The Black Glove
            
                Batman DC Comics Hardcover

Maggie Gordon

Oyyy... I just don't think Grant Morrison and I are meant to get along. Most Batman fans will tell you that his run on the series is one of the best, but so far, I just think Morrison's entries are needlessly strange and chaotic. 

This edition of the Black Glove introduces us to Damien Wayne in what I think was a weak start. Damien himself is an awesome character, but it seemed very OOC for Batman just to accept the kid and bring him along on missions right away. Perhaps had this section of the story been drawn out a bit more, it would have felt more organic, but it was still my favourite thing about this volume. 

The rest of Morrison's work focuses on The Black Glove, some evil group that evils. They want to take down Batman, and somethingsomething evil,somethingsomething old characters from the 1950s, new girlfriend (who is totes not evil, really), Batman hallucinating, and three cops-turned-bad-Batmans. Morrison tries to meld together a bunch of canon, but I find that in trying to set so many things up, he fails to really do a good job on any of his plot points. We see a humanised Bruce Wayne! But never enough to really actually feel for him, and if subtlety in comics is calling a secret villain Jezebel, I have some basic literature courses I think everyone could use... The idea of Batman having a psychological break is intriguing, but one can make that process ambiguous without giving us the confusing mess that Morrison presented. I appreciate that this storyline brought us to Dick Grayson as Batman, but I don't think it's nearly as influential and well-crafted as the fandom claims.

The Black Glove Batman DC Comics Hardcover

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