The Black Glove has its hand firmly wrapped around Batman’s throat. But can they squeeze hard enough to crush him, and REALLY change Batman’s life forever?
It’s the week of Thanksgiving and, in the spirit of the season, we should all have something that we’re thankful for. For me, at least as of this past Wednesday, I was thankful that Grant Morrison’s scattershot, self-indulgent, overly confusing mess of the “R.I.P” storyline in Batman has come to a close with issue #681. It truly seems that every single major story arc in any of the Batman comics since Miller and Mazzuchelli’s instant classic “Year One” arc has been either a minor or massive disappointment. In the last twenty years, we’ve had “A Death in the Family”, which did change the tenor of Batman’s comics for quite some time until it was invalidated by Infinite Crisis, and we had “Knightfall”, which was more of an embarrassment for everyone involved, and then we had “Hush”, which, while looking pretty, was just another sleazy sales gimmick that introduced a new and boring villain. I’m not even going to bother talking about “No Man’s Land” or the Years Two and Three arcs or the “War Games” arc. I think that the trouble with Batman as a character is also his greatest strength, and that is that he is the greatest comic hero of all time. Writers and artists are dying to get their hands on him, and when they do, they treat him like an action figure that’s just been opened, and they end up playing so rough with the toy that they end up breaking it. Now in this particular arc, Morrison, who has obviously proven that he can do great work with Batman with his seminal graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, has decided to throw in all of the most bizarre elements of Batman from his Silver Age days with the inclusion of the League of Batmen and the obscure “Robin Dies at Dawn” issue, add a new love interest/villainess, and a bunch of villainous freaks like a guy who dresses up as a hunchback, a killer mime, and the infamously and ridiculously-named Doctor Hurt who make up the uber-evil group calling themselves The Black Glove. And now, The Black Glove has its hand firmly wrapped around Batman’s throat. But can they squeeze hard enough to crush him, and REALLY change Batman’s life forever?
I’m not going to go into detail about the events of this final issue of the “R.I.P” arc, because they are varied, confusing, sometimes extremely cool, but ultimately all too convenient. It seems to end as quickly and as bizarre as it began. I can’t discount that it’s obvious that Morrison put an enormous amount of thought into the preparation and writing of his part of the “R.I.P” arc, but he just didn’t seem to put enough care to make the reader care about what was going to happen at certain points. Throughout the arc, and since his start on this comic, Tony Daniel’s art has ranged from pretty cool to super cool, and this issue, he outdid himself. There are truly great and iconic images in this book, and he does them with flare and gusto. But aside from the art, the arc just seems like another massive failure, but it’s not entirely a failure on the creative end of it. This seems to be more of a design failure. Morrison and Co. set out to make an arc that would ‘change The Dark Knight forever’, which is what so many creators want, but ultimately (more often than not) leave a bad taste in your mouth. It reminds me of how I felt watching “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”: It’s not something totally pathetic, but when you look at the talent that’s involved, it just seems like even more of a waste if it had just been done by some hack. It seems truly that the only writer for the character of Batman who hasn’t wanted to totally change his life forever has been Paul Dini, and look how incredibly successful Detective Comics has been on a creative level. He loves the character and is ultimately satisfied by writing great little stories for him. Even the “R.I.P” arc in Detective was twice the story that this was, and that didn’t seem like it was going to turn out that good.
But maybe that’s it. Maybe right there is the answer: Lower your expectations. But that should neverever be the answer. We should and will continue to hold these stories to a higher standard because we, as an audience, deserve better. And Grant… we deserved better, pal.
Batman #681
“Batman R.I.P - The Conclusion: Hearts in Darkness”
Written by Grant Morrison
Pencils by Tony Daniel
Inks by Sandu Florea
Colors by Guy Major
Letters by Jared K. Fletcher
If you can set aside seven and a half minutes, then go on and watch this music video from The Hours. It’s, um — interesting.
The band isn’t very well-known over here in the U.S. (yet), but the melodramatic song and expensive video counterpart have gathered severe buzz. It’s directed by Tony Kaye (American History X, Johnny Cash’s “Gods Going to Cut You Down), it stars a still-in-Factory Girl-character Sienna Miller, and features Damien Hirst’s art direction throughout.
It’s completely worth the $0.99 cost for the “Be Like Lil’ Wayne” iPhone application. The possibilities are endless and wonderfully asinine…..
Per EpicTilt, the application’s designers:
“Lil’ Wayne equips you with a vast array of his personal bling and outfits to pimp yourself out so you can share with your friends! You can even add Lil’ Wayne himself into your pictures and share with the rest of the world by email or by showing it off in the Lil’ Wayne user gallery!”
While you’re busy getting your Wayne on here’s the new mixtape for your full belly listening pleasure
Well, as I said last week, I was just waiting for a Kerry Collins melt down, and to the delight of Jets fans everywhere, Brett Favre and his boys took the undefeated Titans down 34-13. Now Titans fans can feel the pain we Giants fans went through back in the Collins days. Need I say more?
Now, on to Michael Vick. (NOT A FAN) He’s set to plead guilty to dog fighting charges tomorrow. He’s already signed a plea bargin accepting a three-year suspended prison sentence and a $2,500 fine. By doing this it will make him eligible to leave jail early and spend the last six months of his sentence in a halfway house. Should be a doghouse with pitbulls!
There is so much drama in NYC.. The Knicks are making movies people! Creating salary space for who they hope will be Lebron James (doesn’t every team hope that). They sent Jamal Crawford to Golden State for Al
Harrington, and Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins to the Clippers for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley. Stephon Marbury is refusing to play.. or so the Knicks say. ”"The only thing I’m at liberty to say is that I was
told that they were moving forward and”— [Marbury then took a long pause] — “I’m not the person that chooses who plays and who doesn’t.
That’s the only thing that I’m able to say.” Asked if he refused to play, Marbury repeated, ”That’s the only thing that I’m able to say.” Mike D’Antoni said he did not consider it insubordination and insisted, ”I’m not mad at Steph; I understand”. What’s really going on here? If a player really refuses to play wouldn’t that be considered insubordination, and wouldn’t action be taken toward that player? Who’s telling the truth? And, why is a talent like Marbury being wasted? Although, it is refreshing that this year’s soap opera isn’t coming out of Los Angeles. The Lakers are the #1 team in the league, so far (0.917 average) they’re playing so well that even Shaq wants to come back. Funny how all of a sudden, it wasn’t Kobe’s fault Shaq left, it was Phil’s fault. Shaq is looking to leave the Suns in 2 years when his contract is up. He’ll be 38, come on Shaq, at what point do you say ‘I had a good career’ and stop chasing rings? You’ve already slowed down, and you’re not the men you used to be….
Shaq maybe you and your drama should go to the Knicks, they seem to like drama these days. “And so are the days of out lives”?
The Pittsburg Pirates made history signing two young Indian pitchers, 20 yr right-hander Dinesh Patel and 19 yr southpaw Rinku Singh, as non-drafted free agents. Both will participate in the team’s Minor
League Spring Training next year. The Dodger’s star pitcher, Chad Billingsly, [since they let Lowe and Penny go], slipped on the ice Friday night and broke his leg. He is expected back in time for spring training. Barry Bonds will be facing 11 charges in his perjury case, 3 other chargers were dropped on Monday by the federal court. The court date is set for March 2nd, 2009. Oh big doings A-Rod has been ditching his private Kabbalah classes apparently causing a rift between him and Madonna.. It’s interesting..more to come!
by Chuck Klosterman November 19th, 2008 Guest reviewer Chuck Klosterman is the author of five books, including Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey In Rural North Dakota and the new novel Downtown Owl.There is no one in the world more qualified to review the exhaustingly anticipated new Guns N’ Roses album than he is.
Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It’s more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom? I’ve been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I’ve thought about this record more than I’ve thought about China, and maybe as much as I’ve thought about the principles of democracy. This is a little like when that grizzly bear finally ate Timothy Treadwell: Intellectually, he always knew it was coming. He had to. His very existence was built around that conclusion. But you still can’t psychologically prepare for the bear who eats you alive, particularly if the bear wears cornrows.
Here are the simple things about Chinese Democracy: Three of the songs are astonishing. Four or five others are very good. The vocals are brilliantly recorded, and the guitar playing is (generally) more interesting than the guitar playing on the Use Your Illusion albums. Axl Rose made some curious (and absolutely unnecessary) decisions throughout the assembly of this project, but that works to his advantage as often as it detracts from the larger experience. So: Chinese Democracy is good. Under any halfway normal circumstance, I would give it an A.
But nothing about these circumstances is normal.
For one thing, Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we’ll ever contemplate in this context—it’s the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file. This is the end of that. But the more meaningful reason Chinese Democracy is abnormal is because of a) the motives of its maker, and b) how those motives embargoed what the definitive product eventually became. The explanation as to why Chinese Democracy took so long to complete is not simply because Axl Rose is an insecure perfectionist; it’s because Axl Rose self-identifies as a serious, unnatural artist. He can’t stop himself from anticipating every possible reaction and interpretation of his work. I suspect he cares less about the degree to which people like his music, and more about how it is taken, regardless of the listener’s ultimate judgment. This is why he was so paralyzed by the construction of Chinese Democracy—he can’t write or record anything without obsessing over how it will be received, both by a) the people who think he’s an unadulterated genius, and b) the people who think he’s little more than a richer, red-haired Stephen Pearcy. All of those disparate opinions have identical value to him. So I will take Chinese Democracy as seriously as Axl Rose would hope, and that makes it significantly less simple. At this juncture in history, rocking is not enough.
The weirdest (yet more predictable) aspect of Chinese Democracy is the way 60 percent of the lyrics seem to actively comment on the process of making the album itself. The rest of the vocal material tends to suggest some kind of abstract regret over an undefined romantic relationship punctuated by betrayal, but that might just be the way all hard-rock songs seem when the singer plays a lot of piano and only uses pronouns. The craziest track, “Sorry,” resembles spooky Pink Floyd and is probably directed toward former GNR drummer Steven Adler, although I suppose it might be about Slash or Stephanie Seymour or David Geffen. It could even be about Jon Pareles, for all I fucking know—Axl’s enemy list is pretty Nixonian at this point. The most uplifting songs are “Street Of Dreams” (a leaked song previously titled “The Blues”) and the exceptionally satisfying “Catcher In The Rye” (a softer, more sophisticated re-working of “Yesterdays” that occupies a conceptual self-awareness in the vein of Elton John or mid-period Queen). The fragile ballad “This I Love” is sad, melodramatic, and pleasurably traditional. There are many moments where it’s impossible to tell who Axl is talking to, so it feels like he’s talking to himself (and inevitably about himself). There’s not much cogent storytelling, but it’s linear and compelling. The best description of the overall literary quality of the lyrics would probably be “effectively narcissistic.”
As for the music—well, that’s actually much better than anticipated. It doesn’t sound dated or faux-industrial, and the guitar shredding that made the final version (which I’m assuming is still predominantly Buckethead) is alien and perverse. A song like “Shackler’s Revenge” is initially average, until you get to the solo—then it becomes the sonic equivalent of a Russian robot wrestling a reticulating python. Whenever people lament the dissolution of the original Guns N’ Roses, the person they always focus on is Slash, and that makes sense. (His unrushed blues metal was the group’s musical vortex.) But it’s actually better that Slash is not on this album. What’s cool about Chinese Democracy is that it truly does sound like a new enterprise, and I can’t imagine that being the case if Slash were dictating the sonic feel of every riff. The GNR members Rose misses more are Izzy Stradlin (who effortlessly wrote or co-wrote many of the band’s most memorable tunes) and Duff McKagan, the underappreciated bassist who made Appetite For Destruction so devastating. Because McKagan worked in numerous Seattle-based bands before joining Guns N’ Roses, he became the de facto arranger for many of those pre-Appetite tracks, and his philosophy was always to take the path of least resistance. He pushed the songs in whatever direction felt most organic. But Rose is the complete opposite. He takes the path of most resistance. Sometimes it seems like Axl believes every single Guns N’ Roses song needs to employ every single thing that Guns N’ Roses has the capacity to do—there needs to be a soft part, a hard part, a falsetto stretch, some piano plinking, some R&B bullshit, a little Judas Priest, subhuman sound effects, a few Robert Plant yowls, dolphin squeaks, wind, overt sentimentality, and a caustic modernization of the blues. When he’s able to temporarily balance those qualities (which happens on the title track and on “I.R.S.,” the album’s two strongest rock cuts), it’s sprawling and entertaining and profoundly impressive. The soaring vocals crush everything. But sometimes Chinese Democracy suffers from the same inescapable problem that paralyzed proto-epics like “Estranged” and “November Rain”: It’s as if Axl is desperately trying to get some unmakeable dream song from inside his skull onto the CD, and the result is an overstuffed maelstrom that makes all the punk dolts scoff. His ambition is noble, yet wildly unrealistic. It’s like if Jeff Lynne tried to make Out Of The Blue sound more like Fun House, except with jazz drumming and a girl singer from Motown.
Throughout Chinese Democracy, the most compelling question is never, “What was Axl doing here?” but “What did Axl think he was doing here?” The tune “If The World” sounds like it should be the theme to a Roger Moore-era James Bond movie, all the way down to the title. On “Scraped,” there’s a vocal bridge that sounds strikingly similar to a vocal bridge from the 1990 Extreme song “Get The Funk Out.” On the aforementioned “Sorry,” Rose suddenly sings an otherwise innocuous line (”But I don’t want to do it”) in some bizarre, quasi-Transylvanian accent, and I cannot begin to speculate as to why. I mean, one has to assume Axl thought about all of these individual choices a minimum of a thousand times over the past 15 years. Somewhere in Los Angles, there’s gotta be 400 hours of DAT tape with nothing on it except multiple versions of the “Sorry” vocal. So why is this the one we finally hear? What finally made him decide, “You know, I’ve weighed all my options and all their potential consequences, and I’m going with the Mexican vampire accent. This is the vision I will embrace. But only on that one line! The rest of it will just be sung like a non-dead human.” Often, I don’t even care if his choices work or if they fail. I just want to know what Rose hoped they would do.
On “Madagascar,” he samples MLK (possible restitution for “One In A Million”?) and (for the second time in his career) the movie Cool Hand Luke. Considering that the only people who will care about Rose’s preoccupation with Cool Hand Luke are those already obsessed with his iconography, the doomed messianic message of that film must deeply (and predictably) resonate with his very being. But how does that contribute to “Madagascar,” a meteorological metaphor about all those unnamed people who wanted to stop him from making Chinese Democracy in the insane manner he saw fit? Sometimes listening to this album feels like watching the final five minutes of the Sopranos finale. There’s no acceptable answer to these types of hypotheticals.
Still, I find myself impressed by how close Chinese Democracy comes to fulfilling the absurdly impossible expectation it self-generated, and I not-so-secretly wish this had actually been a triple album. I’ve maintained a decent living by making easy jokes about Axl Rose for the past 10 years, but what’s the final truth? The final truth is this: He makes the best songs. They sound the way I want songs to sound. A few of them seem idiotic at the beginning, but I love the way they end. Axl Rose put so much time and effort into proving that he was super-talented that the rest of humanity forgot he always had been. And that will hurt him. This record may tank commercially. Some people will slaughter Chinese Democracy, and for all the reasons you expect. But he did a good thing here.
Grade: A-
Judge for yourself…their album is now streaming on MySpace
This set cost them $ 4 MILLION dollars…mind you the tickets were $100 a pop and each date went clean quick, so it’s not like they won’t get it back but DAMNNNNNNN
I had the pleasure to be part of the small crowd in New York City that packed the Mercury Lounge last night. Fab (drummer of the Strokes) wrote an album, which he told me (about years ago) and had planned on having a large black woman who sung gosepl sing for him. This all changed when he friended Rodrigo (Los Hermanos), who ended up singing for the band that was rounded out by Binki (post Drew girlfriend of Fab). Binki also happens to be one of the sweetest woman you’ll ever meet which Fab absolutely deserves.
Scared out of his mind (if you knew him this would make a lot more sense) Fab performed in front of friends and family (and a few die hard Stokes fans). Co-Stroke Albert was there with Model de jour, Jim Merlis (owner of Big Hassle), Brett Kilroe (confidant and art director for all Strokes projects), Hugh Surrattt (former RCA Label), Longwave, Ryan Gentiles (mgr of Strokes), etc etc…
They started by playing a 7 minute Portugese song and played the entire record (which I highly recommend you picking up)…
It was dark, so the video is bad but I thought this was a really funny moment, mostly because Hugh use to be my old boss and is standing right next to me, when….well….watch
Final song played during the set “Keep Me In Mind”
The intro to their show is an animated movie that ends up coming to life (a hell bound train with all the band and girls featured…the music playing is ear piercing)
Then they roll into the hits (and they don’t stop for 90 minutes) except for the 4 or so new songs they played but who cares, they ROCK, point, blank, period!
My favorite moment from the concert is below (from a video I took), sorry I didn’t tape the whole thing, I was too drunk and to into it to hold the camera up.
I like Chauncey Billups on the Nuggets. I think it’s great for him. Going back to his hometown, also where he played college ball, joining Camarillo and Kanye. The Nuggets have their superstar in Anthony, they needed a veteran like Billups on the court. So far the The Nuggets have won both games since acquiring Billups. It’s not that much of a change for them. It’s just a steady veteran hand.
Alan Iverson, who I think is amazing in everyway, is now a Piston. I’ve never been a Pistons fan, because I find them boring to watch. They have no fire. They go through the motions. What they needed was a superstar like AI. Now they need to practice! They need to allow themselves to be ruled by AI. They need to let the superstar step in. If they do that I think things can turn around for the Pistons.
My Lakers are 5-0 off the their best start in 5 years. The Clippers won their 1st game over the Mavericks 103-92. Congrats to Baron Davis, winning his 1st game in his hometown with his new team, and making them 1-6 . BAD NEWS for the Spurs as Tony Parker’s MRI showed a bad ankle sprain that will side line him for 4 weeks. With Ginobili out until the end of December, things are looking bleak for the Spurs, who are off to their worst start in the last 12 years.
The Titans are this years Pats [8-0 ] so far, led by Kerry Collins, who was traded from the Giants for Eli Manning. Gaints are 8-1. Hot damn, they may just meet in the Superbowl. I’m hoping for a Giants repeat. I’d love to see that game. The Jets beat the Rams 47-3. The BIGGEST margin of victory in franchise history! Alright Brett.. you’ve still got it!.. (Though you might want to think about color combing that gray away). Romo will be back this week to play the Redskins. He still has pain in his pinky, but the Cowboys need him. After watching ‘Dallas Cowboys: Hard Knocks’ on HBO, I held high hopes for them. They seemed so passionate and demetemined that this was their year for a ring, now I’m not even sure this is their year for a wildcard. Sorry Romo, maybe Jessica Simpson is a bad luck charm.
The Tampa Bay Rays, Evan Longeria, was named AL’s rookie of year with 27 home runs and 85 RBI’s. The Chicago Cubs, Geovany Soto, was named NL’s rookie of the year with 23 home runs and 86 RBI’s. Congratulation to both men. We’re still waiting on Manny here in LA.. with fingers crossed!
A-Rod is still a source of amusement, I can’t wait for the next episode.
And that’s what was exciting this week in Meri’s world.
