The Unwashed Masses

I have a lot of Green Lantern gear. T-shirts, DVDs, action figures, statues, mugs... you name it, I've got it with a GL logo on it. My passionate fandom has resulted in a lot of disappointment lately while the writer of the current book (Robert Venditti) and I have had wildly differing ideas of what should be at the core of that comic book and overall mythology. Where he zigs, I prefer to zag, and so on.

So while Green Lantern is absent from my Pull-List I will find other avenues of comicdom to keep me occupied. One of those will be Batman in some way, shape or form. Batman is, afterall, the reason I read comics today.

The slippery slope started with the vaunted Animated Series; collecting Animated Series-based single issues and trades, until graduating to the regular DC Batman titles of the day. With some ups (Geoff Johns and Gary Franks' Batman: Earth One) and some downs (anything from Grant Morrison) Batman has always had a place on my bookshelf. As eternal a character he is, I assume it will always be that way. No matter how much I love a large power set, or a cosmic setting, Batman always has something to offer the comic fan.

That's part of what makes Batman the success he is – his universal appeal. Batman is a versatile enough character that he can be the silly one-note campy 1966 Batman, the grizzled old Frank Miller Batman, or the modern ultra-realistic Christopher Nolan Batman. In his 75 year history, chances are Batman has been exactly what you wanted him to be at some point or another. For me, its the Animated Series.
So while Hal Jordan isn't hitting the marks he should be, there's a wild world out there to explore until the character I prefer returns. Until then, a few stops in Gotham are on the itinerary.
-Gint