I’m also familiar with Batman’s rogues gallery but not what they’re up to currently (though status quo seems to be lock-up in Arkham Asylum, so I guess that’d be a safe guess). And now Wayne is back but doing something else. Also, apparently Wayne’s son from Son of the Demon (which I did read back when it was released) is Robin now - or maybe was Robin because he doesn’t appear in The Black Mirror.
I believe Identity Crisis was about to begin when I last entered a comic book store on a Wednesday, but since then I’ve been tangentially aware that somewhere along the line Bruce Wayne “died” (comic book scare quotes in full effect) and Dick Grayson took over in his place. As well, though I’m not a regular reader, I am familiar with some of the changes to the title over the last several years. I’m familiar with Batman and his mythos but I don’t read his books save for special occasions - books or stories that come highly recommended or hyped. It’s not the salvation of the genre and it does stumble awkwardly in places, but simultaneously, it does get some things right and those things are worth the time of the superhero enthusiast.Īt this point, I should mention that the caveats from Batwoman apply here as well. And in some ways, The Black Mirror vindicates his sentiment. He’s proven himself to have great taste in the past and it was on his recommendation that I gave Big Questions a shot against a warehouse of reservations and came out quite pleased. Book critic Dan Goodman, knowing my reluctance to heartily endorse the superhero genre, gave the book a pretty nice recommendation and said he thought it was one of the best examples of the genre in years (I’m paraphrasing from memory here, but I think I’m doing him justice). I mean, think how many enemies I’ve made by saying that Batwoman: Elegy was mostly awful and that All-Star Superman fell flat to me partly because Frank Quitely’s people drive me crazy.) So my general rule for this sort of thing is that I won’t review a superhero book unless 1) I really found something special in it (and I really need to do more of this) or 2) the book was recommended to me.
On average, even the better books will only be able to rate an OK rating by the measures I use. And that’s why, for the most part, I don’t really review a lot of superhero books. Sometimes we just want to turn our brains off and take in an unbelievable story. I read and loved The Hunger Games, even though it wasn’t anything particularly special. We don’t expect romance novels or westerns or Elizabeth George mysteries to be Remains of the Day or Cloud Atlas. There are Good books that find themselves nestled in the genre that has been Marvel and DC’s bread and butter since the ‘60s, but they’re rare and all the more special for it.Īnd that’s fine. Rather, the problem is that so much of superhero fiction doesn’t actually succeed. It’s not that a superhero story can’t succeed and rank among the best of the medium that would be like saying The Long Goodbye isn’t great American literature.
Because there are standards of good storytelling that sort of just exist over and above genre concerns, I’m not often kind (or perhaps better: generous) to superhero fiction. The same awkwardness exists here on Good Ok Bad. But we shouldn’t expect a neck-and-neck race. Certainly, a critic might make note of Twilight's purpose and express some evaluation of how well it succeeds on its own terms. On a site that reviewed both books side-by-side, we’d expect reviewers to use at least most of the inches on the same yardstick to measure out their respective values. While it may seem unfair to compare the two books, one is entertaining trash and the other is awestriking and thoughtfully composed (at least according to most everyone who’s read it and isn’t thirteen). See? They’re both great because they both succeed within their unique contexts! After all, how far could you trust someone who rated Twilight and Brothers Karamazov as being Great Books because Twilight succeeds at its goal of being a mindless-but-amusing supernatural romance/thriller and Brothers Karamazov succeeds at its goal of being kick-ass, world-class literature that people will be talking about for hundreds of years or more. I try to extend some graces to the contexts in which these books operate, but completely divorcing genres from the general expectations of the medium would perpetrate some pretty wild discrepancies. One of the weird things about this site is that I rate genre books alongside, quote-unquote, more serious fare.