Batman: The Black Glove [Hardcover]

Grant Morrison (Author), Tony Daniel (Illustrator), J.H. Williams III (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2008

Mysterious Batman impostors begin to appear on the streets of Gotham. One of these impostors begins to kill cops, working his way towards Police Comissioner Jim Gordon as he tells his tale and waits for his prize: the life of the Dark Knight, in exchange for the lives of the precinct cops. After being capture and subsequently tortured by one of the impostors, Batman falls into a coma and his mind flashes back to a defining adventure in the life of young Bruce Wayne...the hunt for his parents' killer!

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This Batman collection is, unfortunately, bifurcated. The first half cheekily updates the 1950s Club of Heroes, a motley group of global counterparts of Batman who assemble, with the Caped Crusader, on a secluded Caribbean island and face an old-dark-house murder mystery. Morrison’s clever script is greatly abetted by J. H. Williams’ gorgeous art and imaginative storytelling. In the prosaically illustrated rest of the book, Batman has a near-death experience and a hallucinogenic dream populated by figures from his past. The end of this sequence is a cliffhanger lead-in to the “Batman R.I.P.” story line, for which fans have been relentlessly primed. --Gordon Flagg

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401219098
• ISBN-13: 978-1401219093
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.5 x 11.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The mystery deepens..., September 18, 2008

By 

N. Durham "Big Evil" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Batman: The Black Glove (Hardcover)

When brilliant comic writer Grant Morrison (Final Crisis, The Filth, New X-Men; c'mon, you know the list) took over duties on Batman, readers knew we were going to a get a bit of a different take on the classic character. The Batman & Son storyarc proved that, and also served as a set up for The Black Glove, which finds the mystery that began in the pages of Batman & Son getting even deeper. The Black Glove picks up with Batman and Robin taking a trip to a secluded island and meeting up with a group of international Batman-inspired heroes, only to have a murder mystery in their midst. Later on, Batman makes it back to Gotham City, and has another run-in with the Batman impersonators that were once Gotham City cops, which leaves more questions than answers naturally. If you've read anything from Morrison, then you should know that a majority of his work is structured like a tree, and typically pretty cryptic. His run on Batman is no different, and he writes the character wonderfully. Sadly though, and this may be a put off for a number of fans, Morrison is gleefully pulling a good amount of material from Batman's silver age past, which he does do a good job putting to use here, but for newer or younger readers, many of the references may be a little over their heads. That aside though, The Black Glove is a solid read that will keep you entertained, and the great artwork from Tony Daniel and J.H. Williams III (Ryan Benjamin's pencil work in the closing chapter features some odd-looking facial expressions however) is a joy to look at as well. All in all, if you've been following Morrison's run at all, The Black Glove is a worthwhile pickup, and will leave you salivating for Batman R.I.P.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Morrison's Black Glove Fits All, May 31, 2010

By 

David Whelen (Ottawa, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Batman: The Black Glove (Hardcover)

When comics' writer Grant Morrison assumed authorship of the Dark Knight's legends in 2006, he stated in a Newsarama interview (which I can no longer access from their site, sadly) that he "wanted to see a psychologically 'healthier' Batman... [one that] combines the cynic, the scholar, the daredevil, the businessman, the superhero, the wit, the lateral thinker, the aristocrat." Batman: The Black Glove occurs midway through the run in which he accomplished that and much more. His approach to the character, that has undergone serious deconstruction throughout the eighties and nineties, is to reconstruct him; bringing to light Batman's best parts, while reconciling his paradoxical contradictions.

The subtlety is breathtaking for anyone familiar with the 70-plus year history of the character. Morrison seamlessly invokes the "Batman fighting space aliens" stories of Batman in the fifties alongside the "Bruce Wayne as corporate philanthropist and socialite" elements of the Steve Englehart-Marshall Rogers era of the seventies. By faithfully restoring characters like Talia and Man-Bat into the modern age with powerful reverence for the source material, Morrison navigates the cul-de-sacs of our scrutiny and effortlessly appeases our demands for stories that fit within our (often over-zealous) need for logical continuity and "realism". This is what good comic writing produces: building new stories from antecedent, rather than ignoring them or worse, defaming them.

Perhaps the highest credit of Morrison's venerated run must be paid to the marriage of his words with the artwork of J.H. Williams III in the first half of the book. Williams is perhaps the best talent for evoking the emotional content of the Black Glove storyline. His work is as strong as anything he's done before (i.e. Alan Moore's Promethea), and it's unfortunately all the stronger against the less powerful work in the second half of the book, by artist Tony S. Daniel. This is not to say that Daniel isn't good. His work has come a long way since his early-nineties' X-Force run for Marvel, and it's in tight form here, but it brings the esoteric storylines back down to an almost procedural level, as if Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream had been directed as a televised episode of Law & Order, rather than for the cinema; both are enjoyable, but the approach does not necessarily best fit the other's intended audience. Regardless, Daniel does perform competently and it is not his skill that compromises the effect of his contribution, only that his work seems miscast against the complexity of the writing.

It's difficult to effectively review a book which sits in the middle of a series' storyline on its own merits but, nevertheless, even if you don't pick up the rest of his run (Batman and Son, Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, and the final chapter, Batman R.I.P.) you still won't be disappointed by this peek at Grant Morrison's rich approach to one of comics' most enduring legends. Batman: The Black Glove is self-contained enough to be appreciated at face value by most casual readers, while giving Batman enthusiasts the concentration and depth of ideas we should be demanding from the entire comics' media, not just the superhero genre.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Batman falls into the trap of the Black Glove!, September 23, 2008

By 

Will Carper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Batman: The Black Glove (Hardcover)

When Grant Morrison works with J.H. Williams III, you know only magic can happen. I mean, look at Seven Soldiers #1. In this volume's first arc, Batman and Robin travel to a remote private island for a reunion of the Club of Heroes, a gathering of international superheroes inspired by Batman (their names are just too awesome to not mention--El Gaucho, Man-of-Bats and Raven Red, The Knight and Squire, The Musketeer, The Legionary....). The revelry is soon ended when one of them is found murdered and a taped recording claims "the Black Glove" is responsible.

After barely escaping from the island, Batman is thrown headfirst into another crazy case--that of the third replacement Batman, the mysterious figure hinted at in the previous volume. After suffering a heart attack, Batman has flashbacks to great periods of distress in life--the murder of his parents; his first confrontation with Joe Chill, his parents murderer, as Batman; an isolation experiment he participated in that left him believing Robin was dead; and a Buddhist meditation ritual he underwent in Nanda Parbat where he was sealed off from the world in a cave for 49 days. When he awakes, Batman finds himself the captive of the his impostor, who warns him of the Black Glove and the mysterious Dr. Hurt, the man who oversaw the isolation experiment Batman so many years ago--a man who just may be the embodiment of the Devil himself.

Morrison, Williams, and artist Tony Daniel really take charge here. Williams' layouts and stylistic approach is, as always, revolutionary. Daniel, though not nearly as inspired, still provides solid work. And Morrison unites Batman's history and psyche in ways previously unseen. I can't wait to see where he goes next. I'll be looking out for the ominously titled "Batman R.I.P."