As you may have guessed from my frequent Marvel posts, I'm not a big reader of DC comics. Besides Batman, I've never been a huge fan of the DC characters. Superman can do just about anything, where's the fun in that? So, I choose Marvel as my source of entertainment, and I think it's a wise choice; nothing against DC but I prefer my heroes in New York rather than Metropolis. But 'Green Arrow' #1 comes out next month and I will give it a try, promise.
So my decision to read 'The Return of Bruce Wayne' was influenced merely by the review of issue #1 courtesy of Comic Book Resources.com. I'm completely out of the loop on DC events, so Infinite and Final Crisis mean nothing to me except that Batman is back in time and has no idea who he is. So it was interesting to see in issue #1 that the bat motif follows him everywhere (even in caveman times), and that he's making his way back to the 21st century. Just after we see Batman disappear into time again Superman, the Green Lantern, Booster Gold and Rip Hunter turn up and Superman states he can hear every heartbeat on the planet and Bruce Wayne's isn't one of them. Get over yourself Kent.
Anyway, this post has nothing to do with any of that, I'm here to talk about Frazer Irving's artwork in #2. Grant Morrison's story is interesting to say the least, and I look forward to pirate Batman next month, but I honestly hope Irving is done. After Chris Sprouse's straight forward pencils of issue #1 where the characters are easily indentifiable and clean cut, Irving's renderings are horrible. I'm sorry, but they are. I have the utmost respect for different approaches to comic artwork (Brian Michael Bendis' "Echo" arc on Daredevil and the current run of Black Widow are fantastic examples of beautiful artwork that moves on from the norm), but Irving's character work is awful. His forst scenes are BEAUTIFUL, the oranges, yellow and reds of the trees in autumn are stunning and the colouration fits in perfectly with the Halloween vibe I got from this issue. But at times it is nigh impossible to determine Bruce Wayne from fellow witch hunter Malleus (Nathaniel Wayne, his great ancestor of course), and in one panel it looks like Booster Gold's face is melting off his skull. What happened to the awesome bat themed costume on the cover? It had a great mix of Salem witch hunt and Batman and looked fantastic, it's a shame we didn't get to see it anywhere in the story.
Now I hate, hate, HATE having a go at comic book artists (I'm fine with attacking writers) because I know I'll never be able to do what they do. It seems any drawing talent I once had has eradicated itself from my body, who knows how many times I've tried to draw Iron Fist and failed miserably, but I also hate seeing artwork that ruins the characters in a story. With Yanick Paquette taking over art duties next issue, all I can do is hope that 'The Return of Bruce Wayne' develops into a great little miniseries and doesn't kill my interest in DC stone dead.
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