Johnny Saturn

Hi, Friends!

Lacking, as I am, any truly random thoughts tonight, I have decided to instead ply you with a short review of Grant Morrison’s and Andy Kubert’s “Batman and Son” trade paperback.  I’ll let you know right off the bat (hehehe) that I enjoyed this book.  It’s Batman, right?  Why wouldn’t I love this book?  Well, I fail to enjoy many of the Batman projects that are published, which is one of the reasons I quit buying monthly comics and wait for the trades.  The real question should be, ‘why’ did I enjoy it?

Could it be the writer?  Grant Morrison is my favorite comic writer, and I’ve often said that he is the smartest man in the world.  I’ve also mentioned in the past that he’s the real deal, or that he’s pulling the wool over our eyes and laughing his way to the bank.  Either way, I am real fan.  I originally got into Grant by reading ‘The Invisibles,’ an absolutely insane, brilliant, and revolutionary work that I make of point of re-reading in its entirety every year.  I believe it was my third reading where I started to get a clue as to what it was about.  Or not!  If Grant Morrison really is the smartest man in the world, then I may well be deluding myself!  Morrison’s run on JLA was magnificent, and the series was never the same after he left.  Animal Man was outstanding, and it really introduced American readers to a style of meta-fiction that was not well known on this side of the Atlantic, at least not for comic readers.  I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here.  I will say that it was not solely for the writing that I enjoyed “Batman and Son.”

Could it be the artist?  Andy Kubert is very skilled storyteller, with dynamics out the metaphorical wazzoo!  His characters twist, and bend, and wildly foreshorten, all while looking very cool indeed.  But, no, the art wasn’t what I enjoyed about this book the most.

No, what I enjoyed about “Batman and Son” was that DC was willing to take such a giant leap in continuity!  Characters that are decades old can be very resistant to change; characters that date from the Great Depression especially so!  The introduction of Damien, the clearly sociopathic eight-year-old son of Batman and Talia Al Ghul adds such a cool dimension to the Bat mythos.  The concept was originally explored in “Batman: Son of the Demon,” a long out-of-continuity graphic novel by Mike W. Barr. 

Changing old characters is risky business, and adding additional layers to their back-stories often fails.  Sometimes it works, as in Frank Miller’s “Daredevil” run.  Other times, it fails, as in the Spider-Man “Clone Saga.”  This time, it appears that a forgotten footnote in Batman lore has come back into continuity.

The only thing I didn’t care for was the prose Joker story that split the book up.  Sure, it was interesting, but it was just as likely to be forgotten by all future Bat writers.  The digital art by John Van Fleet wasn’t my thing, either.  I’ve seen Van Fleet produce some very interesting, even haunting art before, but his foray into Poser looked awkward in many places to me. 

So, overall I give “Batman and Son” an A- grade.