The Man With The Plan

A few days ago I wrote about Grant Morrison's plans to reawaken the "hairy-chested love-god" version of Batman which Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams originated in the early 1970s. However, Morrison's most prominent take on the character was in JLA, where he emphasized Batman's keen strategic mind and dubbed him "the most dangerous man on Earth." From the moment he figured out the Hyperclan's secret, Morrison's Batman seemed at least three steps ahead of everyone else, including his colleagues.

Still, that portrayal didn't begin with Grant Morrison. ("Batman always has a plan" goes back at least to Justice League International.) It certainly didn't end with Morrison, either, as Mark Waid's "Tower of Babel" arc in JLA, "War Games" in the Bat-books, and The OMAC Project have shown. Those three stories illustrate the dark, paranoid side of Batman's plans, and imply that no one else could have worked his doomsday contingencies successfully. By the same token, though, they blame Batman (at least in part) for the catastrophes the plans produced.

Alone, each of these stories might be a telling indictment of Batman's paranoia getting in the way of seeing his own capacity for failure. Together, they add up to a man who doesn't learn from his mistakes. Nevertheless, through the retcons and plot mechanics of Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis, DC has explained Batman's paranoia as a reaction to having his memory altered by Zatanna at the direction of the Justice League. (It also puts "Babel's" JLA Protocols in a new light, but I digress.) Infinite Crisis and 52 are supposed to give Batman catharsis and closure regarding these various life-changing events, and thereby improve his social skills for "One Year Later" and beyond.

Still, in the long view, one could argue that the paranoid Batman produced the Batman of Morrison's JLA. During Morrison's tenure, Batman was a big contributor to the Justice League's success, both in terms of story and popularity. After the League dispatched the Hyperclan, Batman figured out the Key's plans, beat Lex Luthor at corporate raiding, fooled Darkseid into thinking he was dead, and apparently would have defeated the newly-shaved Shaggy Man if Superman and Wonder Woman hadn't screwed things up. Even before "Tower of Babel," Wizard laid out possible strategies for Batman to take down each of his teammates. Had Morrison stayed longer, Batman might well have been mistaken for Chuck Norris. Therefore, has a year of soul-searching dulled whatever edge made Batman so formidable? More to the point, will Morrison acknowledge the changes in Batman the year off is supposed to have produced?

To me he'd be dumb not to. In Morrison's JLA, Batman's one big failure was losing his first fight with Prometheus. However, the loss taught him how to win the rematch. Based on that, one would hope he's learned a lot more from the consequences of his mishandled "master plans." This doesn't mean that the "new" Morrison Batman must be any less effective than the old one -- far from it. If the difference between then and now is that the character now takes into account the possibility of his own failure, that may make the “most dangerous man on Earth” even more so.

It’s worth noting that while Morrison made Batman almost ludicrously capable, his characterization kept Batman from being ridiculous. The logistics of Batman’s crusade depend upon theatrics, propaganda, and misdirection, and Morrison gave him a certain self-awareness and sense of humor which tempered his arrogance. By contrast, Batman’s own titles focused on his darker traits, to the extent that better social skills now represent a definite change. In this respect the regular Bat-titles may actually have caught up to Morrison’s JLA interpretation, with Morrison's arrival on the flagship book completing the transition.

Morrison's JLA also had Batman operating in a universe far more fantastic than a gritty urban setting. To deal with its perils, of course, Morrison introduced readers to Batman's "Sci-Fi Closet," an arsenal of advanced technology. Again, Batman always has a plan, even one for getting to Pluto.

That element of fantasy has been missing from the Bat-books during the past few years, and it will still be a challenge for Morrison to reintegrate it successfully into a regular title. For a while now there has been an unspoken division between the "Gotham Batman" who fights mobsters and lunatics, and the "League Batman" who fights aliens and travels in time; and maybe now DC wants to unify the two. In any event, I can't wait to see what Morrison does when he comes aboard.

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