Welcome to Thunderdome

Posted: **Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:47 am**

Posted: **Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:43 am**

There's a lot of back story here, so for those interested...

First of all, DC is getting it's ass handed to them by Marvel. Last month or quarter, Marvel, for the first time in history, claimed 51% of the comics market compared to DC's 22%.

How did that happen?

Look at the product lines:
DC- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League...
Marvel- Spider-man, Wolverine, X-Men, Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Punisher...

Notice anything right off the too of your head? DC's heroes are all "perfect". They're characters of perfect virtue, although DC has been trying to change that image. Marvel's character were bred out of conflict and exist with it daily outside of the former Captain America (Steve Rodgers died in 2007). Wolverine is a murderer, Spider-Man's selfishness caused his uncle to be murdered, Iron Man is a drunk and womanizer, etc.

50+ years of the same characters never dealing with any real world issues that readers would associate with is bad.

On top of that is that DC's 50+ years of continuity are a mess. You'd need teams of researchers to catch you up on the history of characters to follow a lot of their stories. This is the biggest complaint from readers. DC's continuity is such a mess that it's hard for me to really describe.

Let me give you an example: The DC universe was discovered to be a multiverse where existed an infinite number of alternate universes where things are different from our own. So in Universe 12, Superman might never have landed on Earth or in Universe 872 he did, but landed in Chile. DC would regularly take their characters back and forth between the universes. Then they held an event that wiped out all the alternate universes. Then they brought back 52 of them. Now they're running an event that is rumored to wipe them all out again.

Mix that in with the way they handle their characters. We'll use Superman as an example: There's the regular Superman, then there's Superman Prime who is uber evil. There's the Russian Superman, the old Superman, the General Zod Superman, Superboy, Cyborg (who is some form of Superman or something), and 40+ more Supermen. That's just Superman...

Throw in his supporting cast of other Kryptonians like Supergirl, Power Girl, General Zod and his cronies, Super Dog, the 100,000 Kryptonians that are on Earth now thanks to some storyline, etc. and you can see that it's pretty ridiculous. Remember when Krypton blew up and he was the only survivor???

Oh, and did I mention that DC also uses characters from their universes' past and future? Regularly enough that characters from the present know them on a first name basis?

That's not saying Marvel doesn't have some confusing continuity, but it's nowhere near DC's mass confusion. Although, it should be noted that lately Marvel has really been approaching DC territory by introducing several new characters based on previously established characters, like Wolverine's female clone X-23, his son, Lady Bullseye, the daughter of Kraven, etc. They're efforts to grab a younger audience, but I think they're ultimately doomed. DC has been trying that shit for years (there's a younger version of EVERYONE in the DC universe) and it hasn't worked.

Ok, back to the present, Grant Morrison is the writer behind Batman R.I.P. and he's a very polarizing writer. Fans either love him or hate him. The fans who love him claim his writing is too smart for the average reader. The fans who hate him call his writing pretentious and full of dangling plot threads that never get resolved. IMHO, I agree with the later group. I think his writing sucks. It's like he sits down and has all these stories plotted out in his head, but only actually writes 85% of what he thinks. Thus, as a reader, you're left with all these gaping holes in logic and the story.

Grant Morrison is also currently writing "Final Crisis", which is DC's latest mega event that is rumored to be tying up the continuity issues by (again rumored) combined all the multiverses and eliminating a lot of characters. Critics and fans have summed it up so far as "extremely confusing". Nobody seems to have a clue what exactly is going on.

DC has marketed this event as "read R.I.P.! Batman is really gonna die for real this time! Buy this if you want to know how Batman dies!", but at the same time, saying that Final Crisis will tell us the ultimate fate of Batman.

WTF?

Is it a coincidence that Marvel is pummeling DC and now DC has taken on a slightly darker tone? They've been killing off characters left and right.

Is it a coincidence that Marvel successfully killed one of their icons (Steve Rogers - Captain America) and replaced him with his former sidekick (Bucky Barnes - Winter Soldier) and now DC is trying to do the same with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson?

DC is simply throwing as much stuff against the wall as possible hoping something sticks. What they really need to do is rip off Marvel's Ultimate line. Marvel's Ultimate line tells the story of the Marvel Universe only in a much, much darker and more realistic way. I highly, highly recommend you pick up The Ultimates trade paper back Volumes 1 and 2. It'll blow your mind in terms of what you might think of comics versus what they actually are in reality.

Anyway, back to the Bat, I read the issue in question where Batman "dies" and here's what occurs:Spoilers Bruce is fighting the main baddie in R.I.P. who reveals himself to be Thomas Wayne, Bruce's dad, but he isn't really...the bad guy tries to escape in a helicopter which Bruce jumps onto and while punching through the windshield, the helicopter crashes into the ocean and explodes. No body is ever shown. Meanwhile, nobody rushes into the ocean to look for Bruce, instead Dick Grayson stands on the dock looking out into the sea while clutching Batman's cowl.End of spoilers

I fully expect we'll see Bruce Wayne again, but I think it'll be as some new character before he eventually returns to the cowl.

I just think this is a really stupid move on DC's part. They could replace Wonder Woman. She's just a princess. They could replace Aquaman, that's genetics. They could replace, and have about a million times, the Flash. They can replace Green Lantern because it's really about the ring. However, the thing they are overlooking is that they can't replace Batman because Batman is Bruce Wayne's story. The character exist solely based on his life experiences and his wealth. Someone else stepping into his shoes will not have the same drive. Nor will they be "the world's greatest detective". Nor the most feared man alive. Nor hold the same place as Bruce did within the top tier or heroes. Should Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. hold Dick Grayson in the same regard as Bruce just because he's wearing Batman's cowl? Hell no, it's a completely different person. That's why Dick became Nightwing and not Batman Junior.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Posted: **Fri Dec 05, 2008 11:20 pm**

I agree with you on why they can't just replace Bruce Wayne. It's his personal psychology that makes him the Batman.

Oddly, I think the only one that could come close as they were depicted in the comics was Carrie from the Dark Knight Returns and its sequel. She had a reverence that approached worship for Bruce that could translate into that sort of dark drive.

But she's outside their existing universe (I'm assuming... haven't read much in a long while).

Posted: **Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:57 am**

FYI: They did kill Bruce Wayne. I swung by a local comic store just to see what they did, here's the scoop:

The writer is named Grant Morrison, you either love him or hate him with a passion. The second group seems to be growing by leaps and bounds.

First he put Wayne through a story called R.I.P. and had some no name B list villains put Wayne through hell, destroy his mansion, impersonate his father, etc. That story ended with Wayne crashing their helicopter into the ocean with him aboard. (So much for the no killing rule...) The final frame was Dick Grayson standing on the docks holding Batman's cowl. (hint hint)

R.I.P. was a financial success, due to the rumors of Wayne dying, but people bashed the shit out of the story.

Apparently, according to the DC universe Batman was now presumed dead and missing.

Then Morrison wrote a huge DC crossover, "Final Crisis", which was going on at the same time as R.I.P. Within its pages Darkseid, a "god" that can kick Superman's ass, is about to destroy the universe until Batman (Bruce Wayne) shows up in full outfit, cowl and all, and shoots him with a bullet that can kill gods. I'm not making this up. I'm sure there's some back story to it, but it's still stupid.

Anyway, at the same time that Bruce Wayne/Batman shoots Darkseid, he shoots his death beams out of his eyes and kills Wayne. They actually show his body decaying and then Superman shows up and carries his body out.

Now, you should know that this "Final Crisis" series started with a scene showing the first human and Morrison always said it would finish with a scene featuring the last human, actually that might be vice versa. That being said, the final scene showed a topless muscular guy with black hair sitting at a campfire in a cave. His shadow on the wall was that of Batman's cowl.

I have no idea what that means and judging from internet response, nobody else does either.

Final Crisis has been massacred like no other story I've ever seen. Most people say they that while reading the series, they had zero clue what was going on, and even now that it's all done, they still don't have any idea what the story was about.

DC did itself no favors either by telling people it was a standalone story, when in reality, one would have to read the dozen or so ancillary limited series that were also running under the "Final Crisis" banner to have a chance of following the story.

It also didn't help that Morrison was purposely using DC's ridiculously convoluted history (and future) as the basis for his story. So if you haven't read DC for 60 years, you couldn't follow the story. Making things worse is that he used B and C list characters as the primary players, both heroes and villains.

I give DC 5 years before Bruce Wayne is back. This was too much of a monumental disaster to let Wayne go out like that.

Plus, the word is that DC was very upset about the MSM totally ignoring the death of Batman when two years ago Captain America had died and it was huge news. It also drove sales of Captain America through the roof.

It's no wonder that Marvel now commands over 50% of the market share.

Welcome to Thunderdome

DC replacing Bats?