quote:
Originally posted by whomod:
Not trying for a dig since I respect EVERYTHING you've argued over in regards to the Superman titles. It just seems you have a real mad-on for Loeb.

I myself think Batman is rather good as a matter of fact.
I don't know if I have a "mad-on" for Loeb, per se, but I have not liked his recent output much at all. Starting with the lead-up to "OWAW," the quality of his work on Superman took a horrific nose-dive. I wasn't a very happy camper about that, because I loved For All Seasons and had been enjoying his Superman up until May 2001 (the Aquaman two-parter he did is one of my all-time favorite Superman stories). But starting with "OWAW," I felt all the heart went out of his work, that he stopped caring about what he was doing. His work lost any and all sense of direction. And prior to that, I'd been one of his most vocal defenders whenever anyone would take potshots at him for not being Dan Jurgens 2.0. But man, "OWAW" was the worst case of eating crow I've ever done. I felt pretty stupid for defending him for stridently after his stories went south, and I still do.

As for Batman, I find the book excruciatingly boring and uninvolving. Again, this bugs me, because I enjoyed The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. But aside from bringing back the Batman/Catwoman romance, there's nothing else of interest going on in the book. Kia Asamiya's Batman: Child of Dreams (which I was fortunate enough to pick up today) was everything Loeb's Batman should be and isn't: suspenseful, exciting, and absorbing. I actually got worked up over what was going on in that book. Loeb's book, on the other hand, bores me to death, and I dropped it from my pull list today. I honestly don't think the book has any real punch to it. Sure, Jim Lee's art is good, but so is Scott McDaniel's, and I dropped all of the Superman books except Birthright and World's Finest.

It's not that I haven't enjoyed Loeb's stuff before. I have, and at one point I was one of his loudest (not to mention loudmouthed) advocates. But I feel that his work of late has been extremely lazy and half-hearted, and as someone who was once a big fan of his, I find it galling. That's why I say that World's Finest is Loeb's last chance to impress me. I want to see him get back in the game, to justify the faith I once had in him. He started out strong on Superman and ultimately let me down. I had high hopes for his collaboration with Lee on Batman, but the book has done absolutely nothing for me. I don't want World's Finest to be another disappointment. But if it is, that's it. I can't support something I don't enjoy. Especially with Child of Dreams now; as far as I'm concerned, that's the new benchmark for Batman stories. If you don't aspire to that level of excellence, then get out of the way and make room for someone who will.