Comics Fondle

Choices is pretty awful. Jeph Loeb’s dialogue is bottom-rate and his narration is worse. He repeats one or two snippets throughout–you know, for resonance–and the snippets are particularly poorly written, even in this trove of poorly written lines. Choices also serves as a nice Superman II resolution for Batman. Superman II’s resolution for Superman was his forced celibacy. Loeb takes it further for Batman in Choices–if Batman were ever to think of loving a woman… well, he’d have to be insane. It’s wrong. See… the story’s called Choices because Batman thinks he has a choice and he really doesn’t.

Still, Tim Sale’s art in Choices makes the whole thing readable. Not good, not even passable as a piece of narrative fiction, just tolerable. I wanted to see how Tim Sale was drawing these things, because Tim Sale’s art all looks the same today and back when Choices came out (there’s a Burton-era Batmobile on display, which was an amusing sight, DC trying to tie-in to the movie success), Sale’s art actually looked different. Some of it’s really bad. His Scarecrow is boring and lacks certain anatomical realities, but there are times Sale’s art is so loose, it looks like Sam Keith and if you know Keith’s art, you know Sale doesn’t look like Keith anymore.

I’m trying to think of something nice to say, but it’s impossible. I dreaded every page I turned in Choices. My curiosity over Sale’s artwork compelled me to keep turning, sure, but I resented the curiosity the whole time. Though it’s got a reasonably length, the comic drug on and on.

Oh, there you go, thought of something. Loeb had Commissioner Gordon ask Batman to a social event. Now, given Loeb portrays Batman as a paramilitary-minded lunatic, I thought it was cute he was willing to laugh at Batman. If I remember correctly, of course, that scene was particularly poorly illustrated.

F

Technorati Tags: Batman, Comic Book, DC Comics, Jeph Loeb, Review, Tim Sale

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