You the Editor: Batman

[Elliot Kane]

You guys know the drill: DC hand you the Bat Family to do with as you will. How do you organise them? How many Bat-titles are there going to be? Who gets included?

What will you do with DC's biggest character?

[hector]

I'd leave Grant Morrison and Paul Dini writing them. Probably forever.

I'd leave whatever Kubert is drawing Batman with Morrison, and I'd put John Cassaday, who has just been drawing mediocre scripts while waiting for Ellis to finish Planetary on Detective with Dini.

[Gray Lensman]

Speaking for the core titles, I think Grant Morrison is doing reasonably well with Batman, overall. Can't speak for Dini on Detective, as I'm not presently reading it, but I see no reason to remove him offhand either. I think the basic character of Batman is showing pretty well in Morrison's book right now, though.

The satellite titles need considerably more help. Except for BoP... Birds of Prey has done generally well under Gail Simone. I don't see anything wrong with Sean McKeever offhand as her replacement; he's a talented writer.

The problem to me lies with Robin and Nightwing, both of which have suffered badly ever since Chuck Dixon left those books. (Nightwing less than Robin, admittedly... Wolfman has been solid, just not great.) The current creative teams should go, I think, preferably with new directions. I'd like for Fabian Nicieza to have his chance on Nightwing, and as for Robin... probably best to let Dixon have another run, as I don't have any other clear ideas in mind ATM.

Villains could use some work. Ra's al Ghul needs to return, but that's in progress. Beyond that, the Joker needs help. Badly. Morrison got off to a good start with the personality transplant idea, but I think it's only a start. I'd issue a blanket mandate that no Joker script will be approved if the plot amounts to "Joker breaks out of jail, kills a bunch of people, Batman nearly kills Joker, Joker goes back to jail". The formula is tired, repetitive, and harmful to the character... someone needs to do something different with the Joker before he's written completely into the ground.

I don't think the Bat-Family needs anything else, really. That said, I wouldn't mind bringing Azrael back for a mini-series somehow, if only because I'd love to see an Azrael vs. Damian story.