Article in HuffPo here.
I am not even remotely current on his story arc in comics.
Is this a fun, cool thing or a marketing ploy? Does it represent a few-issue story arc or a fundamental change in Batman’s story?
It’s modern comics, which is the same as saying it is of no long-term consequence. Another writer and editor will come along that doesn’t care for it, and poof, it disappears from continuity. This is just another reason I like standalone graphic novels - even from DC and Marvel. Stuff like this pushed me towards titles with a set creative team that owns their characters, like Kirkman’s Invincible and Walking Dead. I can’t be bothered to care about The Next Big Shake-up that will cause Nothing to EVAR be the Same.
Sounds a lot like Tony Stark giving up his secret identity. while it worked very well in the first movie (though it kinda of destroys a lot of future story ideas), it was a damn stupid thing to do in the comics IMO. Even worse in the case of Batman-Wayne when Batman is the real Bruce Wayne, and his “power” is totally dependent upon the mystery he can generate. He didnt say “Criminals are a rational lot. Let’s show them how powerful I am in real life.”
I’m a bit confused by the whole “Return of Bruce Wayne” arc. After all the build-up, it seems he just kind of shows up again, with no one being terribly surprised. How does the “Road Home” arc fit in? Bruce is suddenly running around in a non bat-themed, ultra high-tech suit (a prototype of the “Batman Beyond” suit?), but the other characters seem to know who he is anyway?
Darkseid supposedly sent Batman through time purposefully, knowing his inevitable return would cause dire consequences, but nothing seems to have happened yet. And the White Lantern is also tied in somehow? And this is all on top of the Dr. Hurt/Barbatos stuff.
Apparently, the final issue of RoBW was supposed to come out some time ago; did its delay cause the story to get muddled?
I disagree about Stark giving up his secret identity. I never thought that his secret identity benefited him in any way; it complicated his life to no purpose. Iron Man’s enemies tended to be Stark’s enemies anyway; unless he was never going to appear in public out of armor at all (which has huge and obvious drawbacks), having it be publicly known that he was wearing the armor his ownself did nothing at all to make his life safer, or the people he loved safer. The fiction that Iron Man was a Stark employee meant that he was going to be financially liable for anything IM did, so that, again, made the secret a pointless complication.
Certain heroes really shouldn’t have secret IDs, tradition or not. Cap. Thor. Wonder Woman. Other heroes can clearly do without IDs on a practical level, but need them for emotional reasons (Superman, for instance.) Some can go either way (any of the Green Lanterns, though I think, ethically, none of them should.)
But Batman is not among someone who can operate with a public id. He’s much more frankly a vigilante than anybody this side of the Punisher, and being identified as Bats (or financing Bats) makes his “job” undoable, if only because he’s so violent.
Without Iron Man’s secret identity , you dont have the “Armor Wars”. Also, having those two identities separated definitely leaves more room to expand upon Tony Stark himself. A domain in which he beats Wayne/Batman hands down. I’ve always felt that the main character of the “Iron Man” series was Tony stark, not Iron Man. In “Batman”, it is all about Batman.
Sure you can have the Armor Wars plot with Stark being public about it. It’s just harder to restore the status quo. Maybe that means you can’t have him [del]murder[/del] [del]accidenally kill[/del] murder the Crimson Dynamo and get away with it so easily. But you also don’t get the ridiculous storyline of him being (properly) kicked out of the Avengers, rejoining in a huge flat-out lie, and then when said lie is exposed not having Hawkeye kick his ass in irritation when he’s not in armor, or Wanda or Simon doing the same while he’s wearing it.
Anyway, as I think I said when the first IM movie came out, I totally bought Stark outing himself at the press conference. SHIELD was helping him cover up because they wanted to control/exploit him, and he knew it. Since no matter what he’d be liable for Iron Man’s actions, the secret identity did nothing but complicate his life. He’s a smart guy; you could see the gears turning in his head just before he said “I am Iron Man.”
Is this Bruce saying, “I am Batman,” or Bruce saying, “I’m bankrolling Batman?”
The latter, I think. Though I think either would get him sued & investigated by the Feds in the real world, or the target of multiple super-villains in the DCU.
You must have meant the Titanium Man (Gremlin). You geek :D.
Also, all the semi clandestine stuff either Tony or Iron Man have to do (precisely like the Armor Wars) just disappear. Too bad, the moral dilemmas of a millionnaire playing the super hero is what makes the series great.
As I said I thought him revealing himself in the movie was a brilliant move, because the writers threw an original idea from the comics for the fans, just to destroy it instantly and brilliantly. He threw away his secret ID because Stark in the movie realized how much he enjoyed being a superhero for the fame and glory attached to it, and he wanted to be recognized as The Hero. It would have been smarter to have nobody knew he was IM.
The Morisson arc looks a lot like the transforming of Xavier’s school into the X-Corporation in Morisson’s run on the X-Men (the only thing I ever read from Morisson, and why I probably wont read anything more from him)
What’s happened to today’s society? There was a time when a man could be a vengeful costumed vigilante on a single-proprietor basis, not a corporate one.
Which confuses me because I always thought the main reason no one ever connected Bruce with Batman is his public persona is of a rich, spoiled dandy (it would be like like someone suggesting Paris Hilton dresses up in a costume and fights crime). If he admits to bankrolling Batman, it really isn’t a leap that he is Batman.
I am not a huge comic reader (just read Graphic novels) but this seems like a stupid plot device and a rip off of Iron Man all at the same time.
Hmm. Has anyone seen Paris Hilton and Lady Gaga in the same room?
[spoiler]
Gaga has a secret identity, but it is not Paris. The real truth is far more terrible. I will put it in a spoiler box so the faint of heart can avoid the horror:
Gaga is not a person, or, rather, she is no longer a person. She’s a meat puppet controlled by Madonna, who is using her to stay in the public eye now that her previous body has been famous too long for her audience to believe she is still beautiful and young. Expect within the next year to hear that Madonna has withdrawn from the public life, and a year after that to hear the news of her death and cremation.
Nor is this the first time the switch has been done. The entity inhabiting Madonna’s body is older than civilization.
I don’t like to think about what happened to the brain of the girl that used inhabit Gaga’s body.
Burn this after reading it.[/spoiler]
Seems like a lot of people know Batman’s ID these days, including his enemies. Bane figured it out. The Riddler knows, but thinks it’s more fun not to share. Hush and Dr. Hurt know. Ra’s Al Ghul has always known. Catwoman knows now (although she isn’t really an “enemy”). And, on another forum, it was said that even the* Joker* somehow knows (is that true?), but simply doesn’t care.
The recent arc dealt with Viki Vale uncovering the secret, and of course Batman’s immediate allies and Justice League friends know. Who else?
Dude, I’ve seen Madge & Gaga in the same room. Nice try.
On the other hand, has anyone seen Bruce Wayne & Billy Zane in the same room? I think not.
And a lot of those people figured it out in large part based on the reasoning of “who could possibly be financing Batman?” So I think admitting to the bankroll might make his identity MORE secure, not less.
Of course, Pre-Crisis, the Wayne Foundation openly funded the Justice League…
I have a lot of respect for Morisson. His Doom Patrol run is one of my favorite comic runs of all time. However, this concept of writers taking over a book and character then totally re-inventing it has become tiresome. I miss the years when continuity was something to honor and respect.
The new era of comics just makes me sad.
Fool of a Took!
I didn’t say they couldn’t be in the same room; the transferral process is far from complete. The symbiont is still in Madge’s skull; only Gaga’s has been hollowed out.
Gaga is a meat puppet
.
The short answer seems to be “yes”.
I’ve read and re-read everything from the beginning of Morrison’s current run, along with fan annotations from blogs etc, and I can just about make sense of it, but there’s still a large WTF-shaped hole in the narrative where (presumably) RoBW #6 ought to be.
This seems like an odd comment to direct against Morrison, since it looks like he’s been doing his damnedest to establish every Batman story ever written, no matter how goofy, as being in continuity in one way or another.