Hyper-Adapter in Birth of the Demon (and Elsewhere)

[JBatmanFan05]

Where was I when Chris Burnham chatted about having his own reading order?

Details!

He gave the order twice here on (old) CBR (I have both printed up). Said he did not discuss it with Grant, but said he's a big fan, and thinks it's the best because B&R & ROBW bounce off each other with little connections/revelations. Once I got my custom binds back from the bindery, I found myself really agreeing with the order as probably what Grant intended.

Perhaps a mod or someone can go into the archive and find Chris's two posts. nepenthes found some old posts of mine once.

[K. Jones]

He gave the order twice here on (old) CBR (I have both printed up). Said he did not discuss it with Grant, but said he's a big fan, and thinks it's the best because B&R & ROBW bounce off each other with little connections/revelations. Once I got my custom binds back from the bindery, I found myself really agreeing with the order as probably what Grant intended.

Perhaps a mod or someone can go into the archive and find Chris's two posts. nepenthes found some old posts of mine once.

God it wouldn't surprise me if I was around in that arc espousing my own reading order. My memory is shot.

I really really need to see Burnham's Absolute pages. I've been holding off on my ultimate re-read until I could get them, but having no money doesn't help.

[t hedge coke]

I don't like them interleaved and don't think it's necessary (or good for story flow), but I can understand for those who want to keep a chronology as strong as possible, where the attraction is.

[JBatmanFan05]

10/1/2011: Chris Burnham on his order (from my printed out copies of his posts):

[In ref to some other order] That's certainly the easiest way, but I think it disrupts the intended simultaneity of Batman & Robin and Return of Bruce Wayne. Puzzles in one are solved in the other. For my money, this way [Chris's order] makes the most narrative sense. I haven't asked Grant about it, but I'm sure he'd say that any way you read it is fine as long as your imagination is engaged.

Burnham's order was not my first idea of a best/intended order either, but I do think there was the intended simultaneity of Bruce gradually fighting his way forward to the present while Dick & Damian tackled Joker/Hurt. Damian asks why they left Joker (just revealed as Oberon) alone in one issue of ROBW, suggesting to me that Grant put that remark in there knowing you had just read an issue of B&R the prior month. Then there's some Bruce clues and other little connections between B&R and ROBW, the puzzles Chris mentions. All in all, I think Grant wasn't thinking so tpb-minded and flow-minded and wanted an interweaved mega story.

Nobody was too big on 682 & 683 being part of Final Crisis, they disrupt Final Crisis' flow some and are very Batman-related with nothing except the Lump anchoring it to FC, yet....Grant said it was part of Final Crisis and so it was put there. I think the interweaving is like that, something intended, for better or worse, flowing well or not.