The Future of Batman

A new Batman has arrived, and while it’s the person we all knew would take up the cowl (hope you all didn’t mind throwing away 4 dollars over the last 3 months for the obvious to happen) Dic Grayson the original Robin and later on Nightwing is now Batman. There is much to do in the new world of the Batman, a new Robin is by his side in Batman’s first real son, Damian. So to celebrate the new Batman I wanted to take one more look at the upcoming Bat-titles and give my overall thoughts on them. I’ll be avoiding Batgirl since it was just solicited.

Batman

Written: Judd Winnick

Art: Ed Benes and Mark Bagley

The main ongoing title that will explore the adventures of our new Batman. Dick Grayson has a lot to deal with thanks to his new role, hopefully this book will tackle the left over plot of the new Black Mask. Now I despise how we got this new Black Mask out of nowhere, the military invades Gotham and all this crap but I admit this book still has some potential. Benes and Bagley are incredible artists who will no doubt turn in great work, but of course there is Winnick…what to say about Winnick? He’s the man who brought back Jason Todd. I think that should say it all. I remember actually reading through the collection of that storyline, it actually had some good moments surprisingly and maybe Batman is simply a character that Winnick writes better than the Titans. I won’t be giving this a read mainly for Winnick but also because the other books all look far more interesting than this.

Batman and Robin

Written: Grant Morrison

Art: Frank Quietly

Undeniably the most exciting looking book of them all is the continuation of Morrison’s Batman saga. I had mistaken it as more a simple trilogy, just as people before Episode 1 mistook the Star Wars series as such. But it turns out there’s more to the story and this is a far more epic saga than I had imagined. Let’s just hope there aren’t any Jar Jar Binks characters in this. While Morrison isn’t one of my favorite writers usually, he’s talented to say the least. He excels a lot with the character of Batman and really seems to enjoy writing him a lot like most writers have. I love the concept of a Light-hearted Batman and a Darker Robin, it just sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun to read. Of course there’s plenty of room for this book to fall flat, delays could really kill it with Quietly as the artist and the plots could turn out to be nothing more than boring second rate stories, but I have faith that Morrison can pull more than that off. Also while I’m not his biggest fan, Quietley’s art is looking really good for this book.

Detective Comics

Written: Greg Rucka

Art: J.H. Williams the 3^rd

Though this series debuted the Dark Knight it’s going over to the uh…Dark Maiden? Does that work? I like it. I’m sticking with it. Yes Batwoman is taking over the long beloved Batman title and is being written by her creator Rucka. The book’s opening story arc will have her taking on some fairytale villain named Alice who is completely new. I admit I don’t know how that could work so well but it certainly sounds awesome. Sadly the budget man has come and poked this out of my grasp, so I’m trade waiting this. Still it looks incredibly good, even if just for the awesome art, a possible Must Have book.

Batman: Streets of Gotham

Written: Paul Dini

Art: Dustin Nguyen

Looking back on their run, Dini and Nguyen really gave us an incredible bat-book that sadly was in the shadow of the third stage of Morrison’s saga. While the two are not reuniting on Detective Comics they are joining forces once again to keep the great Bat-tales going on their own new ongoing series which is just as awesome. The idea of it seems to be more like a Batman book that’s about far more than just the Batman himself and his adventures which sounds exciting. We know our new Batman will be joining forces with Gordon to take on Firefly and he’ll even butt-heads with Bruce Wayne. Though that’s actually Tommy Elliot, former Bat-nemesis as Hush. This books looks to be very exciting and a thrilling ride.

Gotham City Sirens

Written: Paul Dini

Art: Guillem March

An interesting looking book to say the least, but I admit I’m rather confused as to why we get this kind of book instead of just giving Catwoman her own ongoing series again. She was able to hold one for an incredibly long time, I can’t see why we wouldn’t give her one again and instead make her share the spotlight with 2 other, much lesser, characters. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of Paul Dini writing for Harley Quinn is a dream come true for a fan of the Animated series like myself but at the same time this just feels rather odd. Poison Ivy? Really? She deserves a spot in her own series? That just seems weird to me. Still I can’t deny that for female villains these 3 are about as deadly as it gets, at least for Gotham City, so this book could be good. Also Dini is a strong writer, is brining back Hush, so this all could go well and March’s art is a very nice bonus so I’ll check this out.

Red Robin

Written: Christopher Yost

Art: Ramon Bachs

This book pretty much interests me to the lowest point, I can’t really see any reason why I’d want to really check it out. We can assume Tim Drake is Red Robin, he’ll be searching for Bruce Wayne which we know is just a futile and waste of our time read. Still Yost is getting his own ongoing series at least, that’s cool, and who knows maybe this could be a really good book. Though either way I’m avoiding it mostly because it doesn’t’ really look all that interesting or appealing to me personally.

So that’s it for my thoughts on the future of Batman, there is much that can still happen. I am hopeful for lots of twists and turns as it all unfolds.