about Batman. I can see what Zdarsky is trying to do and appreciate it even if I think Gotham War was terrible.

And I fail to see how being passive aggressive under all of my posts because you’re butthurt over my opinions is enriching yours. I don’t like everything you like, get over it. You’re not a mod, no one here wants or needs you commenting on other peoples posts. Put me on ignore if I bother you that much.

[thwhtGuardian]

I agree, but that's the nature of corporate superheroes nowadays. We rarely ever get a ONE issue one and done story let alone a two parter.

I remember when short two issue "non consequential" stories paid off years later to be extremely consequential and we as fans had our collective minds blown, but now everything has to be explicitly told to us and we have to have our hand held.

No more subtext, just TEXT

It isn't a market wide problem though, it's really more of a Batman problem. For instance, although there is an overarching villain in Superman(Blue Earth) the overall run is made up of discrete stories that are no more than three issues. Waid's World's Finest and Titans books and books like Moon Knight, Fantastic Four and Wolverine over at Marvel are the same.

Sure there are others that have a similar issue, the Marvel Star Wars books are a big example of this, but it's not like it's a problem with all books that's unavoidable.