Come now, birdboy! You're not going to sleep on me already, are you? The party's just got started!

I just finished Batman: a Death in the Family. Holy cow. These are the kind of comic books I live for. It sure makes Frank Miller look like crap. Actually this story was pretty darn good. Apparently after fifty years of Batman, the editors at DC were thinking, we should bring Robin back, but we can't bring back Dick Grayson. He's moved on. He's part of the Teen Titans as Nightwing now, and it will make no sense to bring him back. So they created Jason Todd. I never really liked him, so it was a relief when he died. I guess that's how they decided whether or not he would live. After issuing the second to last book in this series they had a telephone poll asking people whether they wanted Jason to live, or die. At the back of the book it says the end vote was 5271 for, 5343 against. Bye bye Jason. But the way they killed him seems a little harsh, even to me. It does bring up an interesting point about the Joker though.

We all know the Joker kills people. Duh. That's his thing, he's good at it, and he loves it. But when we watch a movie about him, or read a comic book (which few people besides me does anymore) about him, we feel a sense of detachment. We don't know any of the people he's killed. We don't care about those people. They're not important to the storyline. They're just more of the Joker's victims. But in A Death in the Family it makes it more personal. You've seen this kid. You know what he's been through. His parents are dead, he just found out that his real mother is alive, and he's worked with the Batman fighting crime. When he dies it's actually a sad thing. It almost makes you hate the Joker. Batman doesn't kill him because he thinks he's too insane to know what he's doing.

The Joker knows. He always has and he always will.

"I know the difference between the crazies and the freaks like you who just enjoy it."

It really is a fabulous comic though. The term "can't put down" is an accurate description of me while I was reading it. I'm forcing myself to read Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again and quite simply, I don't enjoy it. Everyone (meaning the online community of comic bookers that I've talked to, or rather, read) seems to think that Miller's books are classic works of graphic novels, but I just don't understand it. Maybe I'm not old enough to understand it. That's what my dad predicted about Watchmen though, and I love that book. The only thing I can come up with is that it's just not a good book.

In other news, there are a bunch of new Umbrella Academies out, but the last one I saw was number 3 and I just can't get three before the rest of the series. I'm sure it's probably finished the series out by now. I've missed quite a few comic book wednesdays. Speaking of which, my dad got a popcap on his Sobe the other day that said "Comic Book Wednesday."
I want it...


HAHA XOXO