Whatever happened to my attention span?

I find myself much less willing to focus my attention on something that doesn't full on grab me in my comic reading. I used to read a lot more comics. Multiple Spider-man titles, multiple X-whatever titles, just an out and out slew of comics to the point that it could take me a couple of days to read through them all in the midst of carrying on my existence. Now, I'm having weeks of just picking up a couple of issues, and some of them just get leafed though. This week was a prime example.

I picked up four comics, all DC: ARKHAM ASYLUM #1, DETECTIVE COMICS #853, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #32 and OUTSIDERS #17.

OUTSIDERS was my read of the week. I'm a fan of Peter Tomasi and he keeps my attention focused. He's currently weaving a pretty weird story and all the pieces haven't fallen into place yet, but his character handling is superb and he makes we give a damn about where things are going. Same with JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA this week. I haven't been very excited with the series lately, but I do like Dwayne McDuffie's writing. I feel the book needs a bit more punch to it which has been lacking for a long while. The latest storyline is promising and the art by Rags Morales is always a joy to look at.

But then we go over to the Bat-books which despite all the interesting stuff that had been going on lately, are currently really dull. The thing that gets me is I like David Hine. His writing actually got me interested in a story about Hal Jordan and The Phantom Stranger over in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, and those are two characters i care nothing about. The ARKHAM ASYLUM story was a very solid one, but it did not grab me. It took a bit of effort on my part to focus and get through it. It wasn't a bad read, but there was nothing exciting there. Not a good sign for a one shot.

Here's where Neil Gaiman fans grab their pitchforks and descend upon Chesapeake to hunt me down. DETECTIVE COMICS this past week was part two of Gaiman's "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" storyline which is interesting only that it's getting hailed by both people who love Grant Morrison and people who hate Grant Morrision. The Morrison Hate Brigade pretty much despised R.I.P. and FINAL CRISIS due to the horror they felt that Bruce Wayne was going to die, even though Morrison said repeatedly that was not going to happen. The Hate Brigade pretty much missed what was really going on with both stories, which to be perfectly fair it was a challenging read. They're thrilled because the Gaiman story is such a departure from the Morrison run. Then there's the people who loved the Morrison run and are loving the Gaiman story because it fits in so perfectly with what Morrison had done. For more on that, go here.

This entire story left me flat. The art was fine, I've always liked Andy Kubert. The story itself bored the hell out of me and the ending just came off as trite. Reading this on it's own and not passing it through the filter of understanding just what Morrision had done in his recent works made this completely boring. I could have skipped this entirely and not missed a blessed thing.

There is one good thing about me getting much more discerning about the comics I follow. I may enough money for gas in the car after Wendesdays.