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I CALLED IT.

Yes, Comicgasm readers, I called it months ago. When Batman comes back from his time-hopping adventures in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, I figured that they weren’t going to let Dick Grayson go back to the Nightwing identity that easily. No, I said. A lot of readers have already warmed up to Dick Grayson as Batman, so he was going to stay on as The Dark Knight.

Okay, so I never really wrote my little theory on this blog, and I was hoping for a Batman Beyond kind of dynamic – Dick running around as Batman while Bruce coaches him and feeds him information from the Batcave. I never expected that Grant Morrison would throw a curveball and give us Batman Inc. – a series where the newly-returned Bruce Wayne builds a Starbucks-like franchise of Batmen.

I guess everyone who’s been following the saga of Morrison’s Batman figured out that we’d be getting multiple Batmen the moment Batman Inc. was announced, but the story in The New York Post just made it official:

In fact, two might not be enough either, DC publisher Dan DiDio said.

"Bruce Wayne realizes that he can’t just be the grim avenger he was before," DiDio said. "He wants to be more aggressive in his reach, and realizes the change that Batman as a symbol can effect around the world."

In the new title, "Batman Inc.," Wayne does what any billionaire would: build a Starbucks-style franchise of Dark Knights.

"Without giving too much away here, we wanted to show how Batman can have a global influence," he said.

You know what? I don’t mind having more than one Batman running around the world. That’s cool. That’s a new idea that hasn’t been explored in canon before. I’m just glad they’re keeping Damian “I’m a badass motherfucker” Wayne as Robin.

Now that the Nightwing costume is going to be empty for at least another year, can we have Cassandra Cain as a female Nightwing please? (Fuck Chris Kent as Nightwing, really – the Nightwing identity belongs to the Bat-verse)

What do you think?

[via Cocoy]

There’s absolutely no words to describe how awesomed I was when Grant Morrison first announced that Bruce Wayne is going to start franchising Batman and is going to turn it into a brand in “Batman Inc.". Seriously, it doesn’t matter if you hate or love Morrison’s run on Batman, I think we can all agree that he did more for the character for the last 20 years over any other writer. And Batman as a brand is the logical (or illogical) next step.

In the new series, Batman will create a team of super-heroes who will be wearing his colors. The team will include Dick Grayson, Knight and Squire, El Gaucho and eight others. Again, Morrison says, “it’s all about the branding.”

Incidentally, this new era of Batman also means that we get a costume change:

I don’t need to explain how much I absolutely loathe the yellow oval on Batman’s chest. Although I grew up watching the Adam West TV show and reading Bronze Age Batman comics where he is always depicted with the yellow oval and symbol on his chest, I really prefer the oval-less symbol. It gives me the impression that Batman is a much more badass character that way.

(continue reading…)

Ade here, taking a break from reformatting my PC to bring you this week’s most delayed reviews!

Amazing Spider-Man #611

See how much a comic improves once it forgets about the Clone Saga? (continue reading…)

Welcome back traveller! Let me, Ade, treat you to this week’s unbelievably-late-but-still-ass-kicking reviews, brought to you only by Comicgasm.

Ok, Black Mask, let’s see some of that pimp hand you’re famous for.

Batman #692

This is Tony Daniel’s first Batman issue. I’m really not too keen on reading his run on Batman because I’ve been left utterly unimpressed by Battle Of The Cowl.

And really, I am disappointed with this issue. There are quite a few problems with this issue – Daniel crammed way too many story threads. (continue reading…)

Oh lookee. The Comicgasm monkeys have been all busy getting drunk and we’ve totally forgotten this little blog of ours. Oh well. Time to make the reviews then.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2

I’ve mostly avoided the Ultimate Universe, but after Loeb did his best to destroy said universe, I thought, well, it can only get better after this. (continue reading…)