The Book of Hsssh

Morrison's Batman run ends with Talia getting shot by Kathy Kane and delivering a warning to defeated Batman. No surprise that DC decided to follow up this Kane (and her organization, Spyral) plot thread left by Morrison. But did it work? History of how we got Grayson ongoing is rather weird. After Forever Evil and Dick Grayson's "death" DC was looking for new direction. Supposedly someone hired Seeley to write it and someone else hired King to write it. So people in charge figured what the hell, let them both write it. As a result we got one of the best Dick Grayson runs that heavily focused on Spyral and Kathy Kane to lesser extent. Now, New 52 was funny time and King is a writer who likes to do things his own way so Spyral obviously does not map 1:1 with Morrison's version. But on the other hand I think that, in spirit, it does feel like a continuation of what Morrison started. Creative team of Grayson really fleshed out the organization and it was "hot...

One of my, somewhat, hot takes is that 52 weekly is overrated and there are a number of flaws with it. And my hot take as a Morrison's fan is that whole space adventure story is real bad. On the other hand I think that Oolong island story arc is fantastic. So I was very intrigued when Morrison wrote a proposal for Metal Men that then was used as a basis for Rouleau's miniseries.  Looking at the covers of the issues we can notice that not only 52 weekly is mentioned as a basis for this story, but Superman/Batman ongoing as well. Whats up with that? Well, before Rouleau's could bring back a new version of Metal Men to DC comics... they actually returned in the pages of Superman/Batman #34-36 written by Verheiden. It also introduced two new characters to the cast. Magnus' assistant Helen and a new female Metal Men - Copper. Unfortunately this story arc is rather bad and really not worth tracking down. Fortunately Rouleau pretty much ignores it entirely. New characters are ...

Father Time was introduced by Morrison in Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein mini. Not much was revealed about him at the time and he was fleshed out mostly by other creators. Was anything interesting done by them? In my Freedom Fighters post  I mentioned that Father Time plays a role there. So what was it about? I guess basic idea is that in WW3 #1 Father Time gets injured by Black Adam. Due to these injuries he gets a new body. Now he is white guy and generic evil government guy. What? So anyway, at some point he turns black again and reveals that he was just pretending that he is generic evil government guy. Why? To achieve some complicated goals that didn't make much sense in the end. And there is also JSA Classified #25 that features white Father Time. So before New 52 there is not really much worth reading with Father Time after his introduction. Sure, he makes brief appearance in Final Crisis, but it is not like Morrison does much with him there either. But hey, here comes New 52....

Prometheus was one of the villains introduced in Morrison's JLA run. Basically evil Batman with a bit goofy gimmick of inserting discs into his helmet. Maybe discs becoming a bit of an obsolete technology is one of the reason why he had a rocky career. Or maybe writers just don't know what to do with him. To cut things short Prometheus became a bit of a joke and I have seen some people, who normally post okay opinions, say that well he was a joke in his first JLA story as well. After all his plan was absurd and in the end he was taken out by Huntress. But villains tend to have absurd plots and motivations in Morrison's work, that is normal. As for getting taken out by Huntress? Lets step back a little and look at what Morrison was doing at the time. When it comes to Justice League there is always a question on the purpose of various members because Superman is there. He is stronger, faster and smarter than most of the members so what can they really contribute to the team? ...

At the end of Morrison's run Ra's is shown to still have many Damian clones in his secret lair. What happened with these clones? After Damian died Bruce went on a quest to bring back his son. Naturally it lead to a conflict with Ra's that we saw in "Batman and Robin Vol. 6 - The Hunt for Robin" storyline. In Batman and Aquman #29 (or just Batman and Robin #29) we see Ra's trying to use those clones against Batman and Aquman. They obviously fail and Aquaman takes them under his own protection to Atlantis due to whole "nurtured by whales" thing. Eventually Damian came back and one of the things he did was visit Aquaman in Batman and Robin #39 to see how his clones are doing. He says they are his family and with Aquaman's help moves them to some remote island where they can live in peace. Last time we see them is Robin: Son of Batman #5. Damian during his adventures ends up on the same island, there is a battle and his clones end up sacrificing them...

On paper idea of Convergence Brainiac is rather simple, if regular Brainiac collects cities from doomed worlds then maybe there is super Brainiac who collects cities from doomed realities? But according to Jeff King, the writer of Convergence, this idea came from Morrison during a conversation with DiDio and King. So what happened next? Entire thing started in Futures End weekly series. Brainiac was treated like the big bad until Brother Eye came out as the main bad guy. Nothing really wrong with that, problem was that we got multiple versions of Brainiac. One version is present in Frankenstein's story. Brainiac there isn't very unique or interesting. Key point I guess was that this is the real Brainiac while everyone else is just a shell, or something. It is a common trope with robotic or artificial beings - reveal that everyone you fought before wasn't the real deal. I liked Frankenstein's story and Brainiac played his role fine, but it wasn't something spectacula...