Bruce Wayne
Grant Morrison and the problem of an immortal Batman
Warning: Spoilers for Batman Inc. #8, The Dark Knight Rises, and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus follow.
Grant Morrison’s reflection on his Batman run is interesting, in that it offers insight into what the writer thinks makes the character tick, but the part that jumps out at me was the very end where he brings up Robin and asks, “What son could ever hope to replace a father like Batman, who never dies?”
It’s something I’ve been thinking about since seeing Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. As flawed as that film is, it has some intriguing ideas about the relationship between creator and creation, whether that’s alien and human, inventor and android, or parent and child. On that last dynamic, Charlize Theron’s character Vickers observes, “A king has his reign, and then he dies. It’s inevitable.” That’s a horrible thing to say about your father. It is, however, true.
Some thoughts on the future of Damian Wayne
Hey, have you somehow managed to avoid hearing about the thing that’s going to happen in that one comic book Wednesday? The thing the writer and publisher are so excited about that they’ve been hyping it up in various media?
If so, then you must be the sort of comics fan who doesn’t like to have story points spoiled for you in advance, so out of respect for you, and respect for the diligence you’ve shown in so far being able to avoid having the story — whatever it is, in whatever book it’s unfolding — spoiled for you, I’m going to bury this entire post below the break.
So, if you already know what I’m talking about, read on!
Quote of the Day | Grant Morrison on his epic Batman run
Grant Morrison
“I chose to build my story around the basic trauma, the murder of his parents, that lies at the heart of Batman’s genesis. It seemed to me there would be a part of Bruce Wayne that resented his parents for leaving him and especially resented his father for not being Batman that night, so the principal villains were an archetypal bad father figure in the form of Dr. Hurt and a dark mother in the form of Talia, our villain for the concluding chapters of the story. This master theme of damaged and ruined families was nowhere more in evidence than in the creation of Damian, the first ‘Son of Batman’ to be acknowledged in the canon. In many ways this has been Damian’s story as much as it has been the story of Bruce Wayne and it’s a story that had its end planned a long time ago – for what son could ever hope to replace a father like Batman, who never dies?
– Grant Morrison, in an essay on the DC Comics website, addressing his more than six-year stint
writing the Caped Crusader, from Batman to Batman and Robin to Batman Incorporated
Bat-mystery solved! Bruce Wayne is a Yale graduate!
From Batman #93, "Batman's College Days"
Apparently unsatisfied with such alumni as Presidents Ford, Bush, Clinton and Bush, Secretary of State Clinton, several Supreme Court justices and senators, and holographic doctor Robert Picardo, Yale University has laid claim to one more distinguished graduate: billionaire playboy-philanthropist Bruce Wayne.
To make the case for the (secretly) Dark Knight as a Yalie, the Yale Alumni Magazine turned to author, designer and Batman devotee Chip Kidd, who turned to … the 1960s Batman television series. Specifically Episode 33, in which Aunt Harriet reveals that Bruce’s grandfather actually founded the secret society Skull and Bones.
“This is a rather neat conceit when you think about it,” Kidd writes in the magazine’s March/April issue. “The implication is that it’s in the nature of the Wayne men to create a unique identity for themselves that is both public and yet fiercely private. For what is ‘Batman and Robin’ but the ultimate secret society, with only two members?”