I have been anticipating the 6 part mini-series - 'The Return of Bruce Wayne' - where the character travels through time from the stone age to modern day, adopting various Batman related identities along the way. The covers and the action figures promise us a cave-man batman, a pirate batman, a cowboy batman ect...
I just read issue three. One can be forgiven for assuming it was a rollicking pirate adventure but it is not.
Bruce just appears on a beach where he meets the famous Pirate Blackbeard. To save his life he must lead BB into a cave supposedly filled with treasure. Along the way however, somehow Bruce is given a cape and cowl and with the help of this tribe of Bat Disciples who live like bats in this cave, defeats the evil plans of Blackbeard.
Now my problems with this Grant Morrison penned tale:
*Why show a bat version of a pirate on the cover if you have no intention of having him assume that identity in the first place? I hate that.
*This story follows no internal logic from last issue. Where did the cape and cowl come from? Why was it passed from person to person to find itself JUST where Bruce needed it? (and really DID he need it?)
*Since when does Bruce KNOW when he is going to time shift. The length of time spent in each time period is not a uniform amount and therefor he has no such knowledge to carry from one time period to the next. I fact he should remember nothing because he seems to wake up in the new time period with amnesia about who he is.
*Why don't I just go back and read the first two issues to see what I missed first time around? Because I always have to do that with Grant Morrison and it NEVER answers anything. I would rather have others tell me where I am stupid than go through that anymore.
*Why does Grant Morrison think he is smarter than everyone else? And before you say, "Because he is.", let me say that it takes no smarts to just burp up a story that only Morrison understands. It is smart to write a story that everyone can understand and at the same time have a POINT.
*Why can't the reasons he is time travelling from the past to the future be made more clear. We see other heroes trying to rescue Bruce from the timestream but we don't understand how they are able to attempt.
The writer would not be spoiling the story to give us more background on the how and why Bruce was sent back in time in the first place. Don't tell me all will be clear in the end. I have believed that balloon juice before with Morrison and I always get burned.
*Why does DC let this guy write anything? I am a smart person but following his stories are a real slog. Comics should be fun. They shouldn't hurt my brain. It's like he writes a story then takes out all the parts that could possible make the story go from unreadable to readable and keeps them for himself.
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3 comments:
I'll agree with you that this series is a mess, and the inconsistencies are really starting to mount, but at least for the first time I had a little fun.
It also seems strange to me that we haven't been given a reason how/why it's bad if Bruce Wayne makes his way home? Some kind of paradox? Doomsday scenario? The "it's bad" might have worked for an issue or two (though we're also never told how the heroes know it's bad), but by now a little context would be nice.
I forgot about the paradox thing but like I said it's useless to go back and do a re-read because the answers are never there with Morrison. I thought Bendis was annoying but Morrison is worse. Bendis never promises great action or thoughful stories so my bar of enjoyment with him is low. Morrison is so often over hyped that I think he takes a dive each time just to mess with us. I always feel with Morrison that he things he is better than me and if I don't 'get' his stuff that it's my fault.
I just finished the third issue and I feel like I don't have to go any further. Grant Morrison has become so terrible, and it's now at the point where I can't read any of his Batman stuff. How can this be the same man who wrote All-Star Superman, one of my favorite comics ever?
The technobabble especially in Return of Bruce Wayne has gotten really irritating. I liked the first issue with the cavemen, but from the second issue on, it's become clear that he expects us to take this BS seriously, and that just ain't happening.
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