Grant Morrison: Leave Batman Alone!

I've gotten way behind on my comic book reading. As in, the "to read" stack now exceeds two feet. The plus side of this is that it means I've been busy. The down side is that I've got a whole lotta catching up to do.

I decided to start off with Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne because I'm a huge Bat fan and it was sort of a big deal storyline.

Also, this was one of the covers.

After working my way through it, I confirmed something I had long suspected:

I absolutely cannot stand Grant Morrison's writing.

I've really tried to like his work, I have. I know that there are a lot of fans out there who hail him as one of the greatest comic writers today. But I'm not one of them.

Everything he writes is incredibly pretentious and convoluted. And I don't just mean a little convoluted. I mean he routinely goes five pages babbling about crap that makes NO SENSE AT ALL. Meanwhile, something really important just happened over there, but it was glanced over in about six words; deal with it. I've got nothing against trying to be intellectual when writing comic books, but don't do it at the expense of ALL EMOTION.

Morrison gets all these stories that have the potential to be awesome: Final Crisis (the bad guys win), Batman R.I.P. (Batman dies... sort of), and The Return of Bruce Wayne (Batman stranded in time must find his way home.)

But then you start reading them, and you realize they don't make a damn bit of sense, reek of someone stroking his own ego, and frankly just aren't any fun. I finished reading each of them because they're supposedly major events in the DC universe, but each felt like a chore to get through. And when I read comics, the last thing I want to be thinking is how much I'd rather be doing the dishes.

He even screwed up Pirate Batman. PIRATE BATMAN!