http://tinyurl.com/ncr6bz

Man I got nothing better to do.

New Ruxpin

http://tinyurl.com/2fy2po

"Unstuck in time."

Superheroes are stupid.

What an asinine, hacky thing to write for a black, female character.

The story starts with the second anniversary of the death of Captain America. There is a dispute between people, whether to honor him as a patriot, or hate him for being a traitor. Sharon Carter is also looking for the agent to whom she gave the gun she used to kill Steve Rogers. She tracks him down, and using a device from Nick Fury, she hypnotizes him and makes him tell her where he put the gun.

The focus they put on finding the specific gun, gives the writer the option of saying "It wasn't an ORDINARY gun..." so methinks we can see the beginnings of the ret-con right there.

As Bucky (the current Captain America) reflects on what's happening to the country, Rikki Barnes talks with Eli Bradley (aka Patriot), telling him that she wants to be Bucky's new partner. Patriot says that Bucky is not looking for a new partner right now, but he wants Rikki to meet him, like Steve would have wanted him to.

Meanwhile, Crossbones and Sin escape from the H.A.M.M.E.R. holding facility in Colorado, and the Red Skull returns, still trapped in his robot body. In Central Park, Falcon, Natasha, Bucky, Luke Cage, Jessica Drew, and Clint Barton are there without their costumes, but have a teleportation spell ready in case Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers attempt to capture them. Osborn, Sentry and the new Ms. Marvel manage to find the group while hovering over the park, but Osborn decides not to attack them. Instead, Osborn appears in front of the crowd, and says that the gathering, thought to be illegal, was approved by H.A.M.M.E.R. He declares that they will honor Captain America for who he was, and the crowd shouts his name, which upsets the Avengers present. Sharon Carter then appears to them, saying that there is still a way to save Steve.

At the H.A.M.M.E.R. holding facility in Colorado, Sin is questioned about a second shooter besides Crossbones in the murder of Captain America. They promise her freedom in exchange for the shooter, figuring that since the Red Skull is dead, she does not need to be loyal to him anymore. Sin laughs at this, and tackles the H.A.M.M.E.R agent, whispering something in his ear. She is about to escape when Bullseye captures her. Later, Bullseye and Norman Osborn are talking with the agent Sin attacked, and he says that she whispered, "Why are you sure he is dead?" Osborn declares that is a problem, but the question is whether she was talking about her father, or about Captain America.

Reborn

Sharon, Falcon, Vision, and Hank Pym are meeting together at Hank's lab. While Bucky and Black Widow infiltrate a H.A.M.M.E.R. helicarrier, Sharon explains to everyone how she shot Captain America. However, when they examine the gun, which she recovered in Captain America #600, they discover that it is technology sponsored by none other than Doctor Doom. (Yeah, saw THAT coming...) The gun didn't kill Steve, but as Zola explains to Osborn during a meeting, "froze him within space and time," and while Sharon was captured by Red Skull, she was used as part of a device to bring Steve back, or "unstick" him from time. When she damaged the machine, Steve did become "unstuck," however, no one is sure where. As Bucky and Widow are attacked by Ares and Venom, there are flashbacks to Steve Rogers, who appears on D-Day, his mother's death, and then back in D-Day with Bucky from that time. He questions what is happening to him, but appears to prepare to go along with where he is, and fight the battles of World War II all over again.

NO PRIZE!

And you know what, I just realized that Starman hasn't held up that well for me, having now read the third omnibus. It's a series that largely revolves around people sitting around telling stories, and those scenes are often suffused with a sugary sentimentality portrayed by a writer who is truly in love with the sound of his own voice-- Robinson has to narrate EVERYTHING in this series, often with way too many words-- as in redundant, syrupy, melodramatic words and very, very clumsy, hacky metaphors and similes: "The resolution like rice from a morning wedding on a windy afternoon. Scattered. Gone." There's stuff like that everywhere. And finally, thinking about it, I realized I kind of feel like Jack Knight is a huge fucking douche. He's a hipster poseur, with his little tattoos and collectible turds and "vintage" everything and lack of training or tradecraft. He's dull, kind of, in the sense that I feel Jack is a collection of quirks meant to signify "interesting" when really those quirks seem built around a hollow space, some lack of character, making him a, well, poseur. I couldn't understand this reaction at first. I'd loved the series when it first came out, though I did drop it somewhere in the mid-30s-- and now I remember why. There's this pedantic, kitschy sense of self-satisfaction to the book, which becomes more pronounced as it goes. A lot of dead air on the page, and a lot of purple prose. It's not really a bad comic, and can at times be really good, but as a series, it's hardly the defining masterpiece it seems to be taken for.

Give me 30 pages of the main story without fluff and filler and then I might see some value.

The secondary stories might be good but if that is the case collectthem and put them in their own book and you can keep you "bonus" material.

If that is how they justify the price hike, no thanks, you can remove that stuff and drop the price back down.

...Series7, I'm assuming that the Cap review is a homage to the scene in Watchmen, where Jon is on Mars, examining his entire life from his helter-skelter perspective on time. If you recall, he jumps forward and back multiple times as he's narrating how he ended up on Mars.

And as witty and amusing as it might have been to see the review of Cap as a Watchman homage, I still can't make heads or tails of it. Dammit, if only I could perceive time in a non-linear fashion.

Should've been a no-brainer, due to the unique format and the talent involved. Turns out, 16 over-size pages of poorly-colored newsprint doesn't really seem to be worth $4 a week.

What's a newspaper cost?

And for that, one also gets a sports section, a business section, a political section, a local section, an entertainment section AND a comics section.

Invisibles was so cool...

But I still think Jack Knight is a big fucking douche. And the series on a whole probably weighs in at something like 1 great issue for every 3 mediocre or outright bad ones.

They didn't want to tarnish their overall corporate image.

As a fan of comics and someone who works in corporate branding, I can see both sides of the coin here.

A Campbell sexpot cover, but an edgy, not sexy art style inside? What a bait and switch.

Firestar and Captain Marvel don't fit with Black Cat and Hellcat, but at least they are getting some exposure, which they weren't before. I have always loved Monica Rambeau, and am glad to see her here. Firestar is here as a plot device.

While I found the entire comic very entertaining, it's hard for me to imagine it being a success. The T&A crowd, of which I am a member, would prefer "Marvel Kitties" with Tigra and someone else, White Tiger or whoever, getting all sexy and ridiculous. The fleshed-out-female character fans, which I also am, are probably not hugely represented in the comic buying public.

I actually think if Deodato or Hughes or someone like that were drawing it, this book would do well. Must. Have. Sexy. Art. The sexy art would turn off actual women, but how many of them really buy comics, we all ask?

I'm going to hold true to that. When I get home this afternoon, I'll decide if it was worth it.

I mean from a paper quality -- big fuck no. This was how they justified the price hikes back in the 90s. Now we have reverted to something worse but we are paying more.

hey, me thinks I have an intro now for next week

Since I don't think you are trying to create strong female archetypes to atract more female readers with these titles, then with such bad art I wonder why bother doing them at all?

http://tinyurl.com/mrd8sv

Ivy and Harley have a long-standing ambiguous relationship most of us love. Catwoman has been a third wheel for a while. The whole thing totally makes sense, but needs better art.

Divas is just a gimmick, albeit one that entertained me, throwing together some random women. But that is kind of how lots of team books start. So I'll check out a few issues.

I'll admit there are some talky parts in Girls...but overall their shit is great.

Garth has always said the folks at DC (Wildstorm) were good to him and didn't want to see him censored anymore than he wanted to censor himself. It seemed fairly amicable.

One wonders what might have become of THE BOYS with stricter editorial restraint. Maybe no HEROGASM, but, really, cartoon superhero genitalia is something, after allo, the world might be better off without.

I said might.

Since I do work in corporate branding though the rationale is pretty sound.

Does anyone remember Captain America White? Supposed to be a 6 issue series by Loeb and Sale.

Number 0 came out, I dunno, like a year ago, so I'm predicting it will be completed in 2014!

FUCK YOU MARVEL, you killed Spiderman with that BRAND NEW DAY SHIT, and now this!

FUCK OFF AND DIE, no more money from me, except CA White, if it ever comes out again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You only read that when you're at the dentist's and the copies of "Sports Illustrated" and "National Geographic" are already being used.

Your priorities might be in the wrong place, my friend.

But, I must say, with what I know of the past fifty issues and a storyline that seemed to do the impossible - ie: return a once-thought dead sidekick to the land of the living in a way that not only made sense, but also, kicked alot of readers' happy arses - I sure wouldn't be pleased with warmed-over science fiction concepts, either.

Yeah, Kirby was great, but forty years have passed.

That's why I can't disagree any more strongly with opti's assesment of the current Batman. It's not "new" - it's 60's pop dressed up with 00's younger-skewing, twenty-something pouting. Great, if you like that stuff. I don't.

That, and Robinson pissing off Harris so the artist left. How could the replacements not have been terrible, by comparison.

Then again, I never read Vonnegut; I got all my understanding from a movie.

Believe me, when they start unleashing ideas as idiotic as the Black Lantern Flying Graysons, people will begin to talk.

Where are your heads at?

:-)

I also love PLANETARY.

It'll be fun watching the two of you type insults at each other.

Or, you can both gang up on me.

It's all good.

That's pretty funny.

As far as your jokes, I think you went to the well one too many times. You'll have to come up with some new material, green boxing gloves just won't cut it anymore. Maybe you should jump on the green folding chair that will be making its appearence in the up coming GL animated movie.

Now I'm very sad.

Sadder than Mariah Carey's voice at a Michael Jackson memorial.

And Monica Rambeau is the most fucked over character in Marvel comics. Once leader of the Avengers and arguably it's most powerful member, she has since been a parody of herself on Nextwave and Divas. Man, is this how to treat a Roger Stern & John Romita Jr. creation? Give her back her old powers and code name Captain Marvel already.

I hate to use offensive language, but the only reason she feel to the wayside and had the name Captain Marvel stripped from her is a bunch of loser fanboys, editors and writers in the late 80's and 90's couldn't handle a "nigger-cunt" being the caretaker of that esteemed name. Hopefully we have grown up enough to handle it now.

Hope Sting-Not-the-Singer comes out of the rafters with his green baseball bat and puts the green smack down.

Sting's dead right? Black Lantern Sting, see?

If he's not dead, does my joke still work, sorta?

And I say all this an African-American wife and mother.

Even I would've self-censored "n!@@er-cun+."

Yes, I know about the Black List. And I know about the Tuskegee experiments. But God am I sick of these ridiculous Nazi-like experiments the have the American government perform in comic books. America has made some mistakes, lots of mistakes, but believe me when never have done anything as remotely as bad as that in the last century.

The Boys, however, is absolute shit. I ripped on Millar last week, but Ennis annoys me just as much. Both are "Batman ass-raped in prison" kind of guys.

Really?

Even the guards might line up for a piece o' that.

At least the gay ones.

And remember, Randall Dowling was working for the US Government back then. Artemis was a government project.

As for the Nazi scientist being brought back to the US, I think that is something people exaggerate as some horrible sin we did. Yes, we brought back Nazi scientist - what were we supposed to do? Try them while the Russians where assembly a bunch themselves to be used to develop weapons? People seem to forget we lost hundred of thousands of lives in WWII, I can imagine our government saying we are going out of our way to make sure we have a leg up if we have to have another war.

What's a guy gotta do around here to merit asshole status? Insult Kevin Smith?

I'm willing. I mean it.

Of course, nowadays we are not buried under Pulp style vigilantes so we would like Batman to fill that void. But truthfully Batman AND Robin have been on the comic book scene longer than just Batman has.

I'm confused.

Not that we need to belabor the point.

Best human experiment in comics = Luke Cage. I can easily see us using volunteers from prison.

In fact, I assert, the whole "Batman is a douchebag" consensus that has reigned among comics readers for, say, ten years results from the identification with the endless line of teeny sidekicks and Bruce Wayne's perceived impatience with them.

And now, as a result, we have the original pixie-booted dope running around in daddy's clothes with the spawn of Satan at his side.

And I haven't yet heard anybody say they don't love it. (Myself, exempted.)

The giant starfish thing releases creatures to lay eggs in people's minds, which hatch and go all-Aliens on mankind.

Gheesh, Continentalop, you make it look easy.

How about this?

You find out you have a biological son. Granted, kid's mom is something of a bitch, and you want nothing to do with her family, but. And you've got your own family issues since you lost your father when you were ten.

So, instead of, say, taking the kid fishing, you dress him up in circus tights and send him out to chase psychopaths.

That's not an interesting enough angle.

So, you bring in the older adopted-step-brother for a creepy sleep-over?

Really?

Superheroes are stupid.

Gee, bet Two-Face is really gonna feel like a pussy when he gets his ass handed him by a ten-year-old.

No reason to throw Bruce Wayne under the bus because you think your readers would revolt if he pats one of the kids on the head.

Maybe not, though. Since Quitely will be off B&R by then, maybe the time'll be right to bash Morrison again.

Plus the fact the Bruce already hads 3 sons, Dick, Jason and Tim each with their own intersting character dynamic again making Damien pointless.

The bestt hing I think they could have done with him was if Jason had become Batman (or possible shared the mantle with Dick) and Damien died on his watch. Putting Jason in that role reversal would have been interesting for that character than bieng crazy or being an asshole.

I've come to realize I much, much prefer Batman as Sherlock Holmes+James Bond+The Shadow+Bruce Lee. Much more interesting than Dirty Harry in a bat outfit. Actually, I take that back. Harry Calahan had a sense of humor.

This is why I liked a lot of Morrison's Bruce Wayne work in his run.

He just spilled a little of himself on her skirt? Something like that?

I don't think anybody at DC knows exactly how Damien was made.

When Bruce Wayne was 16 he joined up with a circus under an alias so he could learn acrobatics. While there he met a young girl named Mary, who was about two-years older than Bruce and was just starting out as a circus arcobat as well. She had a boyfriend already, another circus acrobat named John Grayson. Despite that, she and Bruce became friends and soon lovers. However, she became pregnant and told Bruce about this. Bruce realized there was only one thing to do…and that was slip away in the middle of the night. She didn’t know his real name and would have no way of tracking him down, and Bruce wasn’t going to give up his war on crime because of some circus floozy.

Confused and scared, Mary convinced her boyfriend John that he was the father. John believed her and the two go married. Nine months later Richard Grayson was born.

8 years passed, and Bruce Wayne was now in Gotham fighting crime as Batman. But something was wrong. He had dedicated his whole life to this goal and now felt empty. He felt alone.

As fate would have it, as he was feeling down he passed a poster advertising Haley’s Circus and showing the star attractions, “The Flying Graysons.” Bruce Wayne instantly recognized Mary and John, but the young boy caused him to take a step back. The boy in the poster looked just like Bruce Wayne did about the time his parents were murdered.

Being a detective, Bruce Wayne did some research and discovered that Richard was 8 years off. Being good at math Wayne deduced who his real father was and made a surprise visit to Mary. She was shocked at seeing her ex-lover appear out of the blue, and even more shocked when he revealed that his real name was Bruce Wayne, famous Gotham millionaire, and that he knew he was Dick’s father. Bruce told Mary that he wanted the young man to live with him, but Mary refused and told Bruce that would happen over her dead body.

“Fine” thought Bruce. That night he went to the Circus big top and coated the trapeze ropes with acid. The next day, during Mary and John’s big finale, the ropes broke and the two plummeted to their death.

Knowing that Boss Zucco’s men had already made threats against the circus. Batman used the murder to frame him for this crime and then approaches Dick Grayson, offering him a chance at revenge. Dick readily accepts, and becomes Batman’s sidekick in the process, wearing an old costume that Bruce Wayne once wore.

Now Batman lives out his fantasy life – fighting crime but also resuming his relationship with his father. Batman, however, fills the role of his father, even wearing a costume that resembles the one his father once wore for Halloween, and Robin plays the part of a young Bruce Wayne living care-free and happy. And when Dick Grayson got to old, Bruce Wayne discarded him and found another surrogate son (notice they all resemble each other, and all look like a young Bruce Wayne) for him to continually live out this fantasy with.

I think Batman as "hairy chested love God," a-la James Bond with Sherlock Holmes and a dose of The Shadow is the way to go. As long as the stories aren't crap. Bruce Wayne has been written that way, and he's been written like a bitter Harry Callahan. I don't think he has to be either or.

That's what I thought we were supposed to be getting from Morrison, because, um, THAT'S WHAT HE SAID HE'D BE GIVING US. Instead, we got a drooling, lobotomized version of Adam West.

Then Morrison somewhere got the idea that it would be wicked to tell a story where Batman absolutely fails. But, to hedge his bets, he makes it not-really-Batman.

Mark me, Damien's gonna die, and Dick's gonna pout, and Bruce is still going to be written badly once he returns from Jurassic Park.

That makes the whole thing even worse!

Say what you will against The Dark Knight era, but I prefer most of it to any of the comic-book, sci-fi superhero babble. A human who develops nearly superhuman abilities in pursuit of a singular goal. His development. His goal. Once anybody can be Batman, no one can be Batman, paraphrasing THE INCREDIBLES and replacing "special" with "Batman."

A "realistic" human. That all went out the window with miraculous back healing, ressurrected sidekicks and, now, a sperm-shaped flying batmobile.

I'm old.

They did, however, contribute to KNIGHTFALL, the plague and the earthquake.

Nobody's perfect.

Morrison's idea, as he initially explained it, was to compress the entirety of Batman's written history into a single character's timeline. In other words, all the goofy 60's stuff actually happened to Post-Crisis, Dark Knight Bruce Wayne in some way, either physically or as hallucination induced by experiments conducted during his training.

It's a bold idea. Ambitious and admirable. But more than likely impossible.

So, he punted it and punted Bruce Wayne completely so he can tell his "flawed Faux Batman" story.

I ain't buying it any more than I bought that prose Joker story.

so... I'm

...gonna...

resist...

damian is an asshole in that, harvard legacy, trust fund, "do-you-know-who-my-dad-is" way. to me that makes all the difference, because how else would you expect batmans kid to act? it's like getting a caricature of "dark knight batman" in child form. it's almost like morrison is making fun of millers bullshit with damian.

Which ironically is one of the things I'm enjoying in Batman And Robin, the little bastard telling Dick and Alfred about how they're not professionals like his daddy. The rest of it isnt bad but nothing special, so I'm done as soon as Quitely is.

And if Damian really is a clone of some kind, then that is complete bullshit.

I dont know about this Divas book, they seem to have thrown random girls together for gimmick's sake.

Though I hear Aquaman will team up with Hawkman at some point. If that tickles anyone's balls.

The point I was trying to make in my review is that Douche Robins, no matter where it stems from seem to be short lived. Although this is only the second so perhaps I'll be proved wrong, but I don't think so.

Dick and Tim were around for so long becasue they embody the virtues of the super hero mythos.

Again though, time will tell.

Our government did all those things and they all came out in government records! Imagine what has not come out, what was illegally destroyed or shredded before reaching the public.

One more thing - look up Operation Northwoods. I am not one of these Loose change 9/11 conspiracy nuts, but it's not like the ideas haven't been seriously considered in the past.

I like the Luna Brothers because I wrote a negative review of ULTRA but admired their design skills and I got quoted on the cover of the trade with the one positive thing I had to say about the book.

I'm with Joe on the DIVAS deal. Who are we trying to kid here? Without the t&a, who but the most brainwashed would read this? Captain Marvel was the leader of the AVENGERS? I always sorta hated what Dan Slott has called Avengery Avengers (he likes 'em). I like the A list.

PLANETARY? City Zero was my favorite story. Forget real conspirary (which probably isn't all that real...I mean, try to get five people to agree on what movie to see next Friday night and see how impossible it would be to mount a massive conspiracy)it was a great warped twist on a pop culture phenomenon. Ellis and Hitch should get paid for MONSTERS VS. ALIENS. No City Zero, no MVA.

I liked Ellis' answer in PLANETARY: Because he's a monster...but as usual, the problem is the fans, which is the one thing John Byrne has been right about in decades. The Fans try to apply to Four concept to the FF and let's all scream together:"IT'S THE FANTASTIC FOUR! THAT'S LIKE LOOKING FOR HIDDEN MEANINGS IN THE LYRICS OF THE MONKEES. IT'S THE MONKEES!"

You like what you like.

And, it sounds to me like you have similar tastes to mine. HITMAN was one of the best books of the nineties, by far. STARMAN, well, it had its flaws, but you and I dug the good parts of it. PLANETARY was always pretty much flawless, even when they "crossed over" with Batman.

But, hey, others can "hate" too, as long as they have valid reasons to back themselves up.

If we all had to agree, nobody'd be reading JONAH HEX, and we'd all be Marvel Zombies.

It was nice to see the return of the "big figure" to BATMAN covers. This used to be a staple of title pages (though seemingly not covers) and I liked Quitely's revisiting of the style. Here's some examples from the past:
http://tinyurl.com/lkntnd Giant Catwoman!
http://tinyurl.co m/mw6xgl Giant Batman!
http://tinyurl.com/nkou8o Giant Pied Piper of Peril!
http://tinyurl.com/m9jrf5 Giant Red Hood!
http://www.comics.org /coverview.lasso?id=11842&zoom =4 Another giant Batman!

The "Circus of the Strange" is rather similar to Marvel's Circus of Crime.

Frank Quitely drew an amazing comic book action sequence. He didn't just illustrate a script, his art actually pulled you through the fight, just like Gil Kane or Neal Adams would'a drawn.

After Quitely's designs for the Circus characters, Pyg/Pig seems like a much less interesting villain.

Robin being a ten year old doesn't bother me. It's dumb, but so are bat costumes in the first place.

Morrison's conclusion is rather too reminiscent of THE KILLING JOKE. An abandoned fairground at night, a grotesque villain, a member of the Bat-family in peril, and Batman driving to the rescue? I still think it just about works, but so much for Morrison's coveted originality.

Whose head is exploding on the penultimate page?

Umm ... that's it. Clear, easy to understand, and guaranteed to cause neither physical pain nor aneurysms!

You should read the rest of the Dark Tower comics that you haven't gotten around to yet--I'm assuming that you've read the 1st run (Gunslinger Born), but haven't read "The Long Road Home," "Treachery," and "The Fall of Gilead." In which case you probably should.

Not to say that all the aforementioned comics are great--I think they're just average and okay. But hell, it's Dark Tower stuff, so it's much more entertaining than a lot of the derivative, trite superhero stuff that's usually on the market nowadays.

I am kind of the opposite of Buzz. I hate teams made up of A-listers most of the time. For several reasons.

Numero Uno is overexposure. I can't believe people really like reading so very many books with Wolverine, Spider-Man, Superman, etc. I find those characters overdone and boring. My only caveat is that I do like Wolverine IN HIS OWN BOOK AND X-MEN, but nooo...there have to be multiple versions of his solo title and multiple team books. Which leads me to...

Reason the Second: We all know not to use "logic" in comics,but still I believe there should be some internal comic-book sense. Wolverine is on three different teams (if not more) as well as a plethora of solo stuff. How does this work? How can he be in X-Men and Avengers at the same time (let's leave X Force out of it for now).

Third reason: I can't relate to the big guns. I am not a Super-Man or a Peter Parker, much less a Logan, so who do I relate to?

Fourth reason: Characters who are interesting but can't support their own books get exposure in team books. When the "second tier" characters are in team books with the big guns, they tend to be overshadowed. Hawkgirl was in JLA for years with no focus, no development, no nothing.

What I will say for the modern team books is that they at least mix it up. So as much as I hate having Spider-Man and ESPECIALLY Wolverine in the Avengers, I still pick up the book because I get to read about Spider-Woman and Luke Cage.

Everyone loved Morrison's JLA, which except for Aztek was totally A-List,but that run left me cold. Probably my least favorit Morrison work ever (except SeaGuy).

It's like the entire deal with Isiah Bradley, the "Black" Captain America. I can handle the idea of the government using black soldiers as volunteers for a dangerous new formula, but to then gun them all down afterwards? Even in the racist days of WWII that would be fucking hard to believe. In fact impossible to believe.

As for Operation Northwood, as I always tell people A) it wasn't carried out; and B) they couldn't even keep it secret. In fact, I don't even believe in Government conspiracies - why do they have to do anything in secret when they can do it right in front of us and have the American people back them up: Viet Nam, Iraq Invasion, Gitmo, Torture. The American people just turned a blind eye to that stuff.

morrison has done ARKHAM ASYLUM, GOTHIC from lotdk, the "bat-god" from JLA, R.I.P, the final crisis bat-death, and the current B&R run. to me, that puts morrison right up there with miller, o'neil, kane and finger as "guys that left their mark on batman".

just for the record, i don't HATE frank miller now. i even think DK2 and ASBARTBW work on a couple of levels. if nothing else, frank deserves love for giving us the catchphrase "i'm the goddamn batman!"

but here is the thing: back when i read DKR and Y1 the first time i too thought it was the be all, end all of batman stories. of course that was back in 1986 and i was 14 years old. my point being, that time has a way of making me see things differently as it goes by. sure i still think DKR and Y1 are classic tales, but i don't think they are the ONLY high water mark in terms of bat-stories told in the last 30 years.

It's like when people say the new Batman movies are so much better than the old Batman movies, well no shit, of course they are. And the movies of the 80s were infinitely better than the 60s TV show and movie.

But I guarantee we would not have the new Dark Knight films nor our new crop of writers without those paths first being forged.

Anyway, comparing Miller to Morrison is like comparing a lobotomized dung-beetle to, I don't know, some supernatural entity that shines a light which makes you feel like you're getting drunk and receiving a blow-job at the same time.

Actually, I think I may have added that last sentence myself.

All together now: "STUPID LACK OF EDIT FEATURE."

Morrison was around in the 80s, but Miller truly changed things with DKR.

It just didn't feel as though Morrison received the same comic super star status until almost a decade later...just about the time Miller started to really fall from grace.

Anyway, all you can say about Miller and Morrison in the 80s, is that Miller was working with the highest-profile hero, so of course his work was noticed by pop culture at large. Morrison was working on Animal Man and Doom Patrol-- and writing the motherfucking shit out of them. Those are two series which influenced an enormous amount of material in their wake. Once Miller leaves Batman, all his work starts sucking, and revealing the weaknesses and myopia that were always there, but in a much more glaring light. On the other hand, Morrison's rep has never waxed or waned (with the exception of the outcry about Final Crisis-- and look, we're all back to praising him with B&R). Morrison just worked on fringe superheroics outside the mainstream for his early career. But the first time Morrison made a stab at mainstream super-heroics, we got JLA. His JLA has influenced every team book that's come in its stead, and it defines the modern team book-- major powers versus apocalyptic scenarios with action/action/action. Ellis and Millar's Authority only exists on the shoulders of what Morrison did in JLA. Then he went to New X-Men and had one of the all-time great runs on that book. The whole time, Miller was drawing played-out chiascuro and his writing was devolving into a lamer and lamer imitation of bad-Mickey Spillane.

There's no contest here. At all.

A more valid competition would be Alan Moore vs Morrison.

If you look at Miller's collaborations with David Mazzuchelli from the same era, although strong, worthy and beautiful, we can start to question Miller's judgment and taste in a few spots. I think they were already afraid to edit him. When we got into HARD BOILED, ELECTRA ASSASSIN, etc I started questioning that if it weren't Miller's name on the writing credit, would I like the writing?

Basically, after DKR, I already started wondering why anyone would want Frank Miller to just WRITE a comic?

What Miller brought to mainstream comics was that he was the first new guy in a long time who seemed to be influenced by more than mainstream superhero comics. Since then, guys like Bendis, Moore and Morrison have brought their outside interests into their writing for great effect but Miller had his love for film noir, for the pulps, for crime movies and fiction that we just didn't see at the time. If a guy wrote DAREDEVIL, chances are he'd just read a bunch of DAREDEVIL. Miller was sort of just doing the Spirit (Will Eisner's not Frank Miller's at the time) in his first DD run, but guys like me didn't know it at the time. His Batman had a lot of the Spider in it, sort of an aging Spider in a Clockwork Orange world...

Which brings us to why DKR is the most stunning of all Miller's writing (it's a matter of opinion what his best is, I say that his writing on DD was better than his Batman work). Anybody see the movie ALMOST FAMOUS? There's a scene where the teen journalist asks his first interview question of the rock start: "You had 26 years to create the music for you first album. How are you going to equal that in the 7 months before your next album is due?"

DKR had to have been a story Frank always wanted to tell, maybe from back in high school. After that, some of his stuff has been good but not as good.

So my Miller rule of thumb is that if he draws it, I'll check it out but if he writes it and someone else does the art (even if I like the artist)I don't waste my money.