For 8 months now, comic book readers have had to deal with ongoing criticism of J. Michael Straczynski's vision in the "Grounded" storyline. As far as where the hell his story was even going was starting to get annoying because generally speaking a lengthy storyline get's its point across at least 3 issues in. Finally with Superman #708, we get to the point after 2 filler comics due to JMS being busy writing Superman: Earth One. Unfortunately, we won't be able to get JMS' true vision because he is only a story consultant now, due to him writing Superman: Earth One #2. As such, we instead get Chris Roberson to write. I'll just say this flat out: Chris Roberson is not a good writer. His dialogue is stiff, unnatural, and just plain boring. A villain has finally been revealed, but of course it needs to be as vague as possible. Superman runs into the retconned Wonder Woman for the first time, thinking she looks familiar somehow. I was hoping for a lot more out of the meeting of JMS' stories, but what we got was just one panel of the duo speaking to each other. The next few issues had better make up for "Grounded"'s continuing disappointment, because at this rate "Grounded" is going underground. I haven't given a rating to an individual comic in a storyline prior to conclusion, but I feel this one in particular needs one.
Final Score: 1 Stolen Idea from Grant Morrison out of 5
On the flip side, Batman and Robin is going to go in parts unknown, getting a new regular writer for the first time in its short history. Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason have gained notoriety for Brightest Day and Green Lantern Corps., so it's hard to imagine they'll screw up Batman and Robin. To start their run, they've crafted a 3-part story titled "Dark Knight, White Knight." It's pretty obvious they know what they're doing since they started off the entire story by having Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Tim, and Damian all sit down together and watch The Mark of Zorro, the movie that Bruce describes as "the ending and beginning of something," clearly a reference to the fact that Grant Morrison is no longer the regular writer for Batman and Robin and that Tomasi is going to get criticism and/or praise for not being Morrison. It's a pretty short story, but Tomasi knows exactly how to capture Damian's loveable douchebaggery and Commissioner Gordon's intolerance for disrespect of the dead.
Really, what separates Damian Wayne from Jason Todd is that while Jason was just an asshole from the streets with a chip on his shoulder, Damian was raised to believe he was better than everyone and features no such grudge against anyone; Damian can still be influenced by others and the writers at DC have done a damn good job taming and humanizing him. I'm not a fan of Bruce and Dick both being Batman, but I also love the dynamic and chemistry Dick has with Damian as Batman & Robin; pairing Bruce and Damian together would be far too similar to Bruce and Jason's relationship. Here's looking forward to Tomasi and Gleason's run together.
No rating on this comic until #22 is published.
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