DC's Other Snyderverse Isn't Much Better

DC fans who use the term "Snyderverse" are typically referring to the 2 1/2 movies made by Zack Snyder:  Man of Steel, BvS, and Justice League.  (Maybe Watchmen though it's not really connected.)  While moderately successful financially the movies were mostly panned by critics and a lot of moviegoers.  But DC Comics has another Snyderverse in the comics of Scott Snyder and to be honest it's not a lot better.

Scott Snyder first gained recognition as part of DC's Vertigo imprint.  He also did a couple of stories for Batman when it was Dick Grayson in the costume.  But in 2011 when they unleashed the "New 52" Snyder took over the main Batman title.

The first storyline for that was the Court of Owls.  I talked about it in a couple of my early blog entries back in 2012.  I got the first volume free from Amazon Vine and liked it enough that I bought the rest of the story.  A brief summary is that the Court of Owls is an ancient society of rich Gothamites who secretly use their money and influence to control the city.  Not even Batman knew about them until Bruce Wayne's plans for the cities finally caused the Owls to target him

So Snyder's Batman run started out pretty good--to me anyway.  And plenty of other people not named Tony Laplume.  But after that it pretty much fell off.  First there was the disappointing "Death of the Family" story arc where the Joker takes Batman's allies hostage for...reasons and...really does nothing.  I think part of the flat ending was because the current Robin who might have been killed in that story wound up being killed in the Batman Incorporated title--for about five minutes until he was brought back.

Recently I read the "Zero Year" storyline and it was pretty lame.  It was Snyder's Batman origin story, which was a mashup of a bunch of other Batman stories:  Year One, Killing Joke, No Man's Land, Batman Forever, Batman Begins...maybe some other shit.  Bruce Wayne returns to the city and becomes Batman to take on the Red Hood Gang but behind the scenes the Riddler launches a plan to cut off Gotham and its power until Batman can stop him.  It was...really dumb.  Like I said there are so many things it seems to mash in there so it feels like a lot of stuff you've seen before only done better.

After that came the "Endgame" storyline where the Joker returns to unleash a killer Joker virus on Gotham--and the Justice League.  That ends with Batman seemingly dying to kill the Joker, though really Bruce Wayne just has amnesia about being Batman.  That was OK but not really great.

While Bruce has amnesia, Commissioner Gordon takes over as Batman in some kind of robot suit.  This was during the almost entirely forgettable era between New 52 and Rebirth where Batman wasn't Batman, Superman didn't really have powers, Wonder Woman had pants, and...some other shit no one cared about.  I think the only thing that really survived for a time was the "Batgirl of Burnside" thing with the purple suit that was pretty neat even if I found the comics meh.

Unlike Azrael Batman or Dick Grayson Batman, Robo-Bat doesn't get much time to prove his worth.  He doesn't take on any iconic bad guys like Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, or Mr. Freeze.  He takes out a couple of superpowered henchmen of "Mr. Bloom" before getting his butt kicked by Bloom.  Who is...don't know.  And he wants...something.  For...reasons.  Since Robo-Bat totally sucks, Bruce Wayne downloads a bunch of old memories into his head and then get a new costume and defeats Bloom with Robo-Bat's help.  It might have worked better if it had been given more issues to develop Gordon's Robo-Bat and develop Bloom, but I guess they were kind of on a compressed timeline with Rebirth coming after issue 52.  So they only had about ten issues to introduce Robo-Bat, get rid of him, and bring back Bruce Wayne.  AzBats and Dick Grayson got a lot longer than that to win over readers--or not.

Of course at the end of Snyder's run Bruce Wayne becomes Batman again, surprising...no one.  I mean it's like when Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, or Steve Rogers "dies" or "retires" you know they aren't going to stay dead or retired or whatever.  That's just how comics are.

Amidst all this was also the 52-issue weekly series Batman Eternal.  It was better than some of Snyder's regular Batman stories.  Still not the greatest thing ever.  It worked in a lot of Bat villains like most of the traditional ones and more recent ones like Bane and Hush.

Snyder also wrote a Superman limited series Superman Unchained that was just another story about Superman fighting some alien dude who pretty much has the same powers as him.  Only I don't think this time it was actually Kryptonian.  Still, not overly original or anything.

After his run on Batman ended, Snyder did a big event series Dark Knights: Metal, which I found really, really dumb.  It introduces something called a "Dark Multiverse" with a bunch of evil Batmen led by "the Batman Who Laughs" or a Joker-ized Batman who looks like a bad guy from Hellraiser.

Unfortunately a lot of other people didn't hate that so Snyder got moved up to the Justice League title.  Which I haven't read because it seems stupid as it spins off from that stupid Metal thing.  I did recently read a couple of other things from Snyder.  The 12-issue Batman Who Laughs comic didn't really provide any insight into the Batman Who Laughs.  Mostly it's just about regular Batman who gets dosed with Joker gas and so starts becoming A Batman Who Laughs but has to stop the original Batman Who Laughs and his henchman the "Grim Knight" that's one of those lame Punisher-type Batmen.  It was boring and lame because like I said, it didn't really provide any insight into the characters.

I also read the double-sized single issue Tales of the Dark Multiverse #1 only because it was supposed to be about a universe where Azrael defeated Bruce Wayne to remain Batman.  It was really disappointing because it somehow wound up being a Bruce Wayne story and not an Azrael story.  Basically Azrael keeps Bruce Wayne's head and torso alive somehow to torture him for 30 years while maintaining a tight hold on Gotham.  But then Bane's son and some other people rescue Bruce and use some kind of nanobots to restore his limbs and so he becomes a brutal, killing Batman.  Whatever.  I guess I shouldn't have expected Snyder to have any insight into a character he never really wrote until then.

Because it was on sale I also read Last Knight on Earth that was kind of like a Batman-themed version of Old Man Logan.  Except instead of an old man, Batman is a young clone of the original Bruce Wayne.  This was something Snyder mentioned in the regular Batman comic; the cloning machine is how Bruce got his memories of being Batman back.  This then was taking that idea and using it more how it was supposed to be used.  He wakes up into a world that's been decimated for...reasons.  I mean I read all three super-sized issues and still didn't really get it.  Lex Luthor was doing...something and killed Superman...somehow and people went crazy for...reasons.  Accompanying Batman through the wastelands of the DC Universe is the severed head of the Joker that's in a glass jar and alive...somehow as sort of a sidekick.  It was...meh.  It was the rancid cherry on top of the garbage sundae that was most of Snyder's Batman run.

So other than the original Court of Owls and Batman Eternal, I haven't liked the comic book Snyderverse any more than the movie Snyderverse.  But there are plenty of people who do.  Unfortunately.  Like Zack Snyder, when you give Scott Snyder too much rope, he winds up going in strange, dumb directions.  They both need someone to keep them under control.