Batman and Jeet Kune Do

The follow up to R.I.P, Last Rights, arrived today. Whatever momentum was muted by the last issue has been renewed with a twisted silver age smile. I'm a bit giddy after reading it, the mark of a true comics fan. During Morrison/s run, one thing that he's gone to great pains to establish is Batman is prepared, always. There is no such thing as an unprepared Batman. The guy has put himself in isolation chambers and death trances so that he could be prepared for the day someone dopes him up with weapons grade meth and street heroin, not to sound reductive but would a death trance really prepare you for everything. Batman is human; he still makes mistakes, and he can still lose a fight. At some point there is an inconceivable, a thing that must be missed (similar to the irrational, the thing that cannot be...but is). In this respect Batman has become a true practitioner of Jeet Kune Do.

JKD eschews form for practicality, a JKD fighter is a new fighter every moment. Why? He has transcended form. HE has the ability to improvise. to conceptualize, to adapt any given situation even if he hasn't trained for that EXACT event. Batman has adopted this philosophy (whether he names it as such or not, or if Morrison names it as such or not) writ large. Doesn't have an antide for a poison on hand? He can improvise one. He didn't practice escaping death trap 542? It's ok, based on his knowledge of death traps in general, and traps 15, 972, and 400 specifically, he can create a solution. R.I.P appeared to be a large elaborate multistage death trap that began with a psychological assault long bere he was imprisoned physically, but in Last Rights part 1, maybe Batman didn't escape the death trap, at least not the death trap we thought he escaped.

One of the famous Silver Age conventions, the one I think most contemporary readers--myself included--loathe is the ole' "it's a dream!" shtick, and with good reason. It's cowardly, nothing more than cheating, an unwanted concession to the status quo, and since we are clearly in a Neo Silver Age Morrison finds it appropriate to bring the damned thing out of the closet...but with a few modifications. R.I.P was noted for blending in a lot of the goofball silver age stories, but in Last Rights we're finally understanding why (this ties in with Final Crisis). Batman is being mind raped by toadies of Darkside, a god, supposedly folks waaay out of Batman's league.

(How does one prepare for a deathtrap designed by gods, who could theoretically, design an infinite number of deathtraps within deathtraps, a Matrix trilogy of deathtraps and torture, torture and deathtraps, and what if those authoritarian anti-life praising gods wanted batman's courage, his spirit, his intellect, all the things that make Batman Batman and mass-produce for an army? Could Bruce really have prepared for that? That isn't just out of left field, that's the left side of the Negative Zone (which would make it the right side ). He may not have been able to prepare for such an ordeal specifically, but he could train himself to generate false memories in the event of a mental probe, which is exactly what I think is going on.

And this has ramifications for R.I.P. Maybe the story didn't happen the way we were told, maybe the version we got is the Apocalyptian death trap version, thus fucking up their plans for a clone army. That, or the silver age hallucinations were a stew of false memories activated in R.I.P. because the given situation was similar too some idealized trap Batman HAD prepared for., and his only way out of Final Crisis is to invoke a similar strategy.

Batman R.I.P.

Since the big bang I've rediscovered superhero comics; a joy that has been a surrogate life support system, a fantasy escape from the physical pain of my legs/hips, and the spiritual agony of seperation from my practice (the martial arts) One of the stories I've been following is the much ballyhooed Batman R.I.P. It's been billed as the Batman story to end all Batman stories, complete with the most shocking revelation in the 70 years of the character. The basic premise is someone may have spent a good ten years preparing to destroy Batman, a foe that Batman doesn't know, a being who has studied Bruce Wayne with fanboy thuroughness; a foe Batman can't prepare for in any conventional way; and the antagonist is a foe who cannot be prepared for. This villian, goes by the moniker Dr. Simon Hurt, but claims to be Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father.

I loved this story, but it is best appreciated in a larger context; it is the fourth story arc from writer Grant Morrison, who has devoted significant time and energy to setting all the pieces in their propper place. There's just one problem There is no revelation!! WTF gives??? DC Comics has taken some serious marketing liberties in the last few months with Mr. Batman. First, DC Comics made it seem like the Kevin Smith penned Cacophany, would occur in the wake of R.I.P; it did not. THis killed my interest in the story. I am not a huge fan of Kevin Smith, New Jersey Film god, but I've always enjoyed his work in superhero comics (I think as an artist his best work is in the 4 color world). Then this b.s. happens with R.I.P itself. I love Morrison's work as a whole, so I'm a bit puzzled by this decision especially given the marketting involved, a machine he helped fuel. There is still a chance to fix this, either in the Last Rights follow up or in the pages of Final Crisis (both written by G.M.) .

If not, despite the quality of the story, instead of being the most shocking revelation in the last 70 years, this could be the biggest FU in the history of the medium, bigger even than Spiderman's Clone Wars saga (horrible flashbacks involving Spidercide).

Fantasies

Here I am at the keyboard with two packs of frozen vegetables on my knees listening to Alice in Chains (Lane Staley: the only rocker who well and truly HAD to die of a drug overdose? His voice is like a sea of weeping blisters covered in salt? Of all the grunge artists and heroin romantics he is one of the few who was truly suffering, not charmed by the charisma of suffering)

Have you ever fantasized without realizing it? I don't mean caught in a daydream, I'm speaking to the issue of recognition--a pattern, a method to your wish fulfillment. Well, I've been having a lot of fantasies about saving people. Stopping robbers, saving a nerd from a vicious high school beat-down, finding THEM, crushing THEM, sending THEM to dreamland before I throw 'em in jail. This isn't just about reimagining the rape with a positive outcome; my imagination has expanded. I'm the guy in the local paper who foils the bank robbery, who saves the clerk in a Circle K, the human shield for a toddler trapped in a burning building.

For a large chunk of my life, I've fantasized about death. My death, the death of those I love, melodramatic stuff. "How will I go on without them? Blah blah" It has been my way of fetishizing death, of taming it, of living it's reality on a day to day basis.

Lately, that has largely been replaced by these savior fantasies (Things don't always end in a rosy frame of mind. I might die saving the day or I might save three kids, but fail to save the fourth from the burning building). Seems there's more to this superhero thing, doesn't it? ...

Shit, I just had one right now! Another recurring one. A gunman, this time two, have stormed the gym, and it's up to me to take 'em down. Hmm, something I should expand upon.

I'll come back to that later, right now my knees have me paranoid. Ice or no ice, sitting in this chair aggravates the tendinitis, so I'm gonna lay down for a bit, maybe read a bit of Tomcat In Love.