World's Finest #7

[superfangirl1]

Huntress and Damian continue to track down the person stealing money from Bruce Wayne.

Comments

[nightauditguy]

That ass shot, Damian must be thinking 'damnit'

[big_daddy_d]

Time to have a talk with Alfred.

[whoha]

That's right, son. Damien chucks a dang wolf on fire into the abyss. Did Tim Drake ever do that, no sireee hydra bob. All Tim boy did was sleep on batdaddys lap and get himself a milk bone. Damien ain't no fool. When Darkseid sleeps it's damien that he see's in his dreams.

[mrstatham]

Oh, yes. Just what we need. A formerly great female character needing a ten year old boy to save her and then stammering out an apology like she's some average damsel in distress.

Fuck. That.

[shadowpsykie]

well, she did come to Damian's rescure later... (right before the "Perhaps that is a useful weapon" line... but i agree... the stammering bit was a bit much...

[icon_uk]

A furious, full grown, burning wolf was leaping for her face unexpectedly, I think most of us would be beyond stammering and into bed-wetting for the rest of our (probably short) lives at that point.

[mrstatham]

'Most of us'. Most of us aren't Batman's daughter. I just dislike anything that just has to play up Damian's supposed superiority.

[silverhammerman]

That's exactly what I thought in when I saw this in the preview. I'm not sure if it was intentionally played this way, but it feels like Helena's being used to prop up how cool and special Damian is supposed to be.
I was hoping that given their current obsession with Batman's biological children being the best that Helena might be the one character who could actually put Damian in his place a little. But I guess that's not gonna happen.

[chipsnopotatoes]

I was looking forward to Helena making target practice out of Damian's sorry liitle ass

[thefiretonight]

That seems to be true of most Damian appearances, tho.

[abagnale008]

Don't be an ageist, it's a 10 year old boy trained by the League of Assassins and Batman,.

Going by the scans, she was just caught off guard by the charging aflame wolf and Damien just had a better vantage point than Helena. Easier to deal with the end that's not on fire than the front that's on fire and coming at you. IMO, not a big deal, if the roles were reversed, the same thing would've happened.

[mrstatham]

'Ageist'? Seriously?

It's got zip to do with Damian's age and more the fact that the writers seem determined to give him these moments where he can shine despite the fact they're often against people who should still be as good as him, if not superior.

And again, it's a ten year old boy saving a grown woman who received training from Batman too - and is, again, reduced to stammering because she 'wasn't ready'. It's nonsense.

[aeka]

While I agree with all of this, I'm pretty sure in this case it's less about Levitz trying to make Damian shine over his own creation and more of a case of bad writing on his part.

One thing Levitz has been consistent about throughout this series is that he hasn't demonstrated meticulous execution of any of his ideas and relies way too much on sexist cliches to move his story forward, thus making his own heroines look incompetent as a result.

The fact that he even admitted to 'not being a very meticulous writer' in an interview makes me think that if he doesn't care about how his message comes off to fans, he should just hand the book and characters to someone who does.

[mrstatham]

I think you're likely right, given what I've seen of the series so far; I'm not a huge fan of the art - as I've said before, I think they should've secured To on an exclusive rather than letting him go off - but the writing is a much larger problem.

The only problem is I have no idea who'd replace Levitz as a writer. DC's current pool of writers seems increasingly small, somehow, especially now - what with Morrison leaving after Inc and the BOP writer leaving. I do have to agree with one of the comments in that link in that Levitz seems lazy; I'm sure writing fast is something to be appreciated given the delays DC suffered in recent years and the like, but it's.. It's not something I'd really call a skill when there are other writers handling more books that all come out on a consistent basis and are better written than this.

I mean, it's a stupidly high watermark, but look at Darwyn Cooke (who, to be frank, I would love to see doing a book like World's Finest); The guy is doing his Parker adaptations and overseeing Before Watchmen, writing two of the books there, doing art on one. That's a hell of a workload for a modern comics artist, regardless of anyone's personal feelings on Before Watchmen.

Hell, Greg Land is fast, I think, given the amount of output from him, but that's not the kind of company I'd want to slot myself alongside.

[aeka]

Oh I completely agree that it's laziness on his part. It actually surprises me that he teaches a writing class at Columbia University given how many errors he himself makes in writing enough to bring any English prof to tears. Even I almost found myself writing a post on things Levitz needs to do to improve his writing.

As for writers, Darwyn Cooke could actually be a good choice since I've been loving his work on Silk Spectre. But I think for this book in particular, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey would be better choices since they already have a history with Power Girl. On top of getting Power Girl's character, they understand the importance of Huntress in her life. They can pull off writing a fun, humourous book while actually writing these two women like people with real human emotions.

Even Geoff Johns would make a better choice of a writer since he did write Huntress and Power Girl as an emotionally-driven friendship in both JSA Classified and JSA in 2008.

[chipsnopotatoes]

Ditto.

[darkknightjrk]

Well, I like that we're starting to get a hint of the whole big story of this book, getting more and more into the Apocalyptian influences in this world seemingly after them.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm, i didn't hate this... i didn't love it either.

i like that Damian and Helena bonded... but i don't know... it kinda reinforces the idea that the "biological bat kids" are more "real family" than the rest... even if that was not intended...

also it could have used an extra issue to have them warming up to each other... it seemed kinda sudden...

all in all i give it a meh...

[inwitariturelie]

I'd say it's intended to that extent that both Damian and Helena have been shown to think that (more so in his case than hers) that it's in character for them...
Probably wasn't supposed to say that to us though...

[aeka]

So why again were wolves stealing from Bruce Wayne's bank account again? That question was never answered.

[silverhammerman]

Why exactly doesn't she want this Earth's Batman to know about her? He's one of the smartest and most capable men on the planet, and at this point it should be clear to her that he's not evil or something. I'm kind of assuming it's that she doesn't want to see a guy who's identical to her dead father, since that could be emotionally shattering, but I'm wondering if they've actually explicitly stated that or if the secrecy is more just a gimmicky thing.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Perhaps she just doesn't feel ready to encounter him yet?

[onceaskrull]

Nooooo, puppies :(

[jlroberson]

I was thinking the same thing. I'm not some PETA vegan or anything, but still: poor wolves.