yes. taking the time to clarify your meaning at length qualifies as some kind of obsessive fearfulness.
Roger.
and yet, nothing you've discussed has happened.
I've already pointed out how the game's been given promotional content within the comicbooks. It's stands to reason that execs would be inclined for that arrangement to work in reverse if they so wished.
Say 'it hasn't happened' all you like. But don't disregard the precedent of the scenario.
that's all fine. everyone has geek out moments. but your base claim that batfamily books are of definitively lesser-quality than solo-batman books is still an opinion. potentially one i would even agree with, but something i'd clearly identify as an opinion. and one you paint with incredibly broad strokes, not giving those stories you've graded a fair (or simply "a") try.
Quality isn't subject to opinion though. That was my point.
Consider a movie with high production values but bad writing. One could argue over the story all they like, but the film itself couldn't be touched.
it's an illogical one. based on nothing. like, really, nothing. i mean, hell, at the very core, the batfamily star "robin" was created only months after batman, and boosted (significantly) the sales of the titular character's books. your theory has already been incorrect for over 70 years!
Batman got a boost in sales because he got his own book apart from Tec. Batman's staying power is built on Batman. Not extraneous characters. This is especially true today. It's specious to say that other characters aside from him are responsible for his popularity spurts. By your logic, the issues that didn't feature Robin should have killed the sales.
Quite frankly, I think it's self evident.
Instead of spending an ungodly amount of time organizing characters and budgeting their time according to the scenes at hand, you're just concentrating on the actual conflict of the story. Nine times out of ten, the former will be far more contrived than the latter regardless of what the conflict is.
also, what is "too large" a family for you? it sounds like robin is out, but what about alfred? gordon? bullock? penguin? arkham? batmobile? is there a method to your theory? would the "magic number" translate to other characters, like superman? other media, like harry potter? was the cast of cheers too large? or less successful than the more streamlined fraiser spinoff?
The phrase "minimal amount" isn't equivalent to a "magic number." The key here would be having as few as possible. This, of course, conflicts with the modern principle of creating as many family members and associates as one thinks he or she can get away with and giving them all some face time at every available opportunity.
The point is that Batman was designed to only have a few close family members being Alfred and Robin. And circa 86, Robin was given less and less face time. In which case, Batman worked quite well with just Alfred the majority of the time. Being more practical as a loner character, the stories tended to have more quality to them. This was especially true of Legends of the Dark Knight since it didn't need to worry about family members or main continuity.
Bullock and Gordon are auxiliary characters. Villains like Penguin are simply apart of the conflict for the most part. However, there can be an overdose of them too--as Loeb has shown us time and again.
In the case of other characters, the minimal amount would seem to depend on their level of social extroversion or lack thereof. In the case of Superman, I'd say a healthy supporting cast is not impractical according to his openness with people. However, as is the case with all serials that emphasize the qualities and exploits of an individual character, too many egos apart from the main attraction will inevitably distract from it. So while a goodly sized "family" may or may not be practical for the character, the writer will still be stuck trying to balance the exploits of the main character with the participation of the family. And again, if it's too big, the writing will be impractical even if implementation of additional characters makes sense. As such, all main characters could stand to do with less "family" support regardless of whether or not their presence makes sense.
but until the reverse is true, and the 10 months without "events" produce issues of glorious perfection, i just can't shake the notion.
I wouldn't expect perfection. Just better, more practical writing on average.
in other cases, maybe. but with morrison's run, it's the very clash of them being batman and robin that makes the pairing work [for me]. damian acting very much like the cocky asshole version of bruce wayne's son, critiquing the pretender in the cowl, in the middle of a joker attack, etc. there's a great "negative space" aspect to the run.
I'm curious: would it have made you unhappy to have the book published as "Dick Grayson and Robin" even if the writing was exactly the same?
