Batman R.I.P.

There's no mainstream superhero character whose portrayal causes as much furore amongst comic book readers than Batman. No other hero has as many varied 'takes on' or as many opinions amongst his fans of how he should be written. The work Scott Snyder is currently doing with the character is for many the kind of story lines that they feel our hero should be finding himself in: gritty, urban, yet imaginative and mysterious - hence, the current run's success. What's important to remember though is in a 70+ year history the Bat-Man has had many incarnations and riffs on how he is portrayed; both on page and screen.There are a number of Batman's that are burned deeply in the collective psyche and to say that there's a correct one is to miss the point. For some Batman will always be the goofy take seen in the 1960's TV show and for others the brooding and 'realistic' take in Frank Miller's 'Dark Knight Returns' and 'Batman - Year One', will always be the blueprint to work from. And that seems to be the prevalent attitude nowadays when a Batman comic is written: is he believable? We only have to look at Nolan's trio of films to see where the current zeitgeist is - you can leave all the larger than life goings on to Superman, Green Lantern and The Flash.What's forgotten, though, is no matter what you do with him there is a weirdness and preposterousness that runs through Batman as much as any other mainstream DC hero. It's this, that I believe, Grant Morrison understands implicitly throughout his run. Look at the most famous rogues gallery in comics: Joker, Penguin, Riddler, pantomime villains, all. And when we start looking at second tier villains like Killer Croc and Clayface we are hardly in the realms of the real.It was high-time Batman was taken somewhere else and certain aspects of his large and varied history was uncovered, re-discovered and brought to the page. Yes, Morrison's run is typically Morrison with all the mind bending, surreality and, there's no denying it, confusion that you come to expect from the writer. Yes, you may have to stick with whole run before certain things make sense (if they ever do) and you may have to read it all twice - but is this such a bad thing? Let's be honest, how many more cliched images of the character, standing atop a 19th century building, looking down on the city with the rain pouring and a lightning flash in the sky, can we stomach? Visually and narratively Batman needed a shot in the arm.One read of Morrison's non-fiction book on superheroes tells you how much he loves this genre and he writes for those readers of his age and many others whose tastes are pre-'Watchmen': larger than life characters having larger than life adventures, but with a modern sensibility and in his own idiosyncratic style. Like it or lump it, that's what he did with Batman. Hat's off to Morrison for doing it and a thankful nod to DC for letting him.

This is one of the best Batman Stories ever written. Grant Morrison is one of the greats. This is written as the final chapter for Bruce Wayne, his last hurrah. It works really well for what it is, bear in mind that, by this I mean, the Death of Batman as a part of a long running series of Batman comics and the culmination of Morrison's work on the series.The issue is that this is presented as a it's own stand alone graphic novel/story. A lot of elements make no sense if you hadn't been reading the last 20 or so Batman issues as well as the series 52 as well having understood the meta narrative of Infinite Crisis and the books that led into that. This is Volume 150 of a long series of Batman books but they want the consumer to think of it as it's own single self-contained story like The Dark Knight Returns or Year One probably to try and get more people to pick it up but this is a collection of individual Batman comics, each written to satisfy readers who originally read each individually as well as collected the previous issues and connected comics to understand what the hell is going on.This is not written for a casual audience.If you're already a Batman fan, pick this up but only after having read Grant Morrison's previous Batman stuff (Collected in a book called Batman and Son) and do some background reading on the DC Wikia to see what he was up to during the 52 series (Not New 52) and the events that led to the Infinite Crisis.If you're very new to comics and want to read some good Batman stories, read some more recent stuff with less baggage and previous story stuff going on i.e. the New 52 stories and Rebirth stories.

First off let me make it clear that in order to read this you should first read 'the black glove deluxe' book. this is very important and for many who read R.I.P without doing so, i think this is what produced such poor reviews. this story is the book end of a much longer story arc that starts with the first 'batman & Son' story 'how to build a better batmobile' and continues beyond this book into 'final crisis'. Again, this is why i would recommend the 'black glove deluxe' as it also contains the 'batman & son' trade issues as well as all the corresponding 'black glove' issues that lead into this story. Rip is only one 'chapter' and everything that takes place in this story can not only be very confusing if you haven't read the rest of grant morrisons run, but can tend to make no sense at all. However, that said, if you have followed morrisons arc from at least 'batman & son' onward then this story is utterly superb! we see bruce psychologically broken down in a far worse way than his iconic battle with bane during the 'knightfall' storyline and are witness to the lengths he will go to to over come. batman has become ever so much darker a title over the years and this story is about as bleak as it gets! the joker is downright horrifing in this incarnation. the art is beautiful, morrison use's the surreal elements of the plot to look back over batmans entire career as we count down to our heros inevitable demise (again, not actually seen here but in final crisis, the writing is top draw and once you read this you should definatly pick up 'final crisis'. excellent!!! Batman: The Black Glove Deluxe Final Crisis