#37 - Batman: Bad Blood

Oh boy, we’re back to the New-52verse

You may recall my 4^th rage of this blog was Son of Batman. In it Damian Wayne was forced into Batman’s hands and got the role as Robin. You might want to check out that review, because the plot is ongoing. I also did a review last year of Batman vs Robin, the slightly better sequel. Today we look at the third in the series, and it’s bad, really really bad. This is Batman: Bad Blood. Insert obvious Taylor Swift Joke here.

What we’re looking at is a mish-mash of various bits of Batman history (so what else is knew?). But the biggest influence I can see is Batman Incorporated where Batman assembled a team of not Justice Leaguers to combat a sinister threat. It’s classic Grant Morrison being equal parts awesome, stupid and confusing, especially when Fraser Irving did the art for one issue (rule of thumb, if Frazer Irving did the artwork, it’ll be cr*p) but I suppose I should mention our 2 breakout characters in this.

First we have Kathy Kane aka Batwoman – she was a breakout character from the awesome miniseries 52. In the New 52 continuity, there were plans that she and her long-time girlfriend would get married but the rug was pulled out from under the creative team at the last minute (because, apparently Bat-family characters can’t have happy lives) which lead to the resignation of the creative and the book’s eventual cancellation. She’s currently getting a starring role in Detective comics, I’ll let you know how that turns out in September.

Secondly we have Luke Fox aka Batwing II, the original guy was from Africa, I really have nothing more to say about him because I was not reading Batwing.

With that said, let’s take a look at this piece of trite and see what went wrong.

#19 The Rise of Arsenal

Oh boy, more of the aftermath of cry for justice. Help!

So, whilst the fall of Green Arrow has its problems, hence its spot amongst my rage reviews, the critical consensus despises the Rise of Arsenal.

Let’s get one thing out the way. Everything that happened to Roy in Cry for Justice and also in this follow-up story, was editorially mandated. The editors had the place they wanted characters to go and it was up to the writers to make sure they got there, no matter how little sense it made. Editorial control of stories is something that has plagued comics in recent years. JT Krul is a decent writer but when editors try and force the writers to write their stories, it nearly always results in cr*p. One More Day, Countdown to Final Crisis, Amazons Attack and others are awful stories because of editorial control above anything else.

Editors do need to have some control over stories to keep the characters consistent through multiple titles and to check for errors. They should not be forcing their direction for the characters on the writers.

Safe to say, Cry for Justice, whilst selling decent numbers did not settle well with people, hence the need for follow-up titles to ensure a plan was there (yeah… right) the plan which eventually lead to Deathstroke’s Titans book, a story I refuse to read owing to the fact that in their first issue (in fact I think it was a one-shot) Deathstroke unceremoniously killed off Ryan Choi, the Atom.

But I digress, we’re here to talk about Roy Harper, AKA Red Arrow. So in cry for Justice he lost his arm, and his daughter, and of course there have to be repercussions. But, *sighs* let’s dig into The Rise of Arsenal and see how they screw it all up

#18 The Fall of Green Arrow

Bad stories spawn bad follow-ups. So here we are, this month I’ll be dealing with the two follow-up stories of Justice League: Cry for Justice (and Superboy #0, man I'm doing a lot of comics this month).  And oh man, do the both suck. We’ll be tackling the story of the fate of Green Arrow first, because it’s the better of the two. Not saying it’s any good, it isn’t, but…

So after the events of Cry for Justice, a lot was up in the air about the fate of Green Arrow (Oliver Queen and Red Arrow (Roy Harper) the two who had been most affected by the book. The concluding stories from the Green Arrow book (which was relaunched shortly afterwards under the “Brightest Day” moniker) and the one-shot Justice League: Rise and Fall special dealt with Green Arrow’s fate, setting up he’d be in the relaunched title.

J T Krul was the writer, the same guy who’s responsible for making the Teen Titans (before Scott Lobdell decided to sh*t all over them with the relaunch) good again after the awful run of Felcia D Henderson. What I’m saying is JT Krul is usually a good writer. But anything related to Cry for Justice turns to sh*t, so let’s see exactly what we have here.

Gotham Episodes 11-14 review

As shows have returned from their winter break, it's my hobby to review, so let's get started with Gotham