Recently I’ve been neglectful about picking up the comics on my pull list, but over the past couple days I’ve done a big catch-up, and holy crap guys, this Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo run on Batman is pretty damn great, isn’t it? I mean I read all of Snyder’s Detective Comics stuff, and the first two issues of Batman, and it was all very good, but now that I’m caught up to issue #7 on Batman I feel confident in saying this is the first truly great Batman story to come along in years. It may just be the best story since Frank Miller’s 80s heyday.
Like any comics reader with any sense, I’m a big fan of Batman as a character, but unfortunately most Batman stories really aren’t very good. He’s just a hard character to do right — even some of my favorite writers like Grant Morrison and Bill Willingham have had very mixed success with the character. The last time I consistently enjoyed Batman comics was when Greg Rucka was doing Detective Comics — a run that is, unbelievably, over a decade old now.
So, what’s this Snyder/Capullo run doing so right? Why’s it so much better than almost all other Bat-comics? Well…
Spoilers Note – I tried not to reveal specific plot points, but this article does talk about what’s happened in the first seven issues of Batman in general terms. Beware those who want to stay completely spoiler-free.
Gotham Feels Like a Real City
Batman comics really love to go on about Gotham — every bad Bat-story starts with a pile of narration boxes in which Batman expounds on how Gotham is a dark dangerous lady, but dammit she’s his and blah blah blah.
Despite this fixation on Gotham, we’ve never really been given many specifics about the place. Gotham, for all intents and purposes, has basically just been an extra shadowy version Springfield from the Simpsons. Where does it exist? Who knows. What’s its geography? It changes depending on the demands of the story. What’s its history? Who’s to say — as far as we know the city sprung to life fully formed when Bruce Wayne was born.
Hell, even Springfield has a few recognizable landmarks like Moe’s and the Kwik-E-Mart — Gotham in most stories is just a collection of generic dingy alleys for Batman to punch bad guys in.
Snyder has changed all that — he’s given the city history, landmarks and a specific geography and skyline. More important, he’s given the city a personality — Gotham is an old city built around even older families and money that’s gone rotten at the core and now spreads that rot to anyone who dares enter it. We’ve been hearing forever about how dark and dangerous Gotham is, but we now know why, specifically, it’s so dark and dangerous and that’s a huge step forward.
Badass Batman Comes to Gotham
For a long time there’s basically been two Batmans — the super-competent JLA Batman who finds ways to punch out Superman on the regular, and the Batman of actual Batman comics who finds himself challenged by guys like the Mad Hatter and the Ventriloquist.
It’s obvious why this happens — Batman’s abilities need to be pumped up when he’s hanging out with Superman and Wonder Woman, otherwise the fact that they keep him around would make no sense. Still, it’s always frustrating to read some five-part story in which Batman struggles to defeat lame villains like Grotesk or Orca the whale woman while he’s off fighting Darkseid and Prometheus in greater DC Universe stuff.
Usually Batman would need two 5-issue arcs to take out both Two-Face and Killer Croc.
Snyder, thankfully, has done away with this divide, and lets super-competent Batman have his way with Gotham. The first scene of Batman #1 involves Batman shutting down an Arkham breakout and beating all his most infamous villains in one fell swoop — and why not? A guy with a winning record against Superman shouldn’t have any trouble putting down the Riddler for the 100th time. This is a Batman on top of his game, who’s not taking any crap from the regular circus troupe of villains.
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the only think i’ll argue with is I think morrison’s run, despite the blips from tony daniel and phillip tan, was better than rucka on detective (batman & robin was really, really good). other than that, maybe you didn’t emphasize capullo enough? snyder’s saying on the twitter that the twisty pages was capullo’s idea, and that was the highlight of the run for me artwise. And props to the editor, too. It would have been really easy to say to him “that’s too weird for one of our flagship books,” but they rolled with it and it worked great.
I’m a big fan of Morrison, so I wanted to love his Batman run — and it was good in starts and stops. We’d get a really good issue or two here and there — but then he’d do a prose issue, or we’d get some CGI art debacle, or Robin would be cutting off people’s heads, or Batman would be killed by a villain he has no connection to while wielding a gun and I’d sigh and wish for a world where Morrison’s Batman is as good as Morrison’s Superman.
dammit, i wish i knew how to reply to you and not me.
I think he gets batman’s place in the DCU and how he works with the other heroes–the big idea behind the payoff of Return of Bruce Wayne was great, the repudiation of frank miller and 20 years of “batman’s a brooding asshole” stories was excellent. he does get wrapped up in his big ideas (the concept of the joker shedding his personality like a snake sheds his skin is great, but man, that fucking prose issue), but I think he shone in the character stuff and particularly with damian. sure he was chopping off z list bad guys’ heads, but then you get throw away lines about how he’ll never be as good as bruce or even dick in 666, and then you actually see the kid coming to respect dick over the course of 12 issues of B&R.
i just reread the trade that had slade and damian’s run in with Talia, and that has me pretty pumped for the return of Inc.
Hey look, it worked!
I agree on the character stuff. Particularly the interplay between Dick Batman and Damian was very good. His Bruce suffers from “blank slate” syndrome though.
QUOTE AWAY
he wrote the best dick i’ve read in a while.
“And props to the editor, too. It would have been really easy to say to him “that’s too weird for one of our flagship books,” but they rolled with it and it worked great.”
They Did. Props for Greg’s vision and sticking to his guns by not letting them take the easy road. Greg was very passionate about the idea.
You read Black Mirror or Noel?
Black Mirror yes, Noel no.
Snyder’s been writing the best Batman comics in years even before this. THE BLACK MIRROR, his Detective Comics run right before the New52 was incredible; Dick Grayson’s Batman rather than Bruce, but an amazing story nonetheless
Yeah it’s the best Batman story in a long time. To indicate that, I’m picking this title up monthly. I haven’t picked up ANY title on a monthly basis for about 10 years now. I too, and also up for the crossover. I love the art, I love the storytelling, I love the story, I love every bit of this comic and am eating it up.
Correct me if I’m wrong though, I’m confused about the crossover. Doesn’t just consist of Batman #1-#12 and issues #9 of the all the Bat-Family books?
I awesomely agree. I haven’t regularly read any batman title since no man’s land with the exception of batman inc. (up to “Holy Internets 2.0, batman!”…i still cry). I love American Vampire and Swamp Thing from Snyder also. I really enjoy how he makes the Court of Owls feel really insidious especially with Capullo’s art being really trippy at times (the labyrinth issues)
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Well now that you’ve replied to it, I have to leave the spam up. And I just replied to your reply! This is how the spammers win!
Batman: Volume 1: The Court Of Owls
is this the one you are talking about?
Batwoman: Elegy is the “best Bat-book in decades”. Batman books, you can have this one.
The Swamp Thing book is also kicking all kinds of ass. Snyder’s hitting homeruns over at DC these days.
I had a pretty big nerd discussion recently and I have to agree that I do enjoy portraying Batman as huge dick because I’ve always thought that at least in since they tried to shove down our throats how “dark” and “gritty” Bruce Wayne’s Batman isn’t a Super Hero, he’s a Masked Vigilante. He’s driven by vengeance and the desire to punish criminals more than protecting innocents or seeing that justice is done.
I agree with a lot here – but there’s a slice of this that is just a reaction to how truly awful all that Morrison stuff was. I heard this books recently has resorted to actual owl monsters. How is that less silly than favorites like Croc, Penguin, or even Clayface?
For my money the Niles/Jones “Gotham After Midnight,” trampled under TDK movie fervor, has been the best Batman book since Long Halloween.
The “owl monsters” are just Bruce’s hallucinations. Then again, like you just said, it’s not like owl monsters would be that strange in the world of Batman.
What’s wrong with Spawn?
Love the article. Said everything I’ve felt when reading this run. Just wanted to reply about how the story “has resorted to actual owl monsters.”
((Spoiler))
It does not. If who ever you “heard” that from actually read the comic instead of making a judgment based on viewing the recent comic covers, then they would know. Its a fantastic story so give it a read.
Agree with almost everything you said, except a couple of things. While I like the Court of Owls as natural, generations-long enemies of the Waynes, I don’t like having them be connected to the murders of Bruce’s parents. The randomness of his parents murders – that it can happen to anyone at any time with no rhyme or reason – has always been one of the injustices of life that drove Bruce to become what he did. Making their murder the part of some grander scheme – whether at the hands of the Owls, Ras al Ghul, or Jack Napier (ahem) kind of cheapens that, for me.
Also, while I agree that Batman as huge dick everyone wants to choke is the best batman, he did not smack Nightwing out of anger or frustration. In typical Batman fashion, he was accomplishing a goal crucial to his mission.
All that said, this was a great read. Thanks for giving credit to this great storyline in such a great way!
Halo Motherfrogger!
“Personally, I think Batman actually benefits from a stylized, slightly cartoony approach. The more realistically he’s rendered, the more he just looks like a guy in a suit as opposed to the terror-striking living shadow he’s supposed to be in the comics.”
This is one of the reasons why Batman: TAS worked so well. Half the time he was literally just a shadow with eyes