Brighter Days Ahead for Batman?

[Super Monkey]

Back to the topic...

The new creative Team for Detective Comics has been announced:

Paul Dini and Rags Morales


Sweet lordy, someone check Nightwing's heart!

This is great news!

please see these links to learn more about these two:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dini

http://www.comicfoundry.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=57

[nightwing]

Paul Dini?  Now that is awesome.  It's been a wild week for Batman, to be sure.  I just heard Neal Adams has signed on to draw a bat-book for the first time since the Nixon Administration!

Unfortunately it's "All Star Batman" with Frank Miller writing.  And if I was already on the fence about Neal given his annoying political screeds lately, teaming him with Miller is really pushing me to the "don't buy" camp.

Neal Adams on Batman?  And me not sure I want to support it?  The 21st Century's turning out to be a strange new world, indeed.  Now, if it had been Dini and Adams together, you really would have needed that defibrilator.

[JulianPerez]

Paul Dini?  Now that is awesome.  It's been a wild week for Batman, to be sure.  I just heard Neal Adams has signed on to draw a bat-book for the first time since the Nixon Administration!

Unfortunately it's "All Star Batman" with Frank Miller writing.  And if I was already on the fence about Neal given his annoying political screeds lately, teaming him with Miller is really pushing me to the "don't buy" camp.

Neal Adams on Batman?  And me not sure I want to support it?  The 21st Century's turning out to be a strange new world, indeed.  Now, if it had been Dini and Adams together, you really would have needed that defibrilator.

I really have to wonder exactly what it was that Neal Adams said about politics that sounded nuttier than all his "amateur geology" theories.  

Neal Adams assigned to a regular title? Alriiight! He's had on his website some grand old ideas for a Batman costume redesign which would be interesting to see in play. Although I'm still not picking up the title because Frank Miller is terrible (and kind of always has been; remember that blind guy from DAREDEVIL that taught him not to use his Radar Sense? Wha?)

Like Michael Jackson, I'm well aware that Neal Adams is an eccentric weirdo. I can tolerate the hyperbaric chamber and pet chimp as long as the work produced is great (although in Michael's case, it sure stopped being so circa Shout). As long as Neal keeps on drawing the way he did his power packed AVENGERS covers, he can talk about Seafloor Spreading all day and night.

[nightwing]

Well, since you've been to his website you should know what I mean.  For a kid who grew up thinking Neal was a god, I've certainly soured on him in recent years, and a lot of that's due to Neal himself.  When he isn't putting forth those crackpot theories about the genesis of the Earth (message to Neal: WHO CARES?), he's posting some leftist tract or other blaming Bush for rainy days, missing socks and short days in winter.  I half expect him to pull off his Neal Adams mask, Mission Impossible style, and reveal himself as Sean Penn ("Bush makes me smoke!").

Apparently Neal shares my old opinion that he's a god.  Annoying enough when he's just bragging about how everything good that ever happened to any character is all thanks to him (Burton's Batman films?  All stolen from Neal's work...Singer's "X-Men" films?  Clearly an adaptation of Neal's run on the book.  Yadda Yadda) but when he gets Streisand-itis and decides he can also out-think geologists and heads of state, it's time to move on to the stronger meds.  And don't forget his "gift to fans," the online store offering art-o-graph tracings of his past glories for thousands of dollars.

Funnily enough, I think I could almost stand all this if his site wasn't such a headache-inducing eyesore. For a self-proclaimed graphics genius, it's easily the sloppiest, most hideous mess on the Web.  I can only assume the old man just isn't into the Web and handed the chores off to one of his talentless but no less egotistical kids (I never met "Spyda" but the name alone is enough to make me want to smack him).

Glad you like his recent stuff, but even there I'm let down.  I haven't bought his "Batman" collections, but I saw a re-done version of "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge" in a TPB at Target, not just recolored (his passion nowadays) but also re-inked...with a Sharpie, no less...and it was gruesome.  If that's a sample of what's in the three fancy hardbacks, count me out.  So to Neal Adams, my one-time hero, I hereby utter the cruelest phrase an artist can hear; "I liked your old stuff better!"

[Super Monkey]

Nightwing,

Sit down relax and read this:



some quotes:

"and he just loves Batman. Absolutely loves Batman."
http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=c4959841fa67e7f6922039d45f94d1e3&threadid=57023
“Detective Comics was one of the books that I used to read regularly in my early days as a fan, mainly because I loved the detective aspect of the stories. Batman was the superhero book, and Detective was the crime title. Paul is one of the few people that I believe can go in and tell those kind of stories, so that’s what we’re going to have him do.

“Part of Paul’s own agenda on the series is to go in and tell single-issue mystery stories. Every issue is a standalone mystery. There may be an overarching story that runs underneath everything, but every issue has a beginning, middle, and end of a detective mystery. That’s something that we haven’t seen in a while, and it takes someone of real talent and ability to be able to pull that off on a monthly basis.”


http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=c4959841fa67e7f6922039d45f94d1e3&threadid=57023

[Great Rao]

Neal Adams assigned to a regular title? Alriiight! He's had on his website some grand old ideas for a Batman costume redesign which would be interesting to see in play.

Could someone provide a direct link to these ideas of Neal's?  I've looked around on his website and can't find any mention of it.

[MatterEaterLad]

I'd like to check 'em out too...

[nightwing]

Thanks for the link, Super-Monkey.  Yes, it's starting to look like Detective will be everything I look for in a Batman comic, so count me in.  Dini is tops with me...in the 90s he helped make the Animated Series the one place on Earth you could find the real Batman.  And Rags Morales is a pretty good artist even if he does have a name more befitting a pet dog. Looking forward to this one.

But what a shame they can't pry Miller's hands off ASB.  And for Adams to come back at this late stage and sully his otherwise spotless record on Batman is a real shame.

Could someone provide a direct link to these ideas of Neal's? I've looked around on his website and can't find any mention of it.

Well-organized site, eh?  That, plus the semi-literate text and eye-injuring "design" make it a real treat all the way around.  Well here it is anyway:

http://www.nealadams.com/news2.html#anchorcomic

Short version: more weapons.  Oh, and blades, gotta have blades.  Neal Adams, 60 going on 14.