Explaining the awesomeness of Grant morrison’s Batman
DC comics has always had problems with their continuity. With over 75 years of stories to try and pack together, it’s not really surprising, but can be frustrating for readers. Every few years DC does a Crisis or a Zero Hour to “fix” their overall continuity. These usually fix some problems, and create others. Usually your Crisis story lines concentrate on the entire line, and may fix certain things with specific characters, but mostly neglect one of DC’s flagship characters: Batman.
Enter Grant Morrison. As a creator who is a huge fan of the silver age of comics, he is uniquely qualified to fix the problems with the many incarnations that Batman, and even his most famous nemesis the Joker, have gone through.
Batman started out in Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s first few stories as a gun toting, thug killing, neck breaking vigilante. Problems became apparent very shortly. Batman was born from gun violence, and having him use a gun seemed hypocritical, and ultimately took away from his purity as a character. So instead of guns, Batman started using gadgets, and stopped murdering the superstitious and cowardly lot. To further lighten the dark vigilante, and make the book more kid friendly, Robin was introduced. Where Batman was almost a negative image with his black and gray costume, Robin was color, and youth. Robin was the character that allowed readers to enter this world, from their point of view. But even the introduction of Robin was a problem for Batman going forward.
Batman chugged along through the mid 50’s as one of DC Comics best selling titles, and had spawned everything from film serials to a newspaper strip. The train was almost derailed though by a precursor of the PMRC in the 50’s, a one man morality crusade named Fredric Wertham. In Dr. Wertham’s study of juvenile delinquency, Seduction of the Innocent, he supposed that comics were the main contributor to juvenile delinquency. Batman was held up as an example of one of the worst of the bunch. Only EC comics, with it’s stable of crime and horror themed comics was hit harder. This report came out at the height of McCarthyism, and was even the subject of a Congressional hearing chaired by Senator McCarthy. The only survivor of the EC Comics stable was MAD magazine.
Dr. Wertham accused Batman of having a homosexual relationship with Robin. He included blown up panels of the book in his presentation supposedly showing vaginas and penises in shading of the art. With Batman’s focus on crime, just as some of the EC comics, it was said to be glorifying crime. For survival of their industry, the comics companies adopted the Comics Code Authority as a regulating and censoring body. Batman was about to change genres, as he did many times later, and do what Batman does, adapt to change with the times.
Monster movies, sci fi flix, and horror movies were extremely popular in the nuclear 50s. With crime being one of the subjects basically being banned from comics, Batman became a sci fi book. Batman visited new worlds, had his own rocket ships, and experimented with sensory deprivation. Batman had costumes of every color, he hallucinated dying, he dreamed of Robin’s death, and most of his rogues gallery were absent.
In 1962 Marvel comics started publishing their new age of super hero comics. The publisher at the time was inspired by the sales of DC’s Justice League to try more super heroes, and move away from their romance, western, and monster comics. Batman was changing again, becoming more recognizable as a super hero again. The Sci Fi stories were petering off, and soon the best rogues gallery in comics were coming back, though not as serious as they once were. In 1966 Batman went to TV. Starring Adam West the show ran for almost two years into 1968. This was another incarnation of Batman, and one that still divides fandom today. Adam West and Burt Ward camped up the show, introducing such terms to the American Lexicon, such as Bat spray repellant, the Batusi, and Holy insert blank here Batman!!
After the cancellation of the Batman TV show, it was time to reinvent Batman again. Denny O’Neill came onto the book, and started making Batman relevant again. Denny introduced Ra’s Al Ghul and his daughter Talia. Batman was fighting an immortal eco terrorist, his rogues, and started fighting crime again in a serious manner.
In the 80s some of the best Batman stories of all time were published. The Dark Knight Returns was a seminal piece that showcased an aged Batman fighting a gang of mutates, and Reagan era politics. DKR and Watchmen(also published around the same time) are still hailed as two of the best stories ever published in the medium of comics. during the same decade we also get Batman: the Demon’s Head, written by the aforementioned Denny O’Neill.
The writer of Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller, also wrote what some fans feel is a better story in Batman: Year One. While DKR had wider ramifications in the field of comics, Year One had a wider impact on Batman as a whole, introducing the Falcone crime family, a more realistic origin for Catwoman, and fleshed out the origin of Commissioner Gordon. Elements of Batman: Year One, and it’s follow up Year Two have inspired other great stories, such as Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween, Dark victory, and Catwoman: When in Rome.
In 1989 we also get Grant Morrison’s first Batman story: Arkham Asylum. Arkham Asylum is a psychological breakdown and building back up of Batman. It’s a mix of a grail knight’s quest, with Lewis Carroll sensibilities, and a touch of Dante’s Inferno thrown into a melting pot. Grant Morrison starts here what is one of his main themes in his Batman stories, that the characters in Batman aren’t linear, that they are static, and change all the time, bt do have base characteristics that identify them. One of the most important things Grant introduces in this story is his take on the Joker. He believes that the Joker re invents himself periodically as he needs to, in order to cope with the world at large.
The 90s may be the Dark ages of comics. Gimmicks, over printing, and a general lack of storytelling almost did what Dr. Wetham couldn;t in the 1950s: killed comics. DC replaced their more established characters with younger, and more violent versions. They turned Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern, into a murdering power mad Demi god, killed the Green Arrow, and replaced him with his son, and killed, Superman, and replaced him with not one but four different characters, each starring in a different Superman title. Marvel comics did some of the same, armoring up Daredevil, cloning Spiderman, and deconstructing Wolverine. Batman wasn’t immune to this either. Two new characters were introduced around the same time, one that would break batman, and one to carry on his legacy: Azrael and Bane.
Bane’s origins echoes that of Marvel’s Luke Cage with a little Machiavelli thrown in. Bane was born in prison on the fictional island of Santa Prisca. His father escaped capture for being a revolutionary and the laws of Santa Prisca held that Bane was now responsible for serving out his father’s sentence. Bane read everything he could get his hands on, learned to fight, and survive in this harsh environment. Bane was chosen as a test subject for a military experiment that involved an amphetamine and steroid concoction, aimed at making super soldiers. Most test subjects died from the drug, called Venom, but Bane survived. He ended up escaping from Santa Prisca, and going to Gotham to prove himself by defeating Batman. Bane’s plan was masterful, he released the inmates from Arkham Asylum, where the majority of Batman’s rogues were housed, and drove Batman to capture them all, pushing Batman closer and closer to complete mental and physical exhaustion. In this storyline, to build Bane up as a world beater, the writers had Bane break Killer Croc’s arms, destroy the Batmobile with his bare hands, and finally shattering Batman’s spine.
Azrael’s origins are convoluted and hard to follow. He was born into a religious order, “The Sacred Order of Saint Dumas” and brainwashed with “The System.” Batman helps the young man break from his brainwashing, taking him under his wing, and giving him a job as a security guard for Wayne Enterprises. When Bane broke the bat, Azrael took over, and became a more violent Batman, whom when Bruce Wayne healed, he had to take back his mantle of the bat and beat his successor.
Knightfall and it’s successive story lines set up the importance of what Batman is, and is not. The true Batman does not kill, use guns, or excessive cruelty just to make a point. It also sets up the idea of succession for Batman if he is ever unable to perform his duties, and the importance of Batman as an icon and not necessarily having to be Bruce Wayne.
After Knightfall, and some subsequent stories, DC comics relaunched it’s flagship team book Justice League. Grant Morrison was chosen to write the revamp, that featured the return of the Justice League’s membership to the most popular of DC’s characters. Batman takes a central role, as the chess master of the Justice League. The best Batman stories of these years are in fact in Justice League. In the first arc we see Batman save the day, fighting against the White Martians, using his brains when the powers of the heavy hitters of the Justice League just don’t make the cut. The younger characters in the book are shown to be in awe of Batman, and he is set up as the man that if these characters ever cross the line, that he will be the one to reign them back in, or put them down as needed.
One of the more important story lines in JLA wasn’t written by Grant Morrison, but by Mark Waid. It’s called Babel. Ra’s Al Ghul infiltrates Batman’s computer systems, and finds his protocols on defeating the JLA, and uses them to horrifying effect. Wonder Woman is put into a never ending fight in a virtual reality, the Flash in a seizure at super-speed, Superman is humbled, and it goes on. This is the ultimate fear of these heroes, that the viper that they allow into their midst is in fact capable of dealing them the death bite that they all fear would come. This storyline sets up a fracturing of the Big Three of the DC Universe (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman), that culminates in the lead up to Infinite Crisis, with Wonder Woman snapping the neck of Maxwell Lord, who is mind controlling a Superman who is about to kill.
Grant Morrison takes over the Batman books, and starts telling some great stories that tie together all the incarnations of Batman. Instead of taking DC’s usual confusing position of if something doesn’t make sense to the current incarnation of the character it happened on a parallel earth, Morrison tells you that yes it did happen, and here is how it fits in. The first arc of Morrison’s Batman ties up leads from a story that most thought wasn’t in the regular continuity of Batman: The Demon’s Head. In this story Ra’s Al Ghul is trying to entice Batman into being his heir. This ties into themes Morrison explores in his run of Batman, such as family succession, and embracing all aspects of the character. In The Demon’s Head, Batman had slept with Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter Talia, and at the end of the story she is shown to be pregnant. In Batman and son we meet this child, Damien Wayne. Damien is the dark mirror of what Bruce Wayne could have turned into, a dangerous, privileged brat with no regard for human life. Talia in this story is the dark mirror of Alfred, who raised Bruce with morals, love, and a sense of purpose. Talia raised Damien with a sense of entitlement, a warped moral code and instilled in him a twisted sense of devotion to his mother.
Again with Damien we see the themes of heredity and succession. Damien, wanting the role of Robin for himself beats Tim Drake to within an inch of his life, and shows up dressed as Robin. This is the usurping of a role, and Batman lets Damien know in no uncertain terms this is not how things are done. To further drive this theme home Morrison re-introduces us to three characters from the sci fi age, replacement Batmen. Each of these characters mirror a certain aspect of Batmen drastically taken to an extreme, and they each represent a male archetype. The one we meet on the first page of the first issue is vengeance, the second who looks like Bane, represents physical prowess, and the third, whom Damien deals with in Batman #666 is the Devil, a typically male archetype of evil.
Morrison’s next arc, The return of Ra’s Al Ghul again tackles succession and heredity, but this time not Batman’s, but that of Ra’s Al Ghul. Ra’s had been absent for awhile from the Batbooks, his main form of reincarnation, the Lazarus pits having been destroyed by Batman. This time his resurrection is imperfect and he needs a new body to inhabit, and the vessel he has chosen is that of Damien Wayne. This is a reverse of the succession theme Morrison has been working with. Instead of someone usurping a legacy, Damien is having it thrust upon him unwanted. At the end of the story, there is another son of Ra’s Al Ghul who steps up and sacrifices himself in order for Ra’s to live. Again we also see the three archetypes from the previous arc, this time all in one character: Ra’s Al Ghul. While Al Ghul embodies all three of the archetypes, they are also mirrored in the surrounding characters. Ghost would be vengeance, seeking his vengeance for not being considered as Ra’s heir, physical prowess would be represented by Batman, and Talia through her manipulations could be seen as the devil. With Talia filling the devil role, Morrison reveals another theme, that of the evolution of evil.
The Black Glove is the third arc of Morrison’s Batman. Again the same themes are represented of succession, the three archetypes, but this time Morrison also uses the Joker again. Building off his theory of the Joker in Arkham Asylum, Morrison shows us a new Joker. The Joker now is an almost androgynous, sado-masochistic, and self mutilating Joker. Lee Rodriguez of Panelsonpages.com has referred to this incarnation as the Marilyn Manson Joker. While a comparison to Manson can be made, to me he more resembles Sid Vicious. The gaunt musculature, self mutilation, and though unseen in this arc, his relationship with Harley Quinn but me more in this mindset. Joker and Harley Quinn in Morrison’s eyes it seems are the Sid and Nancy of the DC Universe. While important to the overall arc of Morrison’s Batman, this story is mostly a companion piece to Final Crisis, and explains Darkseid’s back up plan of using an army of Batman clones to conquer the universe.
Final Crisis is a storyline that you either love or hate. It is the story of Darkseid finding the answer to his obsession: The Anti-Life Equation. Heroes are turned into slaves of the Equation, small pockets of resistance form, and finally the heroes win the day, but at tremendous cost. Batman resumes his role as Morrison’s Dues ex Machina in this story taking out Darkseid, and sacrificing himself to save quite literally the universe.
Morrison here brings Batman back to one of his first incarnations by having Batman using a gun to destroy Darkseid. In a clever twist by using the gun, Batman figuratively destroys himself. Morrison shows that by Batman compromising himself, and going against his code, no matter how dire the need, destroys his essence by breaking his own rules. Because to Morrison Batman isn’t Bruce Wayne, Batman is an ideal, an archetype. When ideals are compromised they lose their power. Darkseid’s Omega Sanction may have done the damage, but Batman set the events in motion as soon as he picked up that gun.
Batman and Robin is the story of Dick Grayson and Damien Wayne taking over the mantles of Batman and Robin after the events of the Battle for the Cowl. I hate driving the point into the ground but again here is the theme of succession. It is very apparent in the second arc where Dick and Damien face Jason Todd and his new sidekick Scarlett, why the mantle fits Grayson and not Todd. Dick strives to fulfill and grow into the mantle of the Bat, whereas Todd tried to do it his way, not upholding the same ideals, and cockily trying to force his worldview onto the mantle of Batman. Jason Todd didn’t accept the mantle of Batman so much as tried to change it. Once you change an ideal it loses it’s original power, and that is why Todd was defeated.
Batman and Robin continues into an arc where Dick Grayson thinking he has the body of Bruce Wayne tries to revive it in a Lazarus Pit, with disastrous results. This arc brings into the mini-series The Return of Bruce Wayne.
At the end of Final Crisis we are shown that Darkseid’s Omega Sanction actually hasn’t killed Bruce Wayne, but sent him back in time, this being his penultimate plan to destroy the universe, by turning Bruce Wayne into a time anomaly. In the first issue we have Bruce landing back in the time of cave people, and ending up fighting Vandal Savage. Here Morrison starts some new themes in his overall Batman story. In this story he is showing the power and age of archetypes. The first archetype is that of the bat. Ever since humans first met these creatures we have been fascinated and scared of bats.
We also have a cave boy who dons a mask, and is comparable to Robin. It’s important that we understand that this boy isn’t cave boy Robin, he’s an archetype of the squire, the young boy that services and studies under the Knight in order to strike out on his own. There is a reason that Batman has been referred to as the Dark Knight. knights were protectors of the land, and the law at times when the local constabulary couldn’t handle crime, or an uprising. Many times knights would adopt their squires as their wards. This is a basic explanation of the relationship between Batman and Robin. this first issues is Grant Morrison showing the inevitability of the later relationship between Batman and Robin.
We also get a cameo from Superman and his companions who are searching through time for Bruce Wayne. It’s a particularly Silver Age concept that boils down to Batman being an agent of destruction, and not knowing it , so these heroes are trying to stop his forward progression through time.
In the second issue we get Bruce Wayne having moved forward through time into the Puritan Era. This incarnation of Wayne sees him as an investigator for the Church. It draws on another of the many archetypes Batman represents, this one of the detective, or seeker of knowledge. He’s shown not to take superstition into account in the case of the bat being nailed to the Goodwife’s door, but supposes a theory more based in fact.
We start to get more plot here, showing that Darkseid made Bruce into his weapon, and that when he reaches back to his own time he will destroy reality.
without more of the Return of Bruce Wayne series being yet published analyzing the themes therein is problematic. After that series finishes up I will do a follow up to this article and also talk about the Joker’s reveal in Batman and Robin. Thanks for staying through this to the end, and enjoy your comics.
Entertainment deficit disorder 