YMMV / Batman (Grant Morrison)

aka: Grant Morrisons Batman

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Darkseid won, and Batman is a servant of anti-life.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Damian Wayne. He has a loyal fandom, but also a very vocal hatedom. His death shattered his fandom into people who thought it was handled well and people who thought it was simply not okay.
  • Morrison's interpretation of Jason Todd is divisive, particularly among the character's newer fans. Some, particular newer readers who are familiar with Jason mostly through Red Hood and the Outlaws, don't like that he's a villain. Many others, however, consider it to be a unique and fresh direction that cleverly consolidates all of Jason's history into a single character arc, and makes him an interesting foil to Dick Grayson. A prolonged period of poor-to-mediocre Jason Todd stories has left several fans wishing that Morrison's direction was followed up on.
• Broken Base: Batman driving Joe Chill to suicide and doing nothing to stop it. Fans either like it or hate it for making Batman indirectly murder a big part of his motivation (Though this was a hallucination so its canonicity is debatable) .
• Complete Monster:
  • Dr. Simon Hurt, born Thomas Wayne centuries past, was a devil worshipper who gained immortality when resorting to blood sacrifice to summon demons, instead linking himself with the Hyper-Adapter. Using sacrifice to keep himself alive through centuries, Hurt developed a dark fixation on Bruce Wayne with his obsession to prove that evil could always overcome good. He created the Black Glove, a shadowy evil council dedicated to spreading evil and bloodshed throughout the world. Hurt sought to break Bruce Wayne psychologically, even having him buried without oxygen to permanently damage his mind and shatter him into Hurt's slave. Defeated, Hurt established himself in Mexico as a drug lord known as El Penitente where he financed dark experiments from Professor Pyg that destroyed countless minds, even having a noble opponent of the Cartels turned into a cannibalistic monster who killed his own family. Sacrificing his followers without a second thought, Hurt returned to Gotham intending on spreading the poisons he had developed throughout the city, turning everyone there into a violent monster who would fall upon one another, allowing Hurt to rule over an empire of evil at last.
  • Batman Incorporated (primarily): Lord Death Man is a bombastic, happily evil supervillain who desires to bring anarchy and "meaningless crime" to Japan in the name of villainy. Though first attacking Gotham years ago, Lord Death Man's penchant for surviving when he is killed allows him to amass a criminal gang and set up shop in Tokyo, Japan, where Lord Death Man begins murdering the local superhero population. Burning Mr. Unknown's hands, eyes, then entire face off with acid to torture and murder him then trying to kill the girlfriend of Unknown's sidekick, Lord Death Man stages an attack on a hospital where he brutally stabs several doctors to death. Setting off a bomb he placed on a disabled children's bus, then blowing up the entire hospital and everyone inside, Lord Death Man goes on a murder spree across Tokyo with his car, running over and gunning down everyone in his path and killing entire families. Returning one last time, Lord Death Man blows up an entire space station filled with his own allies just to claim the lives of several young superheroes, proclaiming his love for murder and desire for a hero-free world to the end.
• Continuity Lockout: The run is famous for liberally referencing the wackiness of The Silver Age of Comic Books; however, many of those comics have fallen into obscurity over the years. In an attempt to avert this trope, DC put out The Black Casebook, a collection of several of those Silver Age comics, including the first appearances of the Batmen of All Nations and Bat-Mite.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Lord Death Man, archenemy of the Batman from Japan, is a psychotic Badass in a Nice Suit who wears a skull as a mask, runs around with a freaking tommy gun, can somehow come back from the dead no matter how many times he's killed, and at one point tries to kill Jiro's girlfriend with a giant squid that he shoved into a small apartment. Grant Morrison notes in the deluxe edition that the guy is basically a Grand Theft Auto player character made as a supervillain.
  • The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. Literally, as he's become quite insane at this point. Dresses in a bright red, yellow, and purple costume meant to display how he's even more confident, kicks all kinds of ass with nothing but a baseball bat and some garbage he uses for batarangs (a tin can lid and a wreath are seen in one page) and spouts such lines as "I am the Batman of ZUR-EN-ARRH!" (Uh-oh.) and "You can't fool the Bat-Radia, it sees through your lies!" To top it off, he's followed around by Bat-Mite who may or may not be a figment of his imagination, and converses with gargoyles while planning his attack.
  • Most of Batman Inc. could be considered Crazy Awesome in their own right, but special mention goes to El Gaucho, Dark Ranger, and of course Bat Cow.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The Joker's first appearance in the series, shouting "I did it! I finally killed Batman! In front of a bunch of vulnerable, disabled kids! Now get me Santa Claus!" Followed by Batman throwing a badly wounded Joker into a dumpster.
  • Batman and a Joker-Venom-addled Jim Gordon finding Gallows Humor in a news story about a terrorist beheading victim who happened to be obese: "How did they manage to find his neck?"
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Professor Pyg is considered one of the scariest, most twisted villains in recent Batman comics, and has gone to become one of his more recent main villains, being adapted in Batman: Arkham Knight, Beware the Batman, Gotham and others.
  • The Flamingo has also become a fan favourite for his Camp Straight I Am a Humanitarian Stronger Than They Look tendencies.
  • Beryl Hutchinson. Originally, Beryl was introduced as a one-shot character during Morrison's run on JLA, then she had a prominent role in Morrison's JLA Classified arc where her competency helped save the world.
  • Amongst the members of Batman Inc., Nightrunner seems to be really popular amongst fans despite his small role.
• Fan Nickname: Dick Grayson as Batman is either referred to as Bat-Dick or DickBats to differentiate him from Bruce, THE Batman.
• Fashion-Victim Villain:
  • When The Joker wore that pill helmet it was classy. Jason Todd? Not so much...
  • Lord Death Man's outfit is pretty tacky but it makes sense considering he is a massive Attention Whore and he almost pulls it off.
• Franchise Original Sin: It could be said that this was the point where DC truly began bringing back forgotten Golden and Silver Age elements foremost and centre. While this had been done before, going as far as, for example, Morrison's own runs on Animal Man or Doom Patrol, it was the first time where it was integral to the plot to know about things like the Club of Super-Heroes, Wingman, the first Batwoman or the time Batman underwent sensory deprivation for NASA, but unlike, say, Starman, the comic didn't give no information about those older stories, it assumed you already came prepared or were willing to do some digging. Thing is, DC made sure to publish The Black Casebook a TPB of all the stories integral to understand Morrison's trippy journey. Plus, even if you haven't read those old stories, you could still get the general idea they meant to convey (Batman was member of a failed superhero team, Batman met a sassy superheroine who was an undercover spy for Spyral and so on). Finally, the old Silver Age elements have a thematic reason, since this run's Central Theme is all about Batman's history and legacy, and in a meta sense it was reivindicating the old idealistic Batman against the increasingly fan-disliked edgy Batman. Newer stories often expect readers to be familiar with elements that haven't been seen since the 1950s or 60s, and often don't get neither introduction nor a thematic reason for being there aside of the author flexing his knowledge on old comics.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One of the panels in Batman #666 contains a whole stream of news that for many people are likely hitting way too close to home after 2020 - an insanely high heatwave caused by climate change, Chinese authorities trying to contain epidemic with a body count in millions while Britain wants to open airlines during quarantine, islamophobic terrorists attacking a Mosque....
  • Batman #683 has Batman being made to experience a hallucination where his parents never died thanks to Thomas Wayne overpowering Joe Chill, with Bruce at one point stating that he wished he died that night. Later, the Flashpoint (DC Comics) event would have one change in the timeline consist of Bruce Wayne being shot dead in place of his parents, resulting in Thomas and Martha Wayne being driven by grief over the loss of their son into becoming this timeline's respective incarnations of Batman and the Joker.
• Ho Yay: Some parts of the Batman fanbase caught onto the fact Dick Grayson said he has a thing for crime fighting redheads after Morrison had retconned Jason Todd's hair color from black to red.
• I Knew It!:
  • You'd be surprised at how many people guessed Oberon Sexton's identity before Batman and Robin Issue 12.
  • Same goes for Wingman in Batman, Incorporated (v2) Issue 4.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Morrison makes Damian this over the course of his run: Cocky reckless brat, really messed up family, and a maximum of two people who actually like him. The conclusion of Batman Vs. Robin alone is enough to make you want to hug him. And then there's what he's going through in Batman Incorporated: being told to go back with his mother or else she'll do something horrible. This is the woman who threw him aside when he disagreed on what path to take and he has to leave the family he's maybe starting to fit with. To make it worse, the storyline brings up his possible Bad Future of Batman #666.
  • Red Hood. Yeah he's a dick who wants to enforce the law in Gotham through brutality, but he gets put through some seriously undeserved shit when Flamingo comes to town.
• Love to Hate: Doctor Hurt, Professor Pyg and the reinvented Joker are the most depraved supervillains ever put to paper, but they're quite memorable because of it, with Professor Pyg since becoming one of Batman's most recurring villains. Even when Doctor Hurt was brought Back for the Dead, he still managed to reappear in Nightwing.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Talia al Ghul, in this continuity, date-raped Batman to make Damian. It's the first sign that Morrison's take on the character lacks any of her previous redeeming qualities, and she becomes even more monstrous as the series goes on.
  • Doctor Hurt's mission is to cross this line as many times as possible. He officially hits the utmost pinnacle of cruelty when he persuades the president of the United States to nuke Gotham City.
• Narm: Many readers thought the story behind Talia's conception was sillier than intended. Ra's al Ghul, dressed in his usual high-collared green cape, met her mother at Woodstock. After Talia was born, he climbed to the top of a mountain, held the baby above his head, and proclaimed that "One day, all this will be yours!"
• Narm Charm:
  • Flamingo's outfit is absolutely ridiculous (he wears a hot pink jacket for God's sake) but somehow it just makes him even more creepy.
  • Jackanape - a talking gorilla in a clown suit. Sounds silly, but the scene where he delivers a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero on Damian makes him look especially menacing, with his Black Eyes of Evil adding to his menace.
• Never Live It Down: In Batman #666 Damian's possible future self is shown to have a cat named Alfred. In fandom he's like a Crazy Cat Kid, and Morrison had Damian adopt a cow, Peter J. Tomasi had him adopt a dog and a cat, Gleason had him adopt a freaking gargoyle, and Jon Kent's accidental killing of a cat becomes something Damian holds against him to the point of kidnapping the ten-year-old for interrogation.
• Older Than They Think: The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh idea was already used in The Invisibles, where King Mob created a metafictional shield personality to protect from Sir Miles' psychic attack. It was revisited again in The Filth: Greg Feely was injected with an artificial personality to serve as an agent for the Hand.
• Protection from Editors: While Morrison's run survived the New 52 reboot relatively intact, it did suffer from several changes, such as the absence of Oracle, Cassandra Cain, and Stephanie Brown, as well as a number of costume changes to make the series part of the New 52 continuity.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Damian, throughout the course of Batman and Robin, mellows out and shows not only his softer side, but also his loyalty to Dick.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Jezebel Jet was in cahoots with Doctor Hurt.
  • Oberon Sexton is the Joker, but this time he's on Batman's side!
  • Kathy Kane returns in the final issue of Batman: Incorporated.
• Signature Scene: Batman donning the garb of Zurr-En-Arrh is considered the image that best defines Morrison's run.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Jason Todd's no-holds-barred smackdown on Damian Wayne in Batman and Robin #6, which ended with Damian getting a broken back for his trouble.
  • Arguably it's Jason who receives the beating here at the hands of the Flamingo, a killer in a bright pink costume that would have killed Jason and his sidekick Scarlet if Damian and Dick had not come to his rescue. It was also Flamingo who shot Damian in the back, paralyzing him.
• Tough Act to Follow: This run is often viewed as the measuring stick to which other modern Batman runs are compared to, with following runs being criticized as derivative (Scott Snyder's run), esoteric (Tom King's run), or boring (James Tynion's run).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • How many fans felt about Dick as Batman, especially with Morrison vocally hoping for Dick's tenure to last ten years.
  • The same goes for Jason Todd, whom many have felt had finally reached his potential as a character, only to get derailed due to The New 52.
• Vindicated by History: When it began and for much of its initial run, the series got a lot of hate, from the dreaded reuse of Silver Age plot elements to the introduction of Damian to the Final Crisis tie-ins. Roundabouts Batman and Robin, though, opinion seemed to shift in the book's favor, especially as it became a lot more evident what the earlier parts were saying thematically. When Batman Incorporated was initially Cut Short by the New 52, reaction was mostly anger at DC for doing so, and by the Scott Snyder era, many were outright praising it as what a transformative comic run should do, especially as other writers started playing with the toys Morrison left behind.

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