New Comic Day

[newnumber6]

This week I got two books:

Batgirl #1 (meh, Beechen screws the character again, but at least he's trying)
Uncanny X-Men #500 (my Pick of the Week, although it does little to reignite my interest in post-Decimation X-books)

Full reviews as usual at my comic reviews site for anyone interested.

Work wasn't bad, lighter than usual. Unfortunately the slight drizzle on the walk home turned to a torrential downpour for a few minutes, so I got soaked.

Ah well, I have pie now and so all is right with the world.

Comments

[kissingdaylight.livejournal.com]

Because I know that you are absolutely the best person to ask, if I wanted to start reading some Batman comics/graphic novels/whatev, what should I start with? I really love dark and angsty Batman, so I don't want to read the more hokey villain stuff, and I know very little of the story, so I don't want to start with something that requires me to know lots of back story to understand it.

Ideas? And is there a place I can get them online? I don't know any comic book stores in my area and being a total noob, going in them might scare me.

please? ily. :)

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Heh... actually I'm afraid I'm not so much the best person to ask. I actually read very little Batman itself. When I dip into that universe, I do it sort of from the side, by reading stories of the people he works with, like Robin, Batgirl, Oracle, etc. IMHO that's sort of one of the coolest ways to look at him because most of the time he's portrayed as sort of hyperdysfunctional control freak, unable to relate to people except by forming them into soldiers in his war, with the occasional moment of tenderness but more likely to point out your mistakes than give you a compliment, even though they for the most part love them. But that's my own personal view and really hard to get except through a more direct, longer term, immersion into continuity than you're likely to want.

Of course, one of the problems with Batman is a lot of the time it is all-villain focused... sometimes he's almost a cypher in his own book, just solving the crime and not really displaying any angsty emoness, being used for a canvas into the villainous mind.

The individual comic issues are probably out right now... right now they're in the middle of a storyline that may be a bit continuity-heavy for even my tastes. So that leaves you with the Trade Paperbacks (large collections of multiple issues, ideally a complete storyline), which might be findable in bookstores, or orderable online in various places like Amazon. No comicstore wandering necessary!

Let's see. A lot of Batfans I know, before I got into it, recommended The Long Halloween to me as one of the best Batman stories easy to get. I personally thought it was only okay, but I might be in the minority. It's set early in Batman's career (in fact, Harvey Dent is still Harvey Dent, and to some degree it's more his story than Batman's). The major Batvillains are in it, but they're almost like guest stars, one for each 'part' of the story (it takes place over a year's time with each 'chapter' being about one month, since that's approximately when the killer they're hunting strikes). It is pretty dark and angsty, but it's not specifically Batman doing most of the dark/angsty stuff. There's also Dark Victory, which is something like a sequel, but I've never read that.

More recently, Death and the Maidens is an interesting dark story focusing somewhat on Ra's al-Ghul, the villain from the first Batman film. Of course, his comics counterpart is somewhat different, literally thousands of years old thanks to a secret formula in certain special locations called 'Lazarus pits' that can not only revive the body, but revive the dead. It also involves his daughters, one of which was betrothed to Batman for a while. But Batman gets some parent-angst in it, along with the question about whether they'd approve of his mission.

Other things to potentially look at are "Batman: Officer Down" and "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" collections. The first involves Gordon being shot, and the second has Bruce Wayne being accused of the murder of his latest love interest, found dead in his home. I should warn that "Murderer" doesn't tell a complete story, it's more one part of a three book, the second and third parts being "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive". I don't think these would require too much more knowledge of characters and events such beyond the occasional, optional, googling/wiki-ing of a character.

(continued in another comment due to length restrictions)

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

My own first Batman book (aside from maybe a handful when I was really young) was a collection called: "Cataclysm", which dealt with a huge Earthquake striking Gotham City. Most of it was just Batman and his group dealing with the problem, looking for survivors, running themselves ragged, etc. There is a bit of villain presence (including one hokey one) but it's minor as the Earthquake itself is the real threat, and so might be worth a look.

Cataclysm led into an event called "No Man's Land", in which Gotham City was declared uninhabitable by the US government and all entrances and exits were sealed off, declared lawless. The rich were able to get out, but lots of poor people remained, and most of the villains and criminals, each carved up the city into different gang-like areas. It got to be pretty dark and angsty, but in a different way. Unfortunately, the way the stories were collected (a little non-linearly and taking issues from the satellite comics like Robin, etc, as well as being in multiple volumes) may make it a bit more impenetrable to new readers, but there was a novelization, written by Greg Rucka. I've never read that, but since it was intended for a mass audience I'd assume it would be much more newbie-friendly and tell a more straightforward storyline. If the idea of the storyline interest you and you might like a novel of Batman as much or more than a comic, that's an option - might be a good way to acquaint yourself with some of the people around Batman too, to make reading more recent stuff easier to understand.

Sorry, wish I could provide a little more help on the issue and provide more of a straightforward answer. Maybe if some of my flist see this discussion they might suggest other options, too.

[kissingdaylight.livejournal.com]

Also, sorry to call on your expertise twice, but my friend lullabylucky was wondering if Watchmen is worth reading. I don't know if you've read it or not, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. (She was a little shy.)

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

I'll answer this one first because it requires less thought. I have read Watchmen, yes, and, keeping in mind I've been a comic geek most of my life and so can't always evaluate things from a non-comic-geek perspective, but I'd say it's certainly worth reading. It's completely stand-alone without referring to any other comic besides itself, and telling a complete story. Despite that, I had no trouble forming attachments to the characters.

The art's decent, a little on the simplistic side compared to comics nowdays, but not impenetrable so it's IMHO pretty easy to follow even for someone relatively new to comics. The story's really tightly plotted and you can notice things on rereads you didn't the first time through. And of course, it's written by Alan Moore, considered one of the gods of comic writing (he also wrote V for Vendetta, the comic, though he disavowed the movie because he felt it diluted his point)

The only caveat I have is that it is sort of a deconstruction of many of the past tropes and conventions of superhero comics before it, commenting on certain absurdities, and so someone without comics grounding might miss out on some of that, but it's also somewhat more in line with both modern comics and modern movie adaptations (since so many comics after Watchmen were influenced by it).

It's set in an alternate history 1980s (with regular flashbacks to the past), in which costumed vigilantes became something of a fad in the 30s, and so you see a lot of slight differences in history as we knew it due to the changes costumed heroes caused over the decades. Whether that's a barrier or more interesting depends on your individual preferences.

[argaud.livejournal.com]

Is it a bad thing I immediately recognized Kingo Sunen?

I feel old. :)

For the young huns there: http://en.marveldatabase.com/Kingo_Sunen

The book gets some extra points from me just for using such an obscure character. Otherwise I agree with you :)

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Ha. I'd never heard of him but given what they revealed at the end I wondered if he was an established one or not. Thanks for saving me the trouble of googling. ;)