Two Bits Of Batman Goodness

 

I think the universe is trying to be good to me right now to make up for the crappiness thay was the revelation of Cobra Commander's movie appearance that was revealed earlier in the week.  After such a soul crushing moment, one needs as much good news as possible to help lift one's spirits.  Which is why I'm happy to pass on to you, faithful readers, not one but two really cool bits of Batman news. 

 

First is this:

 

Comic book writer Judd Winick will be taking over the Batman series this summer, and he plans on taking the character back to his basic crime fighting roots, with the emphasis here on the fighting.

 

We're talking three-issue arcs, four-issue arcs where it's Batman whooping it up, kicking ass, getting his ass kicked and coming back and kicking some more ass. This is a superhero book and it's one of the things that I enjoy. I mean, I do enjoy Batman as a masked detective but I myself enjoy Batman beating the living hell out of people in various ways, shapes and forms... This is a "Batman" title. And I don't think it will have any of the social commentary, which I've done maybe five or six times out of 10 years I've written comics. Which apparently, everybody thinks I do in every single issue or something... There's going to be nothing viewed as an after school special in this run of "Batman." There's lots of touchy-feely shit along with the beating up of bad guys. And explosions and dangling from sides of buildings and what not because I like writing humanistic characters but all that crap that everyone usually whines about that I do, I obviously won't be that doing here.

 

I've got two words for this, "Hells" and "Yeah"!  I'm really happy to hear something like this because it means that DC isn't letting the heavy social commentary of Dark Knight go to their heads.  Yes, Batman can be a very deep character with a bunch of different levels to him.  But he can also be a straightforward ass kicker, and sometimes it seems that comic writers forget this and will have Bats go for issue after issue without fighting and will have books filled with nothing but overly long winded dialogue. 

 

Yes, Batman is smart.  Yes, he's the world's greatest detective.  But he's also a black belt in like a thousand different martial arts styles, and we don't get to see him cut loose often enough.  Hearing Winick say that his Batman is going to be more of an ass kicker than a detective will be a welcome reprieve from the overly talky and short on action Batman titles that tend to dominate the store shelves lately.

 

And now for the second bit of news.  Just watch this:

 



 

Holy hell!!!  A Batman game where you not only have to beat the living shit out of every thug around, but you actually have to use your brains while doing it?  Oh my god, I think I just had a nerd orgasm.

 

If the rest of this game plays only half as good as this demo makes it look, this will still be the single best Batman game of all time.  You have to use stealth and your wits to take down criminals one at a time.  You can use sneak attacks to cause thugs to get scared.  You get to full on act like Batman.  Wow.  I really hope this game doesn't disappoint, because all the videos I've seen of it keep raising my expectations for it higher and higher.

 

(Via IO9 and ToplessRobot)