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Finally started reading the new trade paperback of BATMAN: CATACLYSM (not to be confused with the recent film) which pretty much ends my prime Batman interest. By 1998 I was not interested in having to follow every Batbook to find out the storyline but having said storyline in one nicely-published package--not to mention eighteen years of distance-- I find myself really enjoying this story. It would be the last or nearly last run for longtime Bat scribes Doug "Hero of Jim Phelps" Moench and the superb Chuck Dixon so unless you younger folks out there have any more recent Batman comics to recommend, I might be at the end of my Batman rope.
Big pictures of Cataclysm to follow....
I haven't read Batman: Cataclysm before. I was still taking a break from the Bat titles at the time. I will have to check out the trade at some point. I didn't get back into the Batbooks until No Man's Land, which I enjoyed quite a bit once I got past its ridiculous premise.
Speaking of Batman, did you see there is another volume of Norm Breyfogle's Batman work coming out? A nice companion to the current volume. http://www.amazon.com/Legends-Dark-Knight-Breyfogle-Batman/dp/1401267637?ie=UTF8&colid=2Y0F0IA211VGI&coliid=IWUES5KFH1HHX&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl
DC also has an upcoming Batman book featuring the work of Alan Brennert that I am very curious to check out. http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Batman-Alan-Brennert/dp/1401263496?ie=UTF8&colid=2Y0F0IA211VGI&coliid=IP4VR5O41E4X0&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl
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I'll most likely go after the Road to No Man's Land volumes and decide from there. Yes, part of why I've avoided the No Man's Land arc is because of the improbable concept though with the kind of "leaders" the world is capable of producing, maybe it's NOT so improbable at all.
Plus, it's what, five friggin' volumes?!?
BtW, I never did see the Batman vs. Superman movie (yet on a Marvel-related note, I've seen Civil War twice!).
Yeah, No Man's Land is a pretty long story. IIRC the storyline was told over a full year in pretty much all the Bat books, so that is a lot of comics! Although there are several overarching storylines that unfold, for the most part, the stories were a series of vignettes, so you could read just a few issues and feel satisfied. My recommendation is to give the first volume a try. If that doesn't win you over, I doubt the remaining volumes will.
All this talk of Batman books inspired me to pull this book out, which I hadn't read since the 1980s:
Mike Barr's story is entertaining, and Jerry Bingham's art is quite good, but it is very Neal Adams inspired. If an artist is going to take inspiration, he might as well take inspiration from one of the best. Plus, the story featured Ra's Al Ghul, which Adams had a hand in creating. Anyway, entertaining story, and Mark Hamill's introduction (which was written before he was cast as the Joker for Batman: TAS) is a lot of fun.
I agree with you about Civil War being a great film. I have also seen it twice, and hope to see it at least once more before it leaves the theater. I have also seen Batman vs. Superman, which I thought was mostly mediocre. Nowhere near as bad as the rotten tomatoes score suggests, but hardly a classic.
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Got into a Batman mood as I seemingly do every summer in recent years and am halfway through CATACLYSM--just finished the Blackgate prison one-shot--This story arc is interesting in that we get to see what each character in the Batman was doing before the quake hit and their immediate actions afterward. I am enjoying this story as much as one can "enjoy" an extended atory about a city being leveled.
Having said that, I prefer Batman being a detective; going through his storied tropes while interacting with his numerous enemies and allies. I get the sense that Alan Grant and Doug Moench, both longtime Bat scribes and greatly admired comc writers of yours truly--are only following their orders with their contrbutions, particularly Grant, who has expressed his disdain for another crossover, KNIGHTFALL, in an interview I read and I believe linked in this very thread.
I don't see myself moving on to the additional seven volumes of "Road to..." and "No Man's Land" anytime soon, though I wouldn't rule it out in the future. Can anyone who's read these numerous volumes tell me just how long it takes for Gotham City to be rebuilt after these events as far as which issues mark that occasion?
It has been a long time since I read those issues, and so I am writing this from memory. As I recall, the last chunk of No Man's Land addresses how Gotham City returns to civilization. Once the story was over, I don't recall there was much time, if at all, showing Gotham City being rebuilt. I am pretty sure things more or less returned to business as usual very shortly after NML concluded.
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I thought he was twerking.
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I still hope to catch it at a dollar theatre or something but I do want to see it. My not seing it has nothing to do with the numerous fanboy bitches on the other side of this board hating the Zimmer score--Jesus, they're so damned musically conservative at this forum. 
