@AlexanderKnox, Ok wow! You went above and beyond this week. Reading your post honestly made the story better for me, giving it more context and understanding. Bravo go sir, Bravo.
@BatJamags, I agree with your feelings on the story overall. Its was not bad by any means but some parts did feel to be just super convenient. Morrison will forever get a pass on anything for giving me All-Star Superman. As for the rotation of the club I’m up for options like I said starting next week I will be super busy and might not be present as often, but will def try to be. As for N52 stories I own and have read them all myself so I would like to do a couple of arcs from Snyder’s run, if everyone is cool with that. I don’t know if Jay_Kay is on Discord but we should all get together and brainstorm on who wants to do what. I could care less about Kings run so thats up for grabs.
@Jay_Kay, I think a joker week would be cool for sure. Also, are you on Discord?
My thoughts on this story: It was a good story and thank goodness for that because the art was just painfully rough. I agree with BatJamags on most what he said but thanks to Alexander I appreciate the cleverness of it more.
@fansumtheory.16165: I thought we were all talking on Discord just last night, but I checked and Jay_Kay left before you showed up. I don’t know what the procedure would be for this, but we could see about setting up a channel for this club.
On the story, I actually didn’t mind the art. It seemed appropriately gritty and creepy for the story.
Just finished reading Gothic and I really enjoyed it. It had a great moody, creepy atmosphere, both with Morrison’s words and Klaus Janson’s art. I agree with Knox that Mr. Whisper feels like a rough draft to what Morrison would later do with Doctor Hurt – arguably more effective due to the childhood connection. Man, going from a creepy boarding school that assaults the kids in all sorts of terrible ways to almost immediately seeing his parents be murdered – it’s really a minor miracle Bruce is as well-adjusted as he is!
I can agree that the way that Batman connects the dots here is a bit more coincidental than the previous story, but I think it works because the first story is a more traditional detective story, whereas this I think is more meant to be psychological horror.
One detail I liked was the “young nun.” At first I figured that she was just an innocent, a damsel that would have to be saved by Batman. Then after Batman went to Austria, I thought she might be the ghost or some sort of reincarnation of the nun Whisper and his sect raped and burned alive. I was surprised then to see that she was actually the devil there to collect Whisper’s soul.
One thing nagged me about the story was when Bruce is telling Alfred about his experiences at the boarding school, they’re talking about it as if Alfred wasn’t there at the time, which is directly in contradiction to what’s shown in Year One where Alfred has been the butler of the Wayne family for years.
It’s possible to read over the allusion to Alfred’s role as Thomas Wayne’s butler in Year One, since it’s just one (sorta vague) line. It’s even possible to forget that Alfred was drawn into the flashbacks of Detective Comics #574. It’s a little harder to overlook Kevin Dooley’s “Waiting in the Wings” from Batman Annual 13 (1989), which is quite explicit about Alfred’s history with the Waynes.
@Jay_Kay, excellent points. I thought the young Nun was going to be the ghost or reincarnation of the one that was burned at the stake. It made for a great end finding out that it was the devil. Looking back its funny how when we first meet her Batman tells her to stay put. Leave it to Batman to tell the devil what to do LOL. I too thought it was weird that Alfred didn’t seem to know about the boarding school situation.