Makes sense: why should anyone have to re-slosh through a swamp to find something that makes it worthwhile?
Published by Avi Green on Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 5:08 AM.
Although Joseph Szadkowski, the comics and games columnist for the Washington Times, let me down at least a year ago when he went out of his way to gloss over Identity Crisis, I suppose there is something to consider in this article he wrote about Grant Morrison's Batman and Son story, which involves a son he had from his liason with Talia al-Ghul:
Szadkowski might have offered up something to think about with this, but, recalling his foolish little whitewash of Identity Crisis, that's why he otherwise botches everything, because, simply put, he's talking too much out of two ends of his mouth to really score.
Mr. Morrison takes readers on a scattered whirlwind of plot points, disguised as a coherent story, that finds the Joker taking a bullet to the face, Bruce Wayne acting as James Bond, Kirk Langstrom returning (with thugs turned into Ninja Man-bats) and Batman having a nearly back-breaking encounter with a Bane wannabe.That sounds almost like a TV commercial interruption!
Also, the book introduces the Bat's new best pal, a 14-year-old, cliche-ridden tyke named Damian, who is a violent reminder of his dad's past and hangs around only long enough to make his life miserable.
Let's remember that this is a comic book. Yet right in the middle of this epic, readers are forced to switch to a short story. That means text, lots of text. Sure, it's embellished with artist John Van Fleet's digital modeling style, but that only serves to scramble the focus further.
Mr. Morrison returns to his favorite home for the criminally insane, Arkham Asylum, to check in with a very disturbed Joker and see how plastic surgery can adjust one's attitude, not for the better.Hmm, I guess that could explain the problem any of Morrison's detractors might have with his writing approach: he arranges a lot of his stories so that you have to try and re-read them all for the sake of trying to figure out if the trip was worth it to begin with. Must anyone have to be forced to slosh through tons of sewage waste twice in order to find a payoff? IMO, the simple answer is "no". I don't think even Alan Moore ever did that.
The writer's prose-heavy structure must be digested calmly, reread and again digested for the reader to find a payoff to the tale of revenge and horror. As a passing note, those who are creeped out by clown images will need to have the story read to them.
To offer a bit of closure to the Damian arc, Batman No. 666 concludes the trade book and places Bat-boy in the role of Caped Crusader 15 years in the future, revealing how little changes in the life of a vigilante. Mr. Morrison's sweeping story structure might lend itself better to another round with an X-Men series.The answer to that too is definitely NO. Whatever I stumbled over from that mess ("E is for Extinction") years ago had me feeling bitter. I wonder if Szadkowski said that though, because he dislikes the X-Men? Please. That's not the way to go, because really, there's no bad characters, only bad writers. Demand decent writers with plausible approaches, whether family-friendly or adult, and maybe you'll be getting somewhere. Also demand storytelling that's not biased the way Civil War was, and you might be getting somewhere too.
Szadkowski might have offered up something to think about with this, but, recalling his foolish little whitewash of Identity Crisis, that's why he otherwise botches everything, because, simply put, he's talking too much out of two ends of his mouth to really score.
