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A review by rhganci
Batman Incorporated, Volume 1: Demon Star by Frazer Irving, Andres Guinaldo, Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham
3.0
This book doesn't seem to be part of the New 52 in any way, but rather a cross-continuity follow up to all of the work that Grant Morrison did with Batman, the return of Ra's al Ghul, and Damian Wayne in 2008-2010. While it does present Batman with an adequate threat to Gotham City, its big idea plot gets shelved behind a lot of jumping around in time with the respective histories and futures of the characters, and in no way builds towards a conclusion, which is clearly forthcoming in the final volume of BATMAN, INC. due out in TPB in August.
Grant Morrison apparently loves taking a "more is more" approach to Batman and Batman-like figures, and as such, the net idea that this book goes with is that you can't have too much of a good thing, be it hero, villain, or bloody fistfights. In a take on Batman that embraces the excesses of capitalism as a means by which to fight crime, what's here is available by the gross: Morrison goes big out of the gate and gets bigger by the time the pages run out (the story doesn't really conclude with anything), and in contrast to the Snyder and Tomasi books that place Batman, and Batman and Robin together in smaller, more detective types of stories with a central figure, this story contains a lot of characters that, as a mass, target all of Gotham City, as a mass. It lends a sort of overlap with the Anytown, America vibe that the Christopher Nolan's BATMAN movies communicate, with the internal corruption of the city being sort of a precursor to the plot's interests, and placing Talia al Ghul at the center of it--even going so far as to bring new readers up to speed with the lengthy backstory of Batman and Talia and the circumstances the create and dictate their "parenting" of Damian. The scenes are jam-packed with characters, the fights involve dozens of combatants, and if it's a load of Batmen and Things That Look Like Batman you're interested in, this book is for you.
The artwork is passable, but not great, as everybody's head looks too square and everybody's teeth look like they're rotting. For a story about Gotham City as a large-scale target, the scale of the buildings and the navigation of the city seem particularly small, as much of the action and plot development takes place in backrooms and tenement buildings. The heroes are hardly ever outside and as such, the story feels cramped and a little disjointed. The boardroom politics of the global conglomerate have their say in how the story develops (again, it doesn't play out), with dinners, trials, and traps all over the place. Burnham isn't shy about spilling lots and lots and lots of blood in the fights, either, and with a bright red coloring the story gets a samurai flavor to it, not totally at odds with the League of Assassins' role in the tale.
This book, cancelled or concluded after 14 issues, is clearly a mop-up of the vestigial plots that remained un-concluded in August of 2011. I hope that as Snyder, Simone and Tomasi move Batman and his chief companions further into the New 52, they get further separated from the too-big approach to Batman that Morrison takes here in BATMAN, INC., as this arc, while well-written and artfully pencilled, seems utterly disconnected from the other goings-on in the Bat-family.
Grant Morrison apparently loves taking a "more is more" approach to Batman and Batman-like figures, and as such, the net idea that this book goes with is that you can't have too much of a good thing, be it hero, villain, or bloody fistfights. In a take on Batman that embraces the excesses of capitalism as a means by which to fight crime, what's here is available by the gross: Morrison goes big out of the gate and gets bigger by the time the pages run out (the story doesn't really conclude with anything), and in contrast to the Snyder and Tomasi books that place Batman, and Batman and Robin together in smaller, more detective types of stories with a central figure, this story contains a lot of characters that, as a mass, target all of Gotham City, as a mass. It lends a sort of overlap with the Anytown, America vibe that the Christopher Nolan's BATMAN movies communicate, with the internal corruption of the city being sort of a precursor to the plot's interests, and placing Talia al Ghul at the center of it--even going so far as to bring new readers up to speed with the lengthy backstory of Batman and Talia and the circumstances the create and dictate their "parenting" of Damian. The scenes are jam-packed with characters, the fights involve dozens of combatants, and if it's a load of Batmen and Things That Look Like Batman you're interested in, this book is for you.
The artwork is passable, but not great, as everybody's head looks too square and everybody's teeth look like they're rotting. For a story about Gotham City as a large-scale target, the scale of the buildings and the navigation of the city seem particularly small, as much of the action and plot development takes place in backrooms and tenement buildings. The heroes are hardly ever outside and as such, the story feels cramped and a little disjointed. The boardroom politics of the global conglomerate have their say in how the story develops (again, it doesn't play out), with dinners, trials, and traps all over the place. Burnham isn't shy about spilling lots and lots and lots of blood in the fights, either, and with a bright red coloring the story gets a samurai flavor to it, not totally at odds with the League of Assassins' role in the tale.
This book, cancelled or concluded after 14 issues, is clearly a mop-up of the vestigial plots that remained un-concluded in August of 2011. I hope that as Snyder, Simone and Tomasi move Batman and his chief companions further into the New 52, they get further separated from the too-big approach to Batman that Morrison takes here in BATMAN, INC., as this arc, while well-written and artfully pencilled, seems utterly disconnected from the other goings-on in the Bat-family.