By: Grant Morrison Publisher: DC Comics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: DC Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 200 Publication Date: July 22, 2008 Release Date: July 22, 2008
Product Description: Comic legends Grant Morrison (ALL STAR SUPERMAN, SEVEN SOLDIERS) and Andy Kubert (Ultimate X-Men, 1602) join forces to bring you an unforgettable tale of the Dark Knight.
After Batman faces down an army of winged horrors in a no-holds barred, bone-crunching superbrawl among the treasures of London's Pop Art Museum, Batman receives the greatest shock of his life when he discovers that he has a son. Sparks fly when the new addition to the Bat-family is introduced to Batman's adopted son, Robin, the Boy Wonder. Which one will be chosen to carry on the legacy as Gotham's protector?
Wayne, Bruce Wayne! Pure genuis. A fun, exciting, engaging storyline with a likeable Batman, who is equal parts superhero and Bond, James Bond, and Ninja Man-Bats!!!! What more do you need to know??? I devoured it one sitting.
Necessary for Batman RIP I actually liked this issue. Specially the midstory with the Joker's "reborn". I am so happy that I got this because I bought Batman RIP first and there was SO many things I didn't understand, but I read somewhere that say it was necessary to read Batman & Son, Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul and Black Glove before reeding RIP. I bought all of them and voila!, from the begining there are several important matters for RIP. Besides this, this is a fun action story. Very good...
A love it or hate it title...... By this point i've read Grant Morrison's entire 5-volume arch (Batman and son, Resurrection of Ra's, Black Glove, RIP, and Final Crisis) and I have very mixed opinions. On one hand the art in each of these books is quite good (particularly Tony Daniel's RIP), but the story's are very much puzzles that ask you to step away from the characters and look at them more as chess-pieces than characters in a story. Not once while I was reading any of these books did I feel anything for Bruce, Tim, Dick, or Alfred (though I did hate Damien...i guess that's something). Don't get me wrong, they ARE three dimensional and it's interesting to see what they're going to do next, you just wont always find yourself rooting for them.
I think "Batman and Son" embodies everything Grant Morrison does with the rest of his run and is a good starting point for people who are curious. Again, none of the characters are really likeable and the situations range from serious (Bruce 'trying' to raise Damien, renegade cop-batmen) to silly (Man-Bat ninjas!). The story DOES get alot more interesting as it goes on though (the final chapter being my all-time favorite) and does feel like it's building up for something bigger later on.
Also I did quite like Kubert's artwork in this run and felt it surviced the pop-art feel of the story well.
So like I said, try this one out (it certainly gets better each time you read it). If you like it you'll love the rest of the books. If you don't, best to stay away.
A Tentative Beginning Writer Grant Morrison and artist Andy Kubert have placed Batman in a real predicament; after battling ninja Man-Bats to the point of losing consciousness, the iconic superhero is then informed by Talia al Ghul that he's the father of her son, Damian. Just another Manic Monday, I guess.
With the plot bouncing from London to Gotham City and ending on Gibraltar, it is a psychological exploration into the relationship between Batman, Robin and Damian, which yields at different points some heartfelt, powerful and unbelievably destructive displays that may ultimately doom the Dark Knight.
This is Morrison's debut with the Batman title and the key elements are ambitious, but the story line when it suddenly retreats to a formulaic ending. This is a father and child reunion that could have blazed through the nighttime sky, if given a full opportunity.
Searching for the real Batman... been missing for two decades Review by Brian Grindrod
Since Jim Starlin's departure from the Batman title during the late 1980s, the character and its original premise has been bastardized beyond recognition. The world's greatest detective as well as one of the best trained combatants had been replaced by a paranoiac, manipulative fanatic who is territorial and constantly irate. This modern-era Batman is indistinguishable from the insane criminals he has sworn to protect the innocent from. Incompetent editors have reduced this great icon to a farce by allowing one of the greatest hacks in the industry, Judd Winick, to spit in the faces of Batman fans by not only bringing back Jason Todd (Robin II) but not being able to give his resurrection any plausible credibility.
While Paul Dini's arrival on Detective Comics has been a welcome change of pace from the drivel of the last two decades, I had high expectations from Grant Morrison who had breathed new life into a stifled X-Men franchise. However, with Batman and Son, this proves that Morrison has been riding way too long on the coattails of his groundbreaking Animal Man series. For every Doom Patrol stint, there are far too plenty of Seven Soldiers of Victory, Kill Your Boyfriend and Marvel Boy fiascos to consider him as one of the industry's best comic book writers. Disjointed, abstract expressionism with a healthy dose of kitsch may impress the elitist comic book snob but for those who want a straightforward action-packed super-hero romp, it is nothing but utter rubbish.
For many years, editor Dennis O'Neil had unswervingly maintained that the Batman: Son Of the Demon graphic novel did not from part of the character's continuity. From a marketing point of view, it made perfect sense. After all, corporations who may want to pay Warner Bros. for utilizing the Batman property certainly did not want their product to be associated with a fictional super-hero who had a fictional bastard son. Well, it looks like the insipid Superman Returns film has demonstrated that the times have changed since Morrison's story is contingent on events that transpired in Son Of The Demon. However, retconning an Elseworlds story back into current continuity does not excuse the laziness that Morrison admitted to by not reading the actual tale and using Superboy Prime's reality punch to blanket over all the errors within the Batman and Son story arc. If only the editorial and continuity blunders were the only faults of this claptrap....
First of all, does it make any sense that Batman would accept somebody in his home with open arms after this person has beaten half-to-death his (adopted) son and assaulted his long time friend? Even more ludicrous is that he accepts Talia Al Ghul's word that the boy is theirs without doing a DNA test once they are in the Batcave. Did I forget to mention that the boy brings back a head he decapitated back to the cave? Does Batman approve of murder all of a sudden? The plot holes and character inconsistencies simply make this story a dreadful read altogether. Morrison pathetically attempts to be clever by paying homage to Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein during a fight scene but this trick gets old after one panel. Then for no reason whatsoever, the story is interrupted by a prose with some John Van Fleet artwork thrown in to remind readers that this is still a comic book... not a novel. To add insult to injury, the last chapter of the book is an Elseworld that has no entertainment value whatsoever.
If you enjoy Andy Kubert's artwork, you will be certainly treat yourself to some great eye-candy. The action scenes where Batman fights an army of Man-Bats and the splash pages are quite impressive but it is not enough to warrant this hardcover's purchase at its original cover price due to the weak plot. It is obvious that Grant Morrison took the gig for reasons other than to deliver a noteworthy product that fans of Batman as well as the super-hero genre can enjoy. I am searching for the real Batman. He's been missing for two decades.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
