terrorkobra's review

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adventurous dark

4.0

katieb94's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

captwinghead's review

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1.0

Eh, what little I liked about this couldn’t make up for how little I cared about 99% of this. It was all over the place and while sometimes, mixing art styles can work, it didn’t here.

So... eh.

the_graylien's review

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5.0

With it having been a while since I'd read any of Grant Morrison's work, this book was a welcome return to the man who's become my favorite writer, absolutely enthralling me with books like "The Invisibles".

Morrison does here for Batman what he did for Superman in "All-Star Superman". Not only is a smart, sophisticated story presented, Morrison does his characteristic blurring of the lines between our world and the world of comic books.

With Bruce Wayne turning Batman into a franchise and installing versions of Batman in countries all over the world, the story shows us that crimefighters like Batman could come from many cultures and walks of life. He's installed Batmen in Japan, in Native American reservations in South Dakota, and even in an advanced, mind-numbingly brilliant version of the internet.

These Batmen create a worldwide buzz, with the media not knowing whether Batman or Bruce Wayne is alive or dead, not knowing who or what Batman might be, and with regular folks speculating on these topics via the internet and other outlets.

The message (to me) and one of the core ideas to the story (aside from the genius mystery involving LEVIATHAN) is that anyone could be Batman. Taking a look at Morrison's other work, he's attempted to and successfully brought Batman into reality. Anyone in our world, or the world taking place between the panels of a comic book could be a Batman.

The art here is stellar on all counts, as well. From the sultry form of Catwoman put forth by Yanick Paquette to the expert work of Chris Burnham and Cameron Stewart to the unforgettable issue by Scott Clark, this book is a top-notch exhibition of what's awesome about comic book style art.

A work anyone could enjoy and especially recommended for Morrison fans. Simply fantastic...

*-Added this to the "Scorpio Artist” list for artist Chris Burnham

civreader's review

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2.0

Dear me, no. The artwork redeems it for some of the chapters (hence the 2* rating), but otherwise... This is just bad.

stevenk's review

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3.0

This is a pre New 52 book that finds Bruce Wayne/Batman, having seen a global catastrophe in the future, working to prevent it by financing a multitude of "bat-family" characters as an army to lead in this fight. This book starts out well, Batman traveling the globe to recruit for Batman Inc., this part had a Brave and the Bold team up feel and entertaining characters. I wasn't as much a fan of the main villain for this story arc, the global conspiracy and Alzheimer's suffering former super villain didn't really do it for me and Burnham's art, that worked so well when it first appeared, felt out of place in the final confrontation scenes. A bit trippy, but done with a great reverence for the history of Batman and the "Batman of.." characters of the 50's (i.e. Man of Bat's and Raven, El Gaucho), and the rest of the Bat Family (i.e. Oracle, Batgirl, Batwoman). The character explanations and concept art at the back is also very helpful to understanding the story.

skolastic's review

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4.0

I wrestled with what I was going to write about this one for a while. This is the beginning of the final act of the saga Morrison kicked off in "Batman and Son", and it's sort of a mixed bag in a lot of ways. The premise that's promised is great (Batman forms up a Justice League which consists only of Batmen), but the execution is debatable in a lot of ways.

The first two issues, "Mr. Unknown Is Dead" and "Resurrector!" are definitely a fun start to the collection. Batman and Catwoman take off to Japan to recruit the Japanese Batman, Mr. Unknown, only to discover he's been killed by the disturbing-yet-hilarious Lord Death Man (who apparently shouts every single sentence he says, and at one point, punctuates a sentence just by shouting "LORD DEATH MAN!" It's something you have to read to believe.) I really dig that Morrison brings in the breathless "Same Bat-time" ending narration from the Adam West Batman. ("LORD DEATH MAN LIVES TO TAKE LIFE, AND HE'S ONLY JUST BEGUN!")

The next two issues, "Scorpion Tango" and "The Kane Affair" are Morrison setting up dominoes - we get the reintroduction of Kathy Kane, the 1950's Batwoman, as well as the introduction of 60s supervillain Otto Netz/Doctor Dedalus. "Scorpion Tango" suffers from some slightly muddled plotting, but "The Kane Affair" is a cool "flashback issue", with appropriately altered art.

"Masterspy" is where my frustration with the book starts. The book is clearly intended to sort of dovetail with the Club of Heroes stuff from the Black Glove/RIP, but Batman takes off to England and we get a totally different "British Batman", The Hood, who's more of a James Bond-ish character. (The Knight from Black Glove/RIP is nowhere to be found, and this is never addressed -- which I found frustrating, since we clearly see him in a flashback sequence with other British superheroes). The writing around Doctor Dedalus and his grand plan isn't really that clear - while I understand that craziness and a lack of clarity is totally Morrison's jam, it doesn't improve over time (see below).

"Nyktomorph", luckily, is a really great issue to resolve any frustrations to date. The frame story is cool (a bunch of villains hire "the private eye of the underworld", Nykto Nero, to figure out what Batman's up to), and we get a look at a bunch of different aspects of Batman, Incorporated. I especially want to call this issue out for continuing to pay off long-running background character Ellie, who I think has been showing up from time to time in the Morrison Batman books since Batman and Son, which just makes me happy.

"Medicine Soldiers" is another great issue, focusing on the "Native American" Batman and Robin, Man-of-Bats and Raven Red. I don't want to say a lot about this one since the premise is so good. This might be my favorite issue of the bunch, and I'd kill for an ongoing Man-of-Bats/Raven Red title.

"Nightmares in Numberland" is another point where, like "Masterspy", I think Morrison really failed to deliver on a great premise. It's definitely a cool idea (Oracle is the Batman of Wayne Industries' new virtual reality system), but it's a muddled mess that uses the same type of terrible CG graphics that showed up in "The Clown at Midnight" in Batman and Son.

"The School of Night" and "Leviathan Strikes!" round out the collection. I really enjoyed "The School of Night", which has Stephanie Brown/Batgirl undercover at an all-girls' school being run by Leviathan. Stephanie has got much more character to her than the other POV characters so far, and this starts to tie together a lot of the threads seen in previous issues. I'm still really weirded out by the fact that three of the teachers appear to be Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga, and I'm not sure that I buy the argument that they're supposed to be Dragonfly/Tiger Moth/Silken Spider (as there's never any reference made to this in the book itself).

"Leviathan Strikes" is an issue that I'm a little frustrated with, as it's supposed to be the big climax, and it has some truly incredible art, but the high Morrisonian weirdness level in this story seems keeps it from greatness a little bit for me. I'm also really turned off by the ending - was it really, really necessary for us to have a character's severed head graphically depicted? Really? Bleh.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection. My big meta-complaint is that Morrison's promised idea (Batman recruits other Batmen all over the world) doesn't really get delivered on. Most of the characters that we meet either have their own ongoing titles, or are characters Morrison reuses from The Black Glove. The art is incredible (except for the computer-generated stuff in "Nightmares in Numberland", which really needs to get banned from comics altogether), and Morrison's crazy Batman saga continues to entertain, but I have some big reservations about it that keep me from giving it the full five stars.

saphirablue's review

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3.0

Well, I really like the story of how Bruce Wayne finances Batmen all around the world and how he finds them (let's Batman recruit them). But, sometimes the story lost me because it got a bit confusing (this seems to be a thing with Gran Morrison and me) and I honestly had no clue what was going on. *shrugs*

Also, this was my first story with Dick as Batman and Damian (oh, his little scowling face XD) as well as Stephanie Brown and Cassandra. :)

The art was a bit hit and miss with me. Some was great, some not quite so (not bad, but just not how I like it to be).

I'm curious how it will all go on in the second part with the reveal at the end of the story. :)

ipacho's review

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2.0

This took me by surprise, because I love most of Morrison's work. I love his sense of the bizarre, mixed with a careful use of symbolism and how he manages to include in comics very powerful ideas from litearture and the arts. However, in this case, the results are outstandingly mediocre, his ideas are full of overused clichés, the characters are not interesting, and the main antagonist is a rip off of almost every world conqueror known. I was very dissapointed.

blkmymorris's review

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4.0

It has a great and simple premise: Batman goes global and allows franchises to work as Batmans with a local twist and they share info and funds. Their identities are secret and they're all working to stop Leviathan, a global villainous crime ring.

Morrison of course has a screwball, bizarre and strange idea for villains and superheroes. Sometimes it gets a little to close to cliche (aboriginal, African, and Native American Batmen), but it also works for how out there the criminals are. The Argentinian superheroes and villains are fun!

The artist style is reminiscent of Moebius and Frank Quitely. It works better in other stories when the art style is changed, like for the backstory of Kathrine Kane, the first Batwoman, and the girl's school for assassins. The Katherine Kane story has the art style of old 4 color comics if done by Quitely. The girl's school is more modern and has the fun touch of the teachers based on pop stars with the headmistress clearly being modern Madonna.

Clearly the Batman series is the DC powerhouse.