Oh my gawd - and I can’t emphasise this enough - this book was sooooooo boring! You don’t need to read the rest of this review because that’s all you need to know: Batman: Creature of the Night is a pillow book because it will put you to sleep!
But if you wanted to know more about why I think that…
… so years ago I heard about the premise to Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen’s Superman: Secret Identity and laffed because it did not sound good. A real(ish) world alternate take on the Man of Steel’s origins? Nuh to the uh. And I was so wrong because that book was incredible.
So imagine my excitement when I heard Busiek was returning to write a similar treatment for Batman! And, to be fair, that first issue was very promising. I liked the slightly askewed setup, the mystery of who Batman was, the slow burn - but then read in conjunction with the other three 48 page issues? Man, it is a whole nuther experience - a much worse one in fact.
Because here’s what the book reads like: Bruce Wayne does business, Batman fights crime, albeit as two separate entities rather than two sides of the same coin - or are they?! We find out who “Batman” really is, and that’s it. Almost all of it is reading about Bruce doing business through the years. SO DUCKING DULL.
Busiek makes a few changes to the familiar origin: Bruce Wayne is now Bruce Wainwright who exists in a world where Batman is a comic book character, just like our world. His parents - not as rich as the Waynes, but wealthy - get killed during a robbery gone wrong and poor Bruce is scarred for life. His “uncle” Alton Frederick - geddit, Al-Fred? - grows his inheritance into a sizable fortune while Officer Gordon (not Commissioner) sorta looks for Bruce’s parents’ killer. There’s a “Robin” (some girl Bruce takes pity on) and then Batman - albeit a scarier version of him - appears in Bruce’s life.
I kinda liked the fourth wall-breaking detail of Batman as a comic book character but there’s really nothing else to say about that setup beyond it not being terribly imaginative. Batman though? That reveal just plain confuddled me.
*start spoilsies*
Batman is distinctly other to Bruce for most of this story, even though Bruce can see through his eyes somehow, and also very real - others can definitely see him. But towards the end Busiek starts introducing an unconvincing mental health element to the setup - is Bruce just coconuts and “Batman” is a figment of his imagination? No - because others can obviously see him and his actions are keenly felt for decades.
Then it’s revealed “Batman” is Bruce’s dead brother Thomas, who died as a baby. Ok - bizarre mystical element to this supposedly more “realistic” take on the character. I’m not even gonna question how this came about because it’s never properly answered. But I’m willing to go along with Thomas being Bruce’s guardian angel for no other reason than because they bonded in the womb or something.
But then how does Thomas know to take the form of Batman when Bruce didn’t become a Batman fan until years later? And how does Thomas know what needs to be done to make Bruce successful at business - how does a dead baby ghost understand the complexities of adult relationships and professions??
And then at the end he develops elemental tornado powers because whatever…
*end spoilsies*
Even if you skipped my thoughts on the weirdly dog-like Batman above, all you need to know is that Busiek’s take on Batman is a mess here. There’s an attempt at a surprise plot twist involving Gordon that’s too little too late and a banal observation of how fighting crime isn’t as easy as it appears in the comics - duh! That’s why I don’t think superhero stories should try to be too real because they’re so obviously fantasy - and that’s it.
Good gravy, Creature of the Night is boring, boring, boring and not worth the effort. I wouldn’t bother.
No comments:
Post a Comment