R.I.P.

Happy New Year! How is everyone’s year going so far? I just discovered Apple Chai over at Starbucks so I love life right now. Recently, a friend of mine asked about my thoughts on the whole Batman R.I.P. storyline. So, let’s have the first post of 2009 be about Batman.

You either love Grant Morrison or you don’t, there does not seem to be any in between with this guy. To be honest, R.I.P. was extremely hard for me to read on a monthly basis. The deliver schedule was out of whack, and each issue only gave you bits and pieces of the whole story, sort of like Final Crisis. The day before I got the final chapter of R.I.P. I decided to sit down and read the first five parts all the way through. What a difference that made! Monthly comics do not do Morrison’s work justice. This man definitely writes comics like you’re reading the whole story in one sitting. However, I’m pretty sure that he changed the ending of this story at the last minute, because I remember him promising some big reveal in R.I.P. that didn’t seem to happen. Instead this is what we got.

Dr. Hurt: “I’m really your father.”

Batman: “No, you’re not.”

Dr. Hurt: “You’re right, but I had to try to fool you one more time.”

Really? That’s what you were planning from the beginning? That Dr. Hurt wasn’t really Thomas Wayne? You know who else isn’t Thomas Wayne? Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Robin, Lois Lane, my downstairs neighbor, and I’m willing to bet most of the characters in the DCU. The story possibilities are endless. Not only is Dr. Hurt not Thomas Wayne, but the final confrontation between Hurt and Batman ends in a helicopter explosion. Going back to basics, Grant? I know that you’re a better writer than this. We learn that Batman survives the explosion and that R.I.P takes place right before Final Crisis, which is where we’ll learn the true fate of Batman. So what was the point of R.I.P.? He didn’t die in R.I.P., he didn’t retire in R.I.P. Nope, he fought and beat a bad guy, went back to the Batcave, and then went on his next mission helping the Justice League. Does it stand for Reading Is Pointless?

Anyway, as of this month Bruce Wayne is no longer Batman. I have mixed feelings about this. Bruce Wayne is my favorite character of all time. He IS Batman. Anybody else would just be someone wearing a Batman costume. So this sucks for me, but at the same time I love forward movement in comics. The only problem with that is that eventually the forward movement gets reversed. Hal Jordan was brought back. Barry Allen was just brought back.

*Side note* that one irks me more than anything. Did everybody forget that Barry had the personality of a gnat? Or that The Flash was actually cancelled way before his death in the first Crisis? People long for what they had as a child and moan and groan, “Barry Allen was the greatest Flash ever.” That’s crap! It was been proven time and time again that Wally West is the greatest Flash ever.

So this whole Battle For The Cowl thing seems like it could be pretty cool. It better be since they cancelled Robin, Nightwing, and Birds of Prey. Not sure why BoP was cancelled since I can’t see Oracle being too convincing as Batman. It appears that Nightwing is being groomed for the position. It would seem fitting that the hero’s first sidekick would come back and take on the mantle of his mentor after his mentor’s “death”. I have the strangest feeling that I’ve already read this somewhere else though. I do think it’s a marvelous idea though. *shifty eyes*

All in all, this should be a fun ride. My expectations are really high, and that can be a really bad thing with comics: Secret Invasion anyone?