Boarding and Bagging

At this point Trav and Tiff are living it up on the west coast while I’m stuck at home doing this comic. But that’s okay, we all know you like me more anyway.

I had several blog posts I’ve been wanting to write, but instead I thought I’d talk about some of the news that has come out of DC this week, specifically the talent changes on several major books.

DC announced Tony Daniels would be returning to Batman as writer and Artist, Scott Snyder would be writing Detective Comics, And Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason would be taking over Batman and Robin. This combined with David Finch captain new book Batman: Dark Knight paints a very different picture for the Batman books than what has been seen over the past year. The biggest difference being the complete lack of Grant Morrison.

Now I have my opinions about Morrison, but his work did bring Batman to the forefront of the DCU and allowed Dick Grayson to take up the cowl, if only for a limited time, so I’ll give credit where it’s due. But I believe one of Morrison’s flaws is his lack of concern for books running parallel to his own. Batman and Robin seems to be running independent of the other Bat-Books, and I think it’s missed a huge opportunity by not tying them all together. I want all the books to be dealing from the same deck.

But we will see where these books going in the coming months, considering a lot of character’s futures are hinged on the return of Bruce Wayne. All I know is I’ve grown weary of the grunting gritty Batman, and I don’t know if I can pull three solo books of Bruce Wayne. I just hope Dick Grayson gets a solo book at the end of this.

Also, if Morrison really kills Dick Grayson I’ll be dropping a lot of books from my pull list. Not in protest or anything dramatic like that, I’ll just have a lot less of a reason to read Bat-Books.

Travis, what’s on your pull list?

* Batgirl #12 - Wow. The last year of this series has been awesome, but this issue is incredible. One of my favorite series ever.
* Birds of Prey #3 - The first three pages gave me my cheesecake fill of the year. The rest of the book was just concentrated awesomeness.
* Unwritten #15 - Origins of Lizzie and literary trivia lead to the perfect setup for some background exposition next issue.

Kris, what’s on your pull list?

* Adventure Comics #516 - Decent issue, helping build the mystique of the Legion of Superheroes. The Atom second feature was fine, although it quickly undid some things from Batgirl.
* Batgirl #12 - Excellent book, I’m looking forward to the adventures of Batgirl and the new voice in her ear, Proxy.
* Batman #701 - Decent book by Morrison. I’m interested to see where he’s going with this two issue arc.
* Birds of Prey #3 - Very good, interesting parts with Hawk and Dove, and seeing the family dynamic of the original Birds prove why Gail Simone is one of the top writers in the DCU.
* Booster Gold #34 - Great book, although it’s a little depressing when you realize Booster is on an adventure in the past with 3 people who are dead.
* Brave and the Bold #35 - Not the heart wrenching stuff of #33, but it’s a cute story with people you’ve likely never heard of.
* Justice League: Generation Lost #5 - This is the best book running. The art and writing are great, and the whole story is something everyone should read.
* Magog #11 - Picked this up because it’s part of Magog’s last arc before his book gets cancelled. I don’t like the character, but this book was worth it for the emotion Scott Kolins can push into his art and writing. Plus, rare appearance by the fastest man alive, Wally West.
* Superman #701 - I wasn’t sure how this book was going to turn out, and while it’s a little campy and not as deep as it could be, this book shows Superman as a good and simple man who genuinely wants to help people. I support that.
* Titans #25 - I get the feeling this is going to be an entirely character driven book, which is weird because it’s made up of villains. I think the book has a lot of potential and I think Eric Wallace gets the characters he is writing.