I don't know if that was really crazy or really funny
I gotta say, Death Of The Family is raising some questions. A big one would be this: what does The Joker have in that cloche he's been showing several characters? Huh, I've never even heard of the word "cloche" before this story, and I thought I've heard them all!
Oh, and there's this other thing that's been nagging at me...why does James Gordon Jr. suddenly care so much about his mother? It just seems Out of Character, considering that he was the one who gave her Joker Venom and led characters to believe that Joker did it! <Frowns>
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!![]()
Both. I think the inappropriate music really sells it.
Also liked the reference to Nintendo's Pro Wrestling
One Strip! One Strip!So here are the conflicts in Batgirl 16 and my analysis of them:
Babs vs. Joker. Joker has Babs's mom hostage, Babs is trying to free her. Problem is, she doesn't come up with any kind of plan to free her mom. We're not even shown rough drafts of potential plans. She seems absolutely stumped. If Batgirl can't get a hostage away from a bomb, then she's just not very useful. It's all the more jarring because, as Oracle, she used to be one of the most intelligent members of the Bat family.
Joker vs. Babs. This should be a challenge. Babs is supposed to be really intelligent and good at planning. Instead, Joker seems to steamroll her in these departments, and fails in his plan only do to an unpredicted third party. However, this plot mistake can really be blamed on editorial. Babs is supposed to be the Smart Guy of the trope. If all of a sudden you're going to say "This villain is two steps a head of everyone.", then you need to be very careful not to undermine the Smart Guy 's shtick. Editorial doesn't want major plot revelations in Batgirl but are forcing a tie-in, which really hurts the book.
Junior vs. Himself. This is the most interesting part of this issue for me. What caused his change of heart? The issue should have assumed James perspective, talked about his motivations and showed him barging into the existing conflict between Babs and Joker. That would have been a good issue and it would have sidestepped editorial mandates.
An acrobat who had both parents alive and then became Batman's partner? That's Tim Drake's new backstory? DC, you already have a Dick Grayson, you don't need two!
The very best, like no one ever was. Check out my Spider-Man fanfic here! [1]Why keep Tim at all if they where just going to replace him with a character that is different in every way? DC didn't have any problem removing Steph and Cass from continuity, hell they removed Wally West from continuity when he was the Flash for an entire generation. Going down to just 3 Robin's would do wonders for Batman's timeline. And I say this as someone who really likes Tim Drake and despises Jason Todd. I mean at least they got Jason's character right, he was an unlikable douchebag before and he's an unlikable douchebag now.
Hmm. Now that's interesting. Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake are definitely three major characters when it comes to Batman. I hope the writers are careful not to make them interchangeable. If you have three characters who are pretty much the same, then you would be better off getting rid of two of them!
It sounds like they invested so little in the New 52 Tim that one has to wonder why they kept him around at all. With all those writers, they couldn't have come up with a better origin then that?
I used to entertain the idea to retcon things so that Batman had all three of the Robins (Dick, Jason, and Tim) at the same time. They'd rotate their Robin duties so that Batman'd always have two in reserve, and they all look enough alike that people would think there was only one.
He can do the same thing for the Betty, Barbara, Cassandra and Stephanie as well.
One Strip! One Strip!I'm a strict Batman and Robin guy myself. Never really warmed up to Batgirl/Batwoman/whathaveyou. The Bat-Family is MUCH too large, in my opinion. For instance, it used to bother me a bit that when Babs became Oracle, suddenly Batman NEEDED Oracle. He used to be able to gather all his information on his own. I dislike the diminishment of established characters to justify the existence of new characters.
You mean the actual issue or the annual? The issue was Do TF, the annual was the scavenger hunt thing
I'm currently reading through Grant Morrison's run of Batman. I just finished Batman R.I.P. And I'm so confused! Is this normal? I mean I knew his stuff referenced Silve Age comics so I googled the relevant issues and read up on them so I could understand his run and I'm still incredibly confused.
What bothers me is (and I'll spoiler all of them just in case):
Who is Dr Hurt? I don't understand why he's doing all this to Bruce or what exactly he's trying to achieve? Is this something that'll be explained in a later storyline?
At a certain point Joker starts asking Bruce if he 'gets' the whole red and black motif. What's the significance or Red and Black?
I liked the silver age references but what was the reason for it? Was there a specific reason for Morrison drawing on Batman's rich history to build this story? Is there some deeper meaning that I'm missing here? I ask because I'm familiar with some of Grant Morrison's stories and I just don't think he'd reference random stuff if there wasn't a point to it.
Joker didn't cut off their faces at all, they're completely intact. It was just part of The Joker's mind games.
Joker has disappeared once again, but I have no doubt that Joker Immunity covered him. Besides, he didn't really care about the Bat-Family's secret identities, so it's not like Death by Secret Identity was going to get him.
Batman claims that he knows Joker's name, his past, his family, everything. But I think he was just bluffing.
No one in the Bat-Family actually died, but Joker succeeded in driving a wedge between them and Batman. Hey, at least Scott Snyder knows better than to resort to that cheap tasteless shock value comic book writers are too fond of using.
Oh, and did you guys catch the bit at the end where Joker's toxin contains the element hahnium, whose element symbol is "Ha"? Okay, I have to admit, that was actually pretty funny!
edited 18th Feb '13 3:25:48 PM by TiggersAreGreat
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!So in the end, this is yet another 'Batman, due to the large scale machinations of villain, combined with his own lack of tact, ends up distanced from his alienated allies' story? Let me guess, next comes the 'Rebuild trust between the Batfamily just so it's broken again for the next mega story' arc, right?
Jesus, they have been reusing that since Knightfall, through No Man's Land, Fugitive, War Games, you count it... Hell, even Tower of Babel used the same basic principle, but with the JLA... Get yourselves some new structures, guys. At least Morrison went for a different angle.
If you don't mind me asking, what new structure would you like to see? The Batman franchise has existed for almost 74 years, and I imagine a franchise that long-lived has probably covered just about everything you can think of.
