I read the first two omnibuses of this run (up to Batman incorporated) and I'm not impressed. This run has always been acclaimed by comics media, but I'm not a huge fan. The stories are interesting, but I feel they need to explain themselves better, it is hard to know what the hell is even happening. The text story about the Joker morrison wrote (included in the omnibus) is some of the most awful prose I have ever read. It reads like emo fan-fiction by a barely literate 14 year old. Damian is OK I guess, not a huge fan of him honestly. Just started the Batman incorporated and right off the bat I think it's dumb Bruce Wayne publicly announces he is funding Batman.
Overall, I thought it was OK. Some interesting ideas by Morrison and nice art by Frank Quitely and Andy Kubert, but I didn't love it. It isn't one of my favorite Batman runs. The Jeph Leob and Tim sale books, Steve Engleheart run or Chuck Dixon's stuff are a lot better than this in my opinion.
Am I the only one who thinks this run is overrated?
Grant Morrison has some cool ideas but his Easter egg writing style is irritating and getting copied by people who think obscure franchise trivia is the same as good writing. Whatever happened to the dark knight is still great though.
This is probably my biggest problem with it. You have to have 60 year old Batman stories fresh in your mind to even understand some of the concepts.
Grant Morrison is the definition of try hard hack.
I only care about Bruce Timms Batman.
I don’t hate it but like you said I much prefer the stuff that came before
I liked the Zur-En-Arrh part with Batmite, the Simon Hurt and Achilles Milo influences were a nice nod to the overall length of Batman's legacy and introductions like Professor Pyg and Flamingo were a great touch to enrichen regular villain appearances.
The Damien/Robin aspect worked great bringing forth a biological, instead of surrogate, father role in Bruce and the mix-up with the Court of Owls and established history with the Joker being reborn bringing its own chaos was all rather refreshing.
Tying it in with the Darkseid Justice League storyline wasn't too smart and the subsequent Batman through the ages stuff was a little far out for a contained story, but even in that there were a slew of British superheroes that showed up for no reason and further sullied the widening gyre of delusion.
That said Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, All-Star Batman and Robin, Year 100, Joker and Cacophony (And the video game Arkham Asylum) were all around the same time and so hype was high with the Batman characters, and fans were overwhelmed with great stuff.
But it really was the end of Batman as the character he was. There's been a few stories since but nothing like the end of Morrison's run and there is something apt in that. Batman, the comic book character, is truly dead.
I still preferred the artwork from Judgement on Gotham but Morrison, Wagner and Grant all showed Batman to be who he is for fans to see and think of in their own ways.
Seems like a classic issue of you simply not enjoying what the rest of the crowd decides to gush over that particular day. I felt that way when I was glancing over Breaking Bad which is another thing the public loves to scream about and I thought it was meh at best from what I watched of it. Thought the various aspects of the drug making scenes and going into autistic detail about crimes was quite clever and pretty ballsy for television but eh.
Don't make the mistake of going something just because the crowds like it. I've made that mistake quite a few times and it pisses me off sometimes which is why I'm such a stubborn arsehole about peer pressure, it fucking costs money too.