LogFAQs > #922221972

WhiskeyDisk posted...

Maybe this is a 50/50 nostalgia, and late 90s grimdark me speaking, but I loved Azrael as the Bat and wish he hadn't been punted for the admittedly more deserving and actually-acting-like-batman Dick Grayson.

You walked away from that storyline with exactly the wrong reaction, then.

They've mentioned in the past that the entire point of Azbats was that people were complaining that Batman wasn't dark enough, that he should be willing to kill, that he should be more like the Punisher, etc. They basically wanted to show you exactly what a more violent, pro-active, willing-to-kill Batman would be like... and why you didn't really want that at all. Then they followed it up with Nightwing becoming Batman to sort of show you an even lighter, less broody/angsty Batman before reverting back to the status quo.

That being said, I actually like Azrael as a concept, and the idea of Bat-armor of some kind makes too much sense for Batman to never use it (except in stories like The Dark Knight Returns where he NEEDS it). But Azbats was a bit too Punisher/Judge Dredd in flavor for me to really go "Yes, this is exactly what Batman needs to be!"

Ironically, though, I wasn't even really a Batman fan before that. Death of Superman and Knightfall were some of the first DC comics I actually read. I was always a Marvel guy back in the 80s.

(And shortly after both Marvel and DC went Grimderp in the 90s, I started reading Valiant instead. At least until they tanked themselves via internal politics BS and venture capitalism ridiculousness.)



WhiskeyDisk posted...

Then again, I also have soft spots for Gambit and Speedball/Penance so take from that what you will.

You have no excuse for Penance - he wasn't even 90s Grimdark as much as he showed up a decade too late to that party. You should have been an adult by then, and known better.

As for Gambit... bleh. I get why angsty teens of the era latched on to him so hard, but I never liked him. Part of that was almost certainly because I was very much a fan of the 80s X-Men and the tone of the book started to change as we rolled into the 90s (and then it changed even more once they kicked Claremont out), and part of it was probably because his early appearances were basically set up to have him constantly one-up Wolverine as if Marvel was literally saying "DO YOU SEE HOW COOL HE IS? PLEASE LOVE HIM!" But if I'm going to be honest, at least part of it was also that he was constantly flirting with Rogue, who was basically my comic book crush for years at that point.

I just sort of wish that Claremont had gotten to stick around and finish his intended storyline where it turned out that Gambit was secretly working for Mr. Sinister and was a bad guy the whole time. I feel like it would have made his character somewhat more interesting than what we eventually got, and there wouldn't be as many annoying fanboys ranting about how kewl he is all the time to irritate me.

Of course, I just wish Claremont had gotten to stick around in general, because I went through about 15 years of not reading the comics at all because they were terrible without him. They got interesting again for the last half of the 00s or so, but then Marvel went and ruined them again, and they still kind of suck now.

Same for DC, sadly. The later 00s in general were a major renaissance for DC, with the entire Green Lantern side of the universe becoming awesome, Batman really picking up, and even Superman getting some interesting stories. Then they flushed it all down the toilet via the New 52 in an attempt to become 1990s Image and be hip and cool for the kids in the desperate hope that they'd start reading again. Which didn't work.


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