Fenris, I kiss your feet. Nice to see someone who can trash the O’Neil reign on Batman more knowledgeably than I.
To all those who think the last 15 years of Batman were normal, I urge you to check out a broad sample of Batman comics from before 1987. Bruce once had a well-rounded personality. Lately he’s insufferable, even to the readers. (I’m a BATO fan, so I know the Outsiders found him insufferable before. But he got worse.)
I like the Batman from the animated series the best.
Marc
I don’t know if you were kidding, but I’m not when I agree with you. Outside of the odd appearance here and there, and the current Rucka stories, the only time we saw Batman in the '90s was in the “Animated” books. (Another reason to trash O’Neill: per Ty Templeton(? one of the animated creators anyway) on rec.arts.comics.dc.universe, there was a period when Batman Adventures was outselling Batman and/or Detective. So O’Neill had them change the name for “accuracy’s” sake to Batman and Robin Adventures (so that it didn’t match the show’s name anymore). Then, when after about 15(?) issues Batman and Robin Adventures started to outsell/compete with Batman and Detective he had them change the name again to Gotham Adventures. Note the word missing from the title? “Batman”? Note the complete lack of resemblance to the title of the show? :rolleyes: O’Neill got his wish, without Batman in the title*, the book never again managed to outsell or compete with the mainstream Batbooks.
Fenris
*A) I know it sounds stupid to grown-ups that the title matters so much, but for a book that was actually accessible to younger readers, the Bat-title mattered.
B) This sounded like BS or sour grapes to me (why would DC let O’Neill sabotage a hot book?) until Templeton(?) explained that O’Neill got away with it by saying that the Adventure book was cannabilizing sales from the main Bat-Titles, not from bringing in new readers. And to a point he was right: given a chance to read Batman stories, people dropped the Bat-Psycho in droves.
**
Did I sound like I was joking? 
The stories in the animated series were top notch, the animation was good, and Batman is at his coolest. Whenever I read a Batman book I hear Kevin Conroy’s voice.
During my short stint at Lonestar Comics I pointed many parents in the direction of Gotham Adventures and the Superman title based of the animated series. I even read a few of the Gotham Adventures and I found them to be not only well written but perfect for getting younger kids to read comics.
Marc
So apparantly we’ve found out that some guy clad in a strange black bodysuit is responsible for the murder. Apparantly he sneaked through the batcave, knocked Vesper out with a special nerve strike, beat her to a pulp when she woke up, and then murdered her.
Who did it? I admit that I’m now clueless. Al-Ghul is still my most likely candidate but they’ve supposedly removed him as a suspect already. And it was interesting that when Batman called Oracle he said “This is Bruce…” I guess he’s changing his mind about removing Bruce Wayne from the world. Maybe soon he will no longer be super psycho Batman.
Marc
The artwork for having Robin survive certainly was done, it was simply never published because the final vote came out with Robin dying. There was a panel or two of the art for Robin Lives that Jim Aparo had done. It was in the big 60 Years of DC Comics hardcover.
As for “all those people” thinking that Robin=Dick Grayson, no. Not if you actually read some of the letters in the letter column where it was damn clear that they knew that Jason Todd was Robin and Grayson wasn’t.
And I’d like a cite please for O’Neil making DC staffers call the SNUF-ROB line.
Y’know, those puzzle pieces on the cover are supposed to assemble into something…
I’m gonna take the obvious stab at Luthor again. For some reason, the few bits we’ve seen of the killer’s face make me think of him. (Although there’d be an inconsistency here…would President Luthor really travel all the way to Gotham to make the kill himself? A hired assassin is more likely, but then Luthor technically isn’t the killer.)
Besides, Lex had some nasty comments about accused-murderer Wayne in this month’s issue of Superman.
**
People who don’t read the comics are the ones who were confused over the identity of Robin. All the cartoons have Dick as Robin, the television show had Dick as Robin, and the movies have Dick as Robin. In the mind of most people who do not read comics Dick Grayson is Robin. If you asked those same people who Batgirl was they’d tell you Babs Gordon not some mute girl raised by an assassin and most people don’t think of Lois and Clark as being married. Hell, I bet most people who don’t read comics couldn’t even name the 2nd Robin and perhaps not the third.
Marc
Allegedly after the fact. At the time, only the couple of panels were actually completed. (One panel of Jason II in a hospital bed, one panel of Batman holding Jason II and a groan issuing from Jason’s mouth).
**
A) Letter columns are controlled by editors who frequently pick and choose letters that support their point of view. See Howard the Duck’s lettercol after Gerber left for a good example.
B) People who write into letter columns != the vast majority of people who voted.
**
I’ll see if I can find the source. It may be in Amazing Heroes or Comics Journal.
I don’t remember where I got this from originally…I keep associating it with Jim Starlin for some reason, but lemme look and see if I can find a source.
Marc:
I’ll stand by my Hugo Strange theory. 1) The “Beaten to death” thing: isn’t that what Boss Thorne’s goons tried to do to him? 2) He knows nerve pinches, et al.
I admit that I can’t find a black bodysuit connection.
Res
Luthor wouldn’t play all the headgames, he’d just have Bats snuffed. And in the long run, I think it’d be WAAY too damaging to Bat’s career to have Luthor know.
Man, this storyline has me intersested (though it’s dragging somewhat)!
Fenris