This thread may contain spoilers for recent storylines....
So I got the collections for the stories prior to the Final Crisis - specifically The Black Glove and also RIP from my friendly neighborhood library. The HC for RIP looks especially gorgeous. The Black Glove HC looks a little lurid with all the faded red.
I think these are both part of Grant Morrison's run on the Batman. I have read some of the collections prior to this. So I am familiar with Damian eg.
However, the two stories left me plenty non-plussed. Either I am not getting it or I'm missing a lot of background.
The Black Glove has Batman attending a meeting on a special island owned by a rich millionaire (John Mayhew). It seems this rich dude had financed the operations of several crimefighters who are similar to Batman but from different nations. "Batmen of All Nations" (never heard of them before). The story itself is inspired from the Agatha Christie classic "And then there were none" - People arrive on an island to find the host absent. And then one by one, people start dying. However, the Batman seems to think that this is the work of an organization called The Black Glove. What was the prior setup for this? What does the Batman know at this point. Didn't much like the artwork - and a couple of the Batmen look very much alike - tho' the female Robin-like character Beryl aka the Squire (I think) was visually interesting. And some of the art at critical places is hard to decipher. (eg. It was only after reading a panel following that I realized that the previous spread had the planes by which they had arrived blowing up). And then there's a story about Bruce on a date with Jezebel Jet (there's even a joke about how his girlfriends have names straight out of a Bond film
) and getting attacked by the Black Glove's minions.
The RIP title is interesting - I have no clue what's real and what's justsomething in the Batman's mind. It starts with him getting attacked by a police-Batman. It seems that at some time during the past (before Gordon was commish) three policemen were identified to take over as the Batman if the real Batman died. (That sounds real hokey to me for several reasons - but maybe it refers to an actual storyline). One of the 3 Batman even looks vaguely like Bane but I don't think it is. And then he gets dragged to the basement and drugged and he becomes a street vagabond and then talks to Honor Jackson (who may or may not be a figment of his imagination) and then talks to Bat-mite who he calls "Might" who (I think) is a figment of his imagination. And then becomes a Batman dressed in rags with a costume that has some of the Robin's colors... and... I don't know whether you get it from my description but I was just plain confused as to what is going on. There is mention of Thogal ( a Buddhist ritual) that he underwent on Nanda Parbat and Joker who tries to give him clues which didn't mean anything to me etc etc. He also becomes the Batman from Zur-en-arrh (don't ask!!) a different personality or something and the Joker (yep, the master of mirth himself who here is referred to as the Thin White Duke of Death (or something similar) ) actually is present when the rags-Batman takes off his mask to reveal Bruce Wayne's face underneath. Also, it's implied that Batman has shot the Joker in the forehead (actually used a gun!!) and the bullet seems to be lodged there or something... There's somebody called John Hurt, who pretends to be Thomas Wayne. There are tabloid pictures of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne where Martha is a drug addict... The weird stuff just goes on and on...
My understanding is that at the end when Bruce Wayne gets "better", he returns to the mansion and Alfred and Robin and says that "he will make things better" when he comes back from a Justice League mission (presumably this is Final Crisis). And then we have the current Battle of the Cowl event. But all that (for me) is yet to come since I haven't read any of it. What I want to know is what the h3!! is going on in this storyline.
Per the comments from Grant Morrison - this was the first storyline that he had come up with when he had come to writing the Batman. I don't know whether he had discussed with his editors and they had thought this is the guy who should be the main Batman writer. The storyline seems to have originated with the fan-trope that the Batman can take on anything if he has time to prepare but this takes that to fairly weird lengths. I mean there's talk of a backup personality, a human OS.
Was this storyline well-received? Do you like it? Do you understand it all? Is there an article (not wikipedia which just tells me what I read) that explains the whole thing?
So I got the collections for the stories prior to the Final Crisis - specifically The Black Glove and also RIP from my friendly neighborhood library. The HC for RIP looks especially gorgeous. The Black Glove HC looks a little lurid with all the faded red.
I think these are both part of Grant Morrison's run on the Batman. I have read some of the collections prior to this. So I am familiar with Damian eg.
However, the two stories left me plenty non-plussed. Either I am not getting it or I'm missing a lot of background.
The Black Glove has Batman attending a meeting on a special island owned by a rich millionaire (John Mayhew). It seems this rich dude had financed the operations of several crimefighters who are similar to Batman but from different nations. "Batmen of All Nations" (never heard of them before). The story itself is inspired from the Agatha Christie classic "And then there were none" - People arrive on an island to find the host absent. And then one by one, people start dying. However, the Batman seems to think that this is the work of an organization called The Black Glove. What was the prior setup for this? What does the Batman know at this point. Didn't much like the artwork - and a couple of the Batmen look very much alike - tho' the female Robin-like character Beryl aka the Squire (I think) was visually interesting. And some of the art at critical places is hard to decipher. (eg. It was only after reading a panel following that I realized that the previous spread had the planes by which they had arrived blowing up). And then there's a story about Bruce on a date with Jezebel Jet (there's even a joke about how his girlfriends have names straight out of a Bond film
) and getting attacked by the Black Glove's minions. The RIP title is interesting - I have no clue what's real and what's justsomething in the Batman's mind. It starts with him getting attacked by a police-Batman. It seems that at some time during the past (before Gordon was commish) three policemen were identified to take over as the Batman if the real Batman died. (That sounds real hokey to me for several reasons - but maybe it refers to an actual storyline). One of the 3 Batman even looks vaguely like Bane but I don't think it is. And then he gets dragged to the basement and drugged and he becomes a street vagabond and then talks to Honor Jackson (who may or may not be a figment of his imagination) and then talks to Bat-mite who he calls "Might" who (I think) is a figment of his imagination. And then becomes a Batman dressed in rags with a costume that has some of the Robin's colors... and... I don't know whether you get it from my description but I was just plain confused as to what is going on. There is mention of Thogal ( a Buddhist ritual) that he underwent on Nanda Parbat and Joker who tries to give him clues which didn't mean anything to me etc etc. He also becomes the Batman from Zur-en-arrh (don't ask!!) a different personality or something and the Joker (yep, the master of mirth himself who here is referred to as the Thin White Duke of Death (or something similar) ) actually is present when the rags-Batman takes off his mask to reveal Bruce Wayne's face underneath. Also, it's implied that Batman has shot the Joker in the forehead (actually used a gun!!) and the bullet seems to be lodged there or something... There's somebody called John Hurt, who pretends to be Thomas Wayne. There are tabloid pictures of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne where Martha is a drug addict... The weird stuff just goes on and on...
My understanding is that at the end when Bruce Wayne gets "better", he returns to the mansion and Alfred and Robin and says that "he will make things better" when he comes back from a Justice League mission (presumably this is Final Crisis). And then we have the current Battle of the Cowl event. But all that (for me) is yet to come since I haven't read any of it. What I want to know is what the h3!! is going on in this storyline.
Per the comments from Grant Morrison - this was the first storyline that he had come up with when he had come to writing the Batman. I don't know whether he had discussed with his editors and they had thought this is the guy who should be the main Batman writer. The storyline seems to have originated with the fan-trope that the Batman can take on anything if he has time to prepare but this takes that to fairly weird lengths. I mean there's talk of a backup personality, a human OS.
Was this storyline well-received? Do you like it? Do you understand it all? Is there an article (not wikipedia which just tells me what I read) that explains the whole thing?
