Scans: "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader" Preview

[mithen]

Oh my Go--Oh my Gaiman.

I may be the last person to have seen these, but I really, really wanted to share.

I've been trying not to get my hopes up too much about Neil Gaiman writing Batman, but the previews were released recently and all my cynicism falls away before Gaiman's writing and Kubert's art. Oh my, but this looks good.



A few notes on the cover:

--Alfred's first to enter what looks to be a wake, with Selina directly after (with an actual cat's head there--Gaiman always did love Bast). I don't know who the boy there is...it doesn't look like any of the Robins so all I'm left with is Damian, and I'm dubious Gaiman would give him such prominence.  And yes, I've strained my eyes for a glimpse of Superman among the mourners, but no luck. arch_schatten will note that Harvey is one of the first rogues (or the first, depending on where you put Selina) to enter.



My God, it's...it's a Dreaming Gotham. Or some kind of archtypal/mythical Gotham. The blue captions are Bruce...would it be too much to hope that the gray ones are Death or Dream? It doesn't look like either of their voice styles, but...I would cry tears of joy if Bruce got to talk to either of them.





Selina is so damn beautiful here. Oh my goddess.


For some reason Chill's line started to choke me up.  Gaiman is so damn good with delicate, dreamlike meta about the nature of characters we love, and for the first time I'm allowing myself to imagine this might get it right.    I mean, if anyone would it's Neil, but I'm a bitter old comics fan.  :)

People who've read the Sandman series will probably see similarities to the end chapter, "The Wake."  I'm hoping we get something similar here, with retrospectives from the people who cared the most about Bruce and Batman--both in positive and negative ways. 

And yes, I'll be crossing my fingers for some thoughts from Clark, but I won't need that to enjoy what looks like it might be a beautiful piece of meta.

Comments

[mithen.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the title! I don't want something re-heated, I want something fresh.

Usually I trust Gaiman not to have too much ego. :) There's always the chance he will let me down! I hope not...