Caped Crusader Says “Let’s Roll”–So What?

Last weekend’s WonderCon comic book convention was in many ways a three-day seminar on DC’s plans for the remainder of 2006 and beyond, but the mainstream press seems to have picked up on one story and one story only: Frank Miller’s Holy Terror, Batman!, a graphic novel-in-progress in which Batman defends Gotham City against Al Qaeda. As the San Francisco Chronicle notes, Miller’s presence is the story: “No matter what he does, it’s interesting,” said a Bay Area comics shop owner. “Even if it’s a train wreck, people will check it out.” Case in point: 2001′s The Dark Knight Strikes Again and the launch last year of All-Star Batman and Robin, which despite being the top-selling comic of 2005 still has a number of fans hopping mad.

Miller’s not the most interesting Batman story coming out of WonderCon, though. I was explaining this to Sarah the other night: if you use the television industry as a metaphor for the comics industry, Miller has become something like Dennis Potter; every once in a while, he’ll cook something up and it’ll be a special event, outside regular programming fare. But the announcement of Grant Morrison’s taking over the monthly Batman comic, coupled with earlier revelations that Detective Comics will be written by Paul Dini (a chief architect of the animated series starring DC’s characters as well as story editor for ABC’s Lost)…that’s basically the equivalent of doing two separate versions of an individual CSI or Law & Order franchise, then giving one to Aaron Sorkin and the other to Joss Whedon. The Batman stories Morrison and Dini create over the next year probably won’t draw the white-hot attention Miller will, but they’re much more likely to define the 21st-century Dark Knight.

Speaking of Joss Whedon (who’s been writing X-Men for over a year now), he was having fun on Warren Ellis’ blog much of yesterday evening…The images are safe for work, but some of the words might not be…

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