Just Another Batman Blog

This is another one of Scott Snyder's new villain creations. First seen in Batman vol 2 #43, during the Iron Man-esque Jim Gordon Batman arc, Mr. Bloom is equal parts technology villain and supernatural monster. Mr. Bloom introduces "seeds" that unlock superpower abilities but with deadly consequences, which he gifts to unsuspecting citizens. Physiologically, Mr Bloom can manipulate his size and shape, can manipulate fire, ice, and mechanics. His MO seems to be to "sow seeds" of chaos. Sometime after the events of Scott Snyder's Zero Year, scientist Daryl Gutierrez developed a project using nanotech to create superpower abilities in normal humans. The unpredictability of the nanotech reactions, and the public reaction to mysterious new superpowered people forced Dr. Gutierrez to scrap the project. However, the nanotech seeds resurfaced years later, in the possession of the mysterious Mr. Bloom. Mr. Bloom's longterm plans aren't very clear, other...

Science fiction, and comics especially, have played with the idea of a string theory multiverse concept for a very long time. Some authors/writers are better at it than others. HG Wells, Philip K Dick, Philip Roth, Harry Turtledove, and Robert Harris all play with these ideas of alternate histories and multiverse concepts. This idea of an infinite multiverse was first introduced by Erwin Schrodinger in 1952. Creatively, the nature of an infinite multiverse allows writers/artists to come up with a seemingly endless line of what-if scenarios. Marvel just made an award winning Spiderman movie on this very concept. Creators were allowed to create Spiderman if he were a Japanese girl with a robot, or a cartoon pig. Into the Spiderverse scratched the surface of what is creatively possible (spoiler: everything is possible in this scenario). This is not a new thing for DC comics, or Batman in particular either. I wrote before in my other blog about the DC Elseworlds imprint. Batman has ...

Ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed. Speak not a whispered word about them, or they'll send the Talon for your head Retconning in comics happens all the time. This insufferable need for fanboys to have an understandable continuity butts up against new writers and ideas. Storytelling in comics has become better, taken more seriously, and sometimes new ideas require backstory that may or may not come into conflict with already established continuity, hence reboots and retcons.  In 2011, Scott Snyder introduced the Court of Owls into the Gotham/Batman mythos. Borrowing from real world conspiracy theories of secret societies like the Illuminati, Free Masons, and Skull and Bones, Snyder created a clandestine group of rich elites that control Gotham's destiny through extortion and murder. They manipulate city politics to favor their own interests, and cultivate hitmen known as Talons...