I’ve written before about how, when following a character, you generally have to throw out the continuity you don’t like and read the continuity you do.

What I’ve noticed, though, is this trend tends to cultivate pockets of people who see very different characters.  This depends on a lot of things.  One is when you got to know the character.  People who are used to the warm and cuddly Batman of the 70s, do not like the colder Batman of today.  People, on the other hand, whose first impression of Bats was The Dark Knight Returns, wonder at how cuddly he’s gotten in the past year.

There are also different incarnations of each character.  Catman started out as arguably one of the more noble Secret Six characters.  But in Legends of the Dark Knight he was introduced as a psychotic murderer who slashed up women.

But things get a bit contentious when people drop or keep continuity based on how much they like a character.  We are all inclined to give more credit to those we like, in fiction and in life, and serial fiction gives us a convenient excuse for bad behavior.  I’ve gotten into arguments in which I can write off a character’s fall from the path of righteousness with an airy, “Oh, that wasn’t X-character, that was Y-writer.  You can’t trust Y’s writing.”  If I don’t like the character, however, Y-writer’s character choices seem perfectly trustworthy, and fair game to use in an argument.  Ah, the capriciousness of the reader.

Between Batman & Robin and Batman, I realize that while I do enjoy Dick Grayson as the newly-christened Dark Knight, what really seals the deal for me is his relationship with Damian Wayne. The big selling point is that now the roles of Batman and Robin are reversed. Batman is now the light-hearted one mentoring the brooding, moody badass. Without even mentioning him, Damian is the best use of Jason Todd since his resurrection, as Dick is trying to make sure that, against all odds, Damian doesn’t end up either corrupt and crazy (like Jason) or dead (also like Jason). I feel that the Dick/Damian dynamic is what’s going to define this episode of Bat-history and may ultimately make it one of the more interesting duo dynamics in comics, alongside Cage/Iron Fist, Booster/Beetle and Wolverine/Cyclops.

Then I remembered something. This isn’t the first time the two of them have crossed paths in comics. In fact, they helped lead to one of the few bright points of the Kingdom Come sequel Kingdom. More specifically, Kingdom: Nightstar, written by Mark Waid and drawn by Matt Haley ten years ago. Following up on the plot thread shown only in background shots from Kingdom Come, Nightstar — the daughter of Dick Grayson and Starfire — has a romantic relationship going with Ibn Al Xu’ffasch — son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al’Ghul. Bruce, being a delightful asshole in this continuity, decides to let Dick know.

There you have it. The next time Robin gets all indignant at Batman, imagine that inside he’s thinking, “I’m so going to nail your daughter in an alternate timeline for this, Grayson…”

Lately DC has been adding an eight-page back-up story featuring a new character to existing comic books.

The Question has been appearing as a back-up to Detective Comics, and the Blue Beetle has been added to Booster Gold.  I love the double feature, both because it gives me a chance to get to know new characters and because it allows ongoing stories of characters who, for reasons that pass understanding, don’t sell well enough on their own.

And now that I’ve pushed some minor characters, let’s get back to the five-hundred pound gorilla; Batman.  This is a guy who’s passed around to any title that needs a boost, from The Outsiders to the Blue Beetle.  (Tough beat on that last one, Battsy.  We all felt it.)

But what would be a different way to present Batman, considering he’s already in at least five books at a time?  I don’t know.  But I know what I want, and that is a return of the Batman: Black and White series.

Batman: Black and White, pitched by Mark Chiarello, was a series of 8-page Batman stories written and drawn by different artists.  The stories ran singly at the end of the newly-created Batman: Gotham Knights, and as 4-story collections.  The art and the writing are superb, the stories wildly disparate, running the gamut from gothic horror, to poetic meditation, to cutsy bat-with-a-baby stories.  There is a story in which Batman frees a genetically-engineered mermaid.  There is one in which Batman threatens someone’s life for killing his son’s cat.  There is one in which Batman is futuristic freedom fighter, and one in which he and an early Catwoman/Batgirl mash-up fight nazis, and one where he bleeds in an alley.

The stories are collected into three volumes, all of which are well-worth getting.  They are a must-have to any fan, partly because of the talent involved, but mainly because they add up to more than the sum of their parts.  The many takes on Batman, his motivations and his effects, his different eras and his absurdities, end up building something far more epic and sweeping than any planned Batman story I’ve ever read.  If I wanted to argue that superhero comics can be moving and artistic, these are the books I would present as evidence.

And if something like that were to come back, I would clamor for people to read it, no matter what book it was stuck to.

In Secret Six #11– oop, spoilers.

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Fans of our Continuity Off, or insert your favorite term for the bit where we talk about how dumb certain comics characters are here, are gonna be super happy at us after this Fourcast.

-Theme music? 6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental
-Special guest? Jeff Lester of Savage Critic(s)
-Characters? Green Arrow vs Hawkeye
-What’s it lead to? Marvel vs DC

This is a fun one. Talking about the two premiere archers of the Big Two ended up dovetailing nicely into a conversation about the differences between the two universes, and a few of the similarities. We even get into dorky stuff like geometry.

As an aside– the webcomic I mention at the end of the cast is The Dark Cat’s Batman and Sons. It’s fun, and since I probably sound like a jerk when I mention it, I figured I’d at least link it so you’d know what we were talking about.

Bam! Back in two weeks, folks. Apologies for the short shownotes, too. I’m in Los Angeles taking a vacation from everything.

Click the image to see.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m not doing an article about Captain America today. Uh huh! Eat it! And eat a delicious, grilled hotdog. And maybe a burger. With a cold one. And fireworks.

Happy 4th from the guys (and girl) at 4th.

I love the covers, I love the idea, I love the title.

And now?

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Recently there was a post on spoilers on io9, and a little dust-up over them at the new scans_daily, and it got me thinking about the popularity of spoilers in general.  The io9 post dealt with someone who asserted that spoilers were a status symbol among fans, and that’s why people love them so.  This concept is alien to me.  I don’t doubt that there are a few big men out there, bragging about their inside information, but fans can turn anything into a status symbol, from bagging and boarding to camping out outside a movie theater in order to ensure that you are the first person to get tickets to a movie that anyone can see two hours later.  Plus, the few people I’ve met who have legitimate spoilers just seemed happy to be able to share the information.

The scans_daily scuffle was more understandable to me.  Fans posted the last page of the latest Wonder Woman comic, in which a big change is made.  This change was what the last eight issues had been leading up to.  Creator Gail Simone showed up in the comments, annoyed that the point of eight months worth of comics was revealed abruptly online instead of at the end of the book, as she had intended.

I’ve tried my hand at creative work, and I can understand the frustration that creators must feel.  Working on a narrative is about building an specific experience.  You want your audience to have moments of enjoyment, frustration, suspense and revelation.  So have someone sum it all up with ‘the butler did it’ renders the whole experience, and your work, meaningless.

At the same time, I can understand very well why fans clamor for spoilers.  Most of the time, I prefer them.  Not all kinds of suspense are pleasant.  I can’t enjoy a story all that well if I spend the whole time wondering if I’m going to get stuck with continuity that I hate at the end of it.  The pacing of comics often compounds this.  Story lines are stretching longer and longer, meaning that a story can pose a question one year that won’t be answered until two years later.  I don’t want to pick up a story and think, “Wow.  The Christmas after next, when I figure out what the hell is going on, is going to be gooood.”  I want to know where I’m going so I can stretch out and enjoy the trip.

I guess who you think is  right depends on who you think has rights to a story.  Is it the creator’s to give out as they wish?  Or do fans have the final say in how they want to enjoy the stories they buy?

In only a few weeks, DC will release Blackest Night, the big summer event and culmination of Geoff Johns’ fantastic run on Green Lantern. Willpower, fear, love, hate, compassion, greed and hope will be duking it out as Black Hand and that Cosmic Harvey Dent Smurf resurrect all sorts of heroes and villains to join their side. We’ve been given notice about some who would return and others who might. Earth 2 Superman, Martian Manhunter, Terra and the Flying Graysons will be there for sure. Perhaps we’ll see Elongated Man, Alexander Luthor, or General Glory rise from the grave.

But you know what? It’s a bit cheap. All these black rings are flying around and the only major resurrections go to those who are superheroes, supervillains or acquaintances thereof? That’s no fun! Okay, that’s a lie, since this is going to rock, but that’s not as fun as it could be!

By focusing on the fictional, think of all those we’re missing out on. What about the real corpses out there? We could not only have Heath Ledger back, but also Cesar Romero as the icing on the cake. David Carradine could return to get revenge on those murdering ninjas. Jack Kirby could engulf Jim Starlin in a bubble construct and toss him into the deep recesses of space out of revenge for Death of the New Gods. Elvis Presley could return to Graceland and… oops. Disregard that. I forgot that Elvis never actually died.

After much deliberation, I have put together the Top Ten Real Life Black Lanterns I Want to See.

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I’m not a fan of the later Bourne movies.  I think they skimp on the clever details of spy stuff and instead just show Bourne magically appearing places without explaining how he managed to be there.  I think the plots are shaky.  (Well, they were shaky to begin with.  He breaks into the ultra-top-secret headquarters in Paris, grabs all the guns and . . . gives them a good talking-to?  And that solves the problem?  Really?)  I think the camera is even shakier.  Shaky to the point where I couldn’t tell whether the struggles were between highly trained assassins or old ladies in a slap fight.

I have a friend who really likes the later movies, though.  And says so.  Usually to bait me into responding.  Which I do.  Vehemently.

During one argument, when I was getting particularly overheated about the idea that they were going to yet another Bourne movie, presumably called The Bourne Epilepsy, when he said, “You know, you don’t have to see it.”

And I realized that no, no I don’t.  I don’t particularly care about Jason Bourne or the movies in the first place.  Why was I even madly talking about how crappy the later movies were?

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