Time Warp #1 – Review

By: Too many to list—or even to review.  Just check out the issue.

The Story: Is a story told yesterday but read tomorrow still the same story published today?

The Review: My view towards these showcase titles tends to be the same as Forrest Gump’s view of life as a box of chocolates: “You never know what you’re gonna get.”  I’d carry the analogy further to say that sometimes, you’ll get something you really like and there isn’t enough of it, and sometimes, you’ll get something you’d rather toss out and wish no one ever included it in the first place.  A successful showcase is thus one where each offering satisfies in its own way.

In that respect, Vertigo’s latest anthology succeeds pretty well.  Given the malleability of time as a springboard for ideas, the writers included here came up with a very interesting array of stories.  Some chose to use the nature of time to muse upon deeper subjects.  In Damon Lindeloff’s “R.I.P.,” Rip Hunter’s past and future selves work together to save themselves, ultimately to no avail.  Despite his time-traveling abilities, he must eventually stare his irony-ridden fate in the eyes and give in.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Lee Garbett, Pere Perez (artists), Alejandro Sicat and Walden Wong (inks)

The Story: Bruce Wayne arrives at the end of time, where those weird-eyed, fuzzy archivists help him along on the last leg of his journey through time and into the final steps of Darkseid’s plan to use him as a weapon. Superman, Rip Hunter and Green Lantern are stranded there, only moments away from catching up with Bruce. In the present….the JLA is waiting.

What’s Good: I know there are a few readers who argue that Batman needs the setting of Gotham to be an honest depiction (I’m usually one of those readers). Some have pilloried Morrison for sending essentially a regular guy in leather and spandex through time. However, Morrison did drop some thematic markers throughout the mini-series that he picked up here to good effect (in Tim Wayne’s mouth): It isn’t really fair that a regular guy has to fight gods. This is a deep statement that can be read in any number of ways. I really like that Morrison said it. The issue of scale in superhero comics is usually ignored (“Go get ’em Thor and…um…Hawkeye…” or “Superman, you check left! Wildcat, you cover right!”) which can really diminish a story in some ways. Morrison doesn’t solve the problem, but that nod to a basic flaw in comics made the end-of-time sequence really, really cool, as well as the psychedelic brushes with the New Gods mythos near the end. I also *loved* the nod to origin of Batman, with the hand on the bell, not knowing if he should ring or not for Alfred to come fix him up. This was very cool. It crystallized what Morrison had been doing with the bats throughout the series. There’s a lot more cool writing and story stuff, but we’re on word limits here, so I’ll stop for now.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Frazer Irving (artist), Mike Marts and Janelle Siegel (editorial team)

The Story: Bruce Wayne, damaged memory and lost in time, has disappeared from the Stone Age and reappeared in the new world of the puritan colonial Gotham. He’s been given an identity by a local woman who’s been accused of being a witch. Bruce does his detective thing to unravel a supernatural mystery. In the “meantime” (if meantime is defined as being simultaneous with moments before the heat death of the universe), Superman, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter and Booster Gold trace the Omega energy to the end of time. They find Bruce (not the same-time Bruce as the one in puritan Gotham…stay with me…time travel is all paradoxical) but not before he strands.

What’s Good: The whole thing. Wow. What great art. Frazer Irving’s work is a unique blend of stylized and creepy that’s simply awesome. His puritan witch hunt scared me. His scenes of Bruce fighting a spectral evil was moody. His expressions were evocative (the accused witch’s face when Bruce wakes up, Superman’s posture and expression when facing the archivist), requiring no words at all. And the archivist… Holy $#!^! What an awesome alien! It was made all the spookier with the one glowing, off-center eye.

Grant Morrison, who started slow in the last issue, barreled this book along. The story is fragmented, with shards set in the doomed future, pieces set in a monstrous psychedelic mindscape, and scraps hidden dark caves and in terrified puritan Gotham. Personalities grind together. The plot thickens. Superman spills the stakes: “He took your memories and relied on your survival instinct… You’ve been booby-trapped! Darkseid turned you into a doomsday weapon and aimed you at the 21st century!” This is heady stuff and very cool. This is why I like Darkseid. Find me a better evil genius whose name doesn’t start with “Tha” and end with “nos.” This isn’t sharks with lasers on their heads. Think about it. Darkseid booby-trapped one of the greatest superheroes of all time and shot him at the 21rst century. How cool is that?