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Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006
Posts: 8515
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| Posted: 22 September 2019 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | 1
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The Batman of my childhood was the Jim Aparo version, which borrowed heavily from Neal Adams' time with the character. Aparo was beautifully "on-model" with what had been done with the character in the early 70's. He was dynamic, effective, taciturn, and mortal. He was routinely bested by villains and day player bad guys and placed in death-traps, rather than just being shot in the head. All of the "Batman could beat Galactus" posturing overlooks that he was routinely knocked unconscious by the Penguin, the Mad Hatter, Kite Man, etc. And none of those guys can beat Galactus.
It would be moderately fun to create a Marvel "mustache" version of Batman (What? Another one?) whose utility belt contains Infinity Stones, a Cosmic Cube, the Ultimate Nullifier, scales from the Serpent Crown, and so on. Y'know, just the everyday items you need to get by in Marvel's street-level, "world outside your window" setting... :-)
I absolutely adored the Animated Series back in the day and went crazy picking up everything I could find that related to it. I think it is one of the few, genuinely good things to happen to the industry in the past (mumble-mumble) years. Even if Harley is completely over-exposed at this point. I still have great affection for the animated Harley. "Daddy's Little Monster" leaves me cold. Mia Sara, from television's "Birds of Prey" hits somewhere in the middle, but since she's Mia Sara, she can be forgiven anything. (Ah, who am I kidding? Mia Sara playing crazy? She's irresistible in the part. :-)
Batman is one of my favorite characters, but only now and again and in certain iterations. Alan Brennert's work with the character are some of my favorite stories in all of comicdom. The Bronze Age Brave and the Bold is one of my favorite series, featuring stories and interactions between characters that I enjoy coming back to time and time again. I was completely sold on the Outsiders at the Outset (!), and lost interest gradually over the course of the series. For a while there, however, I loved that title. I enjoyed the stuffings out of any Sekowsky-era JLA stories I could find and Batman's involvement was no small part of that.
I've been an Earth-Two aficionado from the start of my reading habit. The Earth-Two Batman, his daughter, his supporting cast, his death, how all of that affected the Earth-One version, all of it made up some of the most satisfying and complete serialized fiction I've ever enjoyed.
I was blown away by Dark Knight back in the day. On its own, within the confines of that title alone, I still admire the concepts and character work on display there. Nothing quite like it had been done before with a major company character. Unfortunately, the lemmings and wannabes have piled on to the point where nothing of the original work can be seen for all of the homages, tributes, rip-offs, and reflexive mirroring.
I'm less sanguine with Year One, but I still like it a lot. It's not a patch on Miller and Mazzuchelli's "Born Again," but it's still great work. Year Two can go die in a fire and take much of what came after with it.
I've gotten a lot from the concept and character of Batman over the years. Not much recently as I'm no fan of the lovely, lovely ultra-violence, psychosis, body armor, fill-ins, epics, feuds, Mobius Chairs, dead Robins, or explicit sex on grimy rooftops. (Really, the phrase "get a room" has never been more on-point.)
Like so much of the comics world, all of the characters seem like reheated, fourth-or-fifth generation impostors, with little bits of the past peeking out here and there to remind us of how much has been lost, uprooted, pissed on, and "scraped off" in the interests of... God only knows what. Newness? Shiny-thingedinity? Whatever. None of it has been an improvement over what once stood proudly in its place.
Change is inevitable, yes. But so is moving on. And most of comics have left little reason to do otherwise. Batman remains a treasured memory, with every now and then, just occasionally mind you, something being done that brings a smile or a genuine emotional reaction. The Brave and the Bold cartoon series, for instance, was amusing, far more so than I expected. I haven't seen all of it, maybe a dozen episodes overall, but I liked what I saw. I'm not rushing out to go buy DVD's of it, but hey, it's nice checking in every now and then with old friends, like the Caped Crusader, and seeing them doing well.
Edited by Brian Hague on 22 September 2019 at 1:57pm
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Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017
Posts: 1717
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| Posted: 22 September 2019 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | 2
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It never ceases to amaze me how pliable are the minds of some fans.
***
I may be misinterpreting what JB is saying -- am I one of those "pliable-minded fans" or is this being directed toward others? -- but...yes, I'm aware of how much BATMAN: YEAR ONE "threw away." My point was that I loved it as a story, independent of continuity or whatever.
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Peter Hicks
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1886
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| Posted: 22 September 2019 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | 3
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Bat signal was on (briefly) in Montreal:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/bat-signal-cut-short-in -montreal-due-to-police-operation-1.4604029
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Rodrigo castellanos
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Location: Uruguay
Posts: 1463
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| Posted: 22 September 2019 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | 4
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It never ceases to amaze me how pliable are the minds of some fans. It's my impression that Superman fans tend to be much more "anal retentive" than Batman fans (I'm much more of a Batman fan FYI).
MAN OF STEEL and YEAR ONE were some of the comics that got me into comics and I love them both. MAN OF STEEL made me a Superman fan, which was a character I didn't care much for as a kid, while YEAR ONE cemented me as a Batman fan for life.
I didn't mind the changes JB made to Superman, I thought the things he got rid of were unnecessary, sometimes goofy and convoluted baggage. But the classic Superman fans went ballistic, and all of those things eventually returned to the Superman canon.
Batman fans, I think, don't care that much about canon and continuity as long as Batman LOOKS COOL. And YEAR ONE certainly delivered on that.
As much as I dislike most of Miller's later output I still think YEAR ONE would be the ultimate "first" Batman movie. Just adapt it, word for word, image per image (Mazzuchelli's brilliant pencils are the perfect storyboard), and you're done.
And I loved JB's Batman design in his Superman cameos, with the pitch black cape and cowl. It possibly inspired the Batman design for the second series of BTAS, which is almost identical.
Edited by Rodrigo castellanos on 22 September 2019 at 8:08pm
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Carlos Velasco
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 August 2019
Location: Spain
Posts: 280
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 4:28am | IP Logged | 5
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My exposition to the different versions of Batman was interesting.
While not actually Batman himself, I believe the Duck Avenger was my first "Batman experience" around 1987. I was 7. This character appeared in some pretty good Italian Disney comic books that were published in Spain years later. There were some sci-fi and superhero material here before I started reading DC comics.
As I mentioned earlier, I suspect the first time I actually saw the caped crusader in a comic was in Superman v2 #029, the Spanish version of Action Comics #594. This was probably the first time I saw Robin too.
A few months later, after his success with Byrne's Superman, my grandpa also bought me my first Batman comic: Batman v2 #02, the Spanish version of Batman: Year One #02. I was only 8-9 years old, so this had quite an impact in me. Unlike Superman, I didn't ask for more issues, this was a unique gem for me, it was clearly too adult for a child. I loved the action scene with the building in flames and how Batman interrupted the dinner party entering by the window.
And then, one of those summers, I got to know yet another version of the character, the more campy comic book one from the early 80s written by Gerry Conway. This was a book containing issues 1 to 5 of the v1 "pre crisis" Spanish collection and, while I'm not the greatest fan of campiness, I must confess this was pretty entertainment. There was a very original story about two faces where he splits a house in two halfs and decorates each half based on his two personalities, and also a disturbing (for a child) one about Batman turning into a vampire.
Batman continued appearing in several of my comics books: the Action Comics Annual by Byrne and Art Adams (here they were called "Summer Specials"), an early JLI Annual by Giffen/DeMatteis and a great Starlin/Aparo Detective Comics Millenium crossover. At the same time, every time I visited the only specialized comic book shop in my city I took the opportunity to read what a 9 year old should not read: adult Batman graphic novels such as Batman: The Cult and Legends of the Dark Night: Shaman. I remember feeling nausea when I saw the bad guy in Batman: The Cult bathing himself in human blood.
Then, in late 1989, Tim Burton's Batman happened. I was 9, but the movie was PG13. Burton tried to promote the movie as safe for children and this appeared in the news, so my mum decided to bring me to the cinemas to watch it with me. It wasn't nearly as violent as some of the comics I had already read in the previous year, but it was a very exciting experience, especially with the bat-mania all around, from music videos to trading card stickers).
Finally, in the early 90s, the Spanish television aired the Adam West Batman series. After all the vampires and cults, I naturally wasn't very interested in it.
In the end, I believe Batman is a very versatile character that works better when is slightly "dark and gritty" (see Batman: Year One) or slightly campy, but those characteristics don't work so well when taken to the extreme (I know many people love it, but I find the Adam West series to be too campy, and I also believe that the modern Batman has been turned into an asshole).
Also, I'm not a fan of Robin either... I prefer Batman alone.
Edited by Carlos Velasco on 23 September 2019 at 9:37am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132240
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 6:31am | IP Logged | 6
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Also, I'm not a fan of Robin either... I prefer Batman alone.•• Robin was one of the earliest examples of the writers and editors NOT UNDERSTANDING THE READERS. As Jules Feiffer mentions in his history of American comics, Robin was created to give the young boys who made up most of the audience someone with whom to identify, But they already had that, in Batman. They delighted in the implies promise that they, too, could grow up to be Batman-- but Robin was their age and he was ALREADY Batman. He was like the smartest kid in class. Everyone might grudgingly respect him, but nobody wanted to BE him.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 6:40am | IP Logged | 7
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I didn't mind the changes JB made to Superman, I thought the things he got rid of were unnecessary, sometimes goofy and convoluted baggage. But the classic Superman fans went ballistic, and all of those things eventually returned to the Superman canon.•• I am not likely ever to forget the letter from one fan who excoriated me for getting rid of Beppo, the Super Monkey. Did I not understand how IMPORTANT he was to the mythos??
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15781
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 6:57am | IP Logged | 8
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I'm a fan of Batman: Year One, but Frank made a misstep with his handling of Catwoman. Alfred as a lifelong retainer is an amendment that I actually quite like. Nothing really worked with the Catwoman changes though.
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 8:05am | IP Logged | 9
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Tangent: Beppo the Super Monkey? I believe he appeared in three Superboy stories - he was more a member of the Legion of Super Pets than he ever was a character in Superboy! (Even if the big three never returned him to the 20th century.)
As for a short description of my feelings (short? Sofer? C'MON!), it's summed up with one line from All-Star Batman: Dick Grayson: "Who the hell are you anyway, giving out orders like this?" Batman: "What are you, dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman!"
Ladies and gentlemen... the defense rests.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 8:23am | IP Logged | 10
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"…I'm the goddamn Batman!"•• Where is the greater crime? That Frank did this, that DC allowed it... or that so many "fans" raced to embrace it?
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Stéphane Garrelie
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 August 2005
Location: France
Posts: 4226
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 8:43am | IP Logged | 11
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Do they really embrace it? They make fun of it... if they embrace it, that's, it seems to me at least, only on this level.
Edited by Stéphane Garrelie on 23 September 2019 at 8:44am
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Stéphane Garrelie
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 August 2005
Location: France
Posts: 4226
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| Posted: 23 September 2019 at 8:48am | IP Logged | 12
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I love Year One, but yes it's clearly a "reboot".
It's also maybe the best Frank Miller work. Possibly equaled by Born Again or Sin City, but that's not certain.
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