Grant Morrison...

While my existence is likely unbeknownst to him, (as I have not yet executed the great My-Friend-Scott Switcheroo) Grant Morrison and I share some history.

Grant Morrison started out in comics writing things I kind of consider 'not real comics.' I know nothing about Animal Man, though it's praised now (as everything he's written is) and while I tried reading The Invisibles at an early age, it was just too tangential for me. (Too tangential FOR ME.) Too riding on the 'weird for the sake of being weird' po-mo SLC style that ran rampant in the Vertigo titles after Sandman caught on with reader-types. (Sidenote: if you want comics to read like high literature, read high literature. Don't mess up my comic books to make yourself feel cooler and less stuffy.)

Then he went to work on JLA in the 90s. JLA freakin' rocked. Here, Grant Morrison created Prometheus, possibly the only useful Batman villain created in the last 25 years, (though he did kinda copy him off an existing character) and somehow made the addition of an angel to the team not feel contrived. He even found a use for The Atom, which is pretty respectable in itself.

Then, oh then, the horror begins. New X-Men. X-Men has pretty much sucked since about 1996, definitely since 1998 without a doubt. I would say, "You ruined Magneto, you horrible bastard," but I'm unsure how much blame belongs with him and how much belongs with Editorial. Nonetheless, X-Men has continued to seriously suck thanks to his Matrix-izing of everything, (see: the X-Men films) and the confusing ruination of their greatest foe.

So, having ruined one of the two comics I loved, he's now moved on to the other, Batman. He's been writing Batman for about 2 years now and seemingly building to something, but never really making sense. People talk about what his literary aims or his overarching themes, but not a one of them can tell you what's actually happening, or even which 'Earth' it takes place on. There are two potential vague answers.

a) There is an unknown-as-to-who-it-is character called The Black Glove who is orchestrating basically everything evil, at least that's Batman related. The forerunners on the internet are: Alfred (and/or his Outsider persona), Batman himself having a split personality, Batman's father - if he isn't really dead, the Crimson Avenger (a Detective character that preceded Batman's debut), Harley Quinn, the Batman from Earth X (aka Zur En Arrh), the list goes on and on - and probably none of them are right. I won't even go into Bruce's skank of a girlfriend being named Jezebel and what that implies.

b) Grant Morrison is making Batman suck.

I will leave it up to you to decide which is correct.

All I know is that DC's saying Bruce Wayne dies, which pretty much means nothing. (Who hasn't died, especially in DC?)

There's a part of me that remembers JLA rocking the house, and really hopes Grant has a solid grasp of where he's going and to tell a story that's not stupid or irreparable. There's another part of me who remembers his chainsaw-handed sodomy of Magneto and hopes to god Editorial remembers they're working with multiple worlds right now so that they could easily just fold this one into oblivion no matter what happens.

What's important is this. Bruce Wayne, if he dies, should become the Spectre. Hal Jordan was the Spectre and he's alive again. The guy who's the Spectre now sucks ass at it (unless he's finally stepped up his game). They heavily hinted at Bruce becoming the Spectre in Infinite Crisis.

So now that I can't read X-Men anymore (thanks to Grant Morrison), I am buying Batman and Final Crisis (both written by Grant Morrison). We live in a very confusing world.