Batman by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert (edited)

An interesting trend in the last half decade or so is the mainstreaming of many independent or alternative writers. It happens less frequently with artists, mainly because the distinctive style of artists are rarely appropriated for a genre that requires a certain amount of uniformity in the depiction of the main characters. Sure, you get the occasional Kochalka Hulk story, or Bagge Spider-Man story, or Bizarro Comics, but they're most often tongue in cheek. The writers, however, can more easily adapt themselves to cranking out Marvel and DC work. Some writers who were once indie mainstays, Ed Brubaker, Jon Lewis, Dylan Horrocks or Gilbert Hernandez have made names for themselves in the mainstream comics world. They all happened to be artist/writers when they worked on their self-published books, and they aren't for their mainstream books (Hernandez is the exception). Most of these creators, as writers of super-hero material, tend to return to the themes that were important to them as auteurs, and use them to add a layer of subtext or metaphor to the stories they tell in the super-hero world. I've also noticed that this is what makes for a better than average super-hero comics writer.

Grant Morrison seems to be working at that in his most mainstream of mainstream titles right now, Batman. I know he's writing All Star Superman, but that feels like it's outside the realm of average titles, while this Batman book seems to be right in the thick of continuity. In the second issue (656) of his run, he plays a few tricks while telling a fairly straight-forward action story ("Ninja Man-Bats. Alarming twist.") First the majority of the issue takes place in an art gallery showing Lichtenstein-style pop art based on comic panels, and he takes a throwaway potshot, "All this comic book stuff is way too highbrow for me," but this feels like a tired and obvious self-reference, and he expands on this commentary only slightly with his follow-up "If there's one thing I hate...it's art with no content." Second, he uses metaphor after metaphor in the fight scene play-by-play, describing the punches as bibles slamming shut, his microphone sounds as "ghosts writing on glass with broken fingernails" and the smell of the creatures as a Thanksgiving turkey. These are all better than average turns of phrase, but still don't achieve much more than a happy diversion from the action scene that is the standard super-comic diversion.

He does manage to finish the book with a plot twist that offers layers of resonance, namely a few key familial relationships, but we'll have to see if he searches for the depth of possibility in a story being told in the flagship title of the most successful comic book character of all time, or if he saves the real heavy lifting for a title in which the main character doesn't have to do so much, well, heavy lifting.

I feel it necessary to make a compulsory mention of the art in the title, by new series artist (he joined last issue with Morrison) Kubert, but my impression of the two junior Kuberts is that you probably like one more than the other if you care to tell them apart. Andy happens to be the brother I like more, but without a strong writer to work with, I can't recommend him to carry a title on his own. The above sampled panel is Kubert's addition of an in-joke, the gallery attendees you see here are modeled after Morrison and Kubert and Kubert's parents, living legend Joe and his wife Virginia. I would like to see more depth from both, and not just the surface they've been offering.