Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

User avatar
Friday
Posts: 6272
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:40 pm
Location: Karma: -65373

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Friday » Tue Jan 07, 2020 10:22 am

Depending on the Batman, I think Bruce can sometimes be the costume, but sometimes it's actually not.

Like, in the Nolan Trilogy, it absolutely was the costume (and honestly Bale playacting a rich spoiled shithead was always the best parts of those movies) but I don't really remember that sort of thing from TAS. In TAS he's sort of a benevolent CEO guy trying to help people in whatever ways he can within the limits of that persona.

Maybe I'm wrong, I've only seen maybe 25% of TAS but thats what I remember about that version of Bruce.
ImageImageImage

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby beatbandito » Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:25 pm

"In my mind, I don't call myself Bruce."
Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Fri Jan 10, 2020 10:25 pm

beatbandito wrote:"In my mind, I don't call myself Bruce."

Yeah, Bruce changes over the course of the DCAU. Batman Beyond, as you note, is pretty explicit in pushing the "Bruce is the mask" angle (though it's also a series that kicks off with Batman retiring after picking up a gun, so it doesn't exactly support the "Bruce would own a gun collection" theory), but in TAS it's somewhere in between. He definitely puts on an act when he's Bruce, but the show's also pretty good about balancing Bruce as the redeemer to Batman's punisher (he volunteers in a soup kitchen in The Forgotten, and remember that in Harley's Holiday he advocates for her parole).

The New Batman Adventures is the midpoint between the two, and it shows a Batman who's more like what he becomes in Beyond, particularly in Things Change -- but even there, it depicts Bruce as the carrot to Batman's stick (after Dick tells Tim the story of how he quit being Robin after he watched Batman intimidate a henchman, he learns that Bruce gave that same henchman a job afterward).

I love Batman Beyond, and I love Bruce's character in it, but there was always something that didn't feel quite right about that arc, about Bruce as a bitter old hermit who's alienated everyone who ever cared about him. It's also a story about how Batman failed -- when the series starts, there are gangs of street thugs dressed like the Joker and nobody out there stopping them.

That's a pretty bleak way of looking at Batman. It's a story of a man whose trauma ultimately destroys him, and while it makes for a compelling story and a compelling character, it's really a bummer. Plus, we all know Batman Always Wins.

One of the moments that really stuck with me on Young Justice was when Bruce saw that Dick was upset about something and he dropped what he was doing and went out and shot hoops with him. I think that scene shows an understanding of Batman that a lot of writers forget: yes, Batman is all about the Mission, but making sure Dick has a loving father in his life is an integral part of the Mission. TNBA and BB posit that Batman uses all these people he surrounds himself with as pawns, manipulates them into helping him in his crusade, but I don't think that's right. The Bat-Family is exactly what it says on the tin: it's his family. His family was taken away from him, and so he finds a new one. And the first new member of the Bat-Family is a child whose parents were murdered in front of his eyes. Bruce adopts Dick because he knows what he's going through, and wants to help be there for Dick in a way nobody ever was for him. (In 1940 when Robin first appeared, Alfred hadn't shown up yet and the comic hadn't yet introduced the backstory of Bruce being raised by an uncle. Post-Crisis, the backstory is that Alfred raised Bruce, but it's still not exactly a father-son dynamic; ultimately Alfred is his servant.)

There was a story in one of the Batman comics for the 75th anniversary; as I recall, the hook is that they're celebrating Bruce's 75th birthday. And they deliberately chose to make him look like Bruce on Batman Beyond -- but instead of being alone in an empty mansion with nobody but a dog to keep him company, they showed him surrounded by his loved ones; everybody in the Bat-family shows up with a smile and a present to celebrate his life. I like that better. And, while there was a lot wrong with The Dark Knight Rises, I like that it gave us an ending where Bruce is able to heal from his pain and retire happy, secure in the knowledge that there's a Robin to carry on the Mission without him.

To answer the question in a roundabout way: I forget who said it, but I agree with the take that Bruce and Batman are both masks; neither one of them represents who he really is. They're both faces he shows to the public, and in both cases he's hiding who he really is. The real man is the one he is in private, when he's around Alfred or Dick or Barbara or Tim or Leslie or any of the other people who know his secret. Neither the grim avenger of the night nor the billionaire playboy is who he really is. He's not scary and heartless, but neither is he a carefree child of leisure.

And, to a certain extent, we're all like that. I don't behave the same way at work that I do at home, and I don't act the same around my wife as I do around my dad. Batman code-switches.

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Tue Jan 14, 2020 11:20 am

Another way Batman's characterization changes over the years is that in early TAS, he's quippy. Not Spider-Man quippy, but James Bond quippy; when he beats the bad guy, he's got a groan-inducing pun ready to go.

I suspect part of why that eventually goes away is that over time, he changes from a solo player to a team member. Season 3 moves Robin from occasional guest star to second-billed title character, Batman Beyond moves Bruce into a mentor role, and Justice League puts him on a team. Batman occasionally making a wisecrack makes sense on a show where he's the only superhero, but once you start pairing him off with pretty much anybody else, it starts to make more sense having the other guy be the wiseass and let Batman scowl and disapprove. (Even The Brave and the Bold generally made him the straight man and gave the jokes to whoever the guest star was.)

User avatar
Büge
Posts: 5440
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Büge » Tue Jan 14, 2020 5:10 pm

"You overplayed your part... 'yo.'"
Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Tue Jan 14, 2020 6:57 pm

Fair point; he did still do it occasionally in the later series. But he was usually treated more as the guy who never smiles.

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:45 am

Thad wrote:
beatbandito wrote:"In my mind, I don't call myself Bruce."

Yeah, Bruce changes over the course of the DCAU. Batman Beyond, as you note, is pretty explicit in pushing the "Bruce is the mask" angle (though it's also a series that kicks off with Batman retiring after picking up a gun, so it doesn't exactly support the "Bruce would own a gun collection" theory), but in TAS it's somewhere in between.

Then again, come to think of it there is that episode (I think it's the one where Hugo Strange finds out Bruce Wayne is Batman?) where he has to arrange it so that Bruce Wayne and Batman appear together at the same time, and...he does this by having Dick disguise himself as Bruce.

He has Dick wear a literal Bruce Wayne mask, rather than let anyone else wear the Bat-suit.

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:08 pm

Dini, Burnett, Templeton team for ‘Batman: The Adventures Continue’

Neat.

It's only a 6-issue miniseries, but with those names attached I'm hoping for good things. And maybe this won't be the end of it. (Still hoping we see some more DCAU animated movies -- in particular, that the Justice League reunion gets off the ground. But comics? Sure, those are good too.)

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:48 am



I'm not crazy about the generic synth soundtrack or the old-timey projector filter they keep putting on the clips, but on the whole it's a pretty good retrospective and not a bad way to spend 100 minutes.

It hammers home just how astonishing it is that this show got made at all and was as good as it was. The stars really had to align in a very specific way -- not just the incredible talent involved in making the show, but its coming out in that window where studios were willing to spend that kind of money on cartoons, when Fox was an upstart network happy to take risks, and even where they were able to find sympathetic contacts in BS&P who helped the show get to air more-or-less intact (contrast with the kind of hoops X-Men and Spider-Man had to jump through just a couple years later).

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Tue Jun 30, 2020 8:20 pm

Nathan Rabin is doing a series on Batman Beyond, from the perspective of somebody who's seen a lot of Batman movies and has some familiarity with Batman: TAS (including a previous review of Mask of the Phantasm) but doesn't really know the series that well.

The first entry's pretty good, and it's exciting to see the series through a fresh pair of eyes.

I'm tempted to watch along (having just picked up the complete series on Blu-Ray), but I'm still working my way through TAS and anyway I think I remember them all pretty well.

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Sat Aug 22, 2020 9:05 pm



Well, it mostly seems like it takes place after Arkham Knight, but Babs being out of her wheelchair and the line about Jim being dead suggest it's a new continuity. Or at least a slightly tweaked one.

KingRoyal
Posts: 745
Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:32 am

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby KingRoyal » Sun Aug 23, 2020 12:12 am



This actually rules.
signature

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:30 pm

I'm a little wary of Emo Batman vs. Grim-'n'-Gritty Riddler, but we'll see. We've really got nowhere to go but up after Batman vee Superman.

KingRoyal
Posts: 745
Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:32 am

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby KingRoyal » Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:48 pm

Matt Reeves at least has better track record on films than Snyder does. And the shots of neogothic architecture and Victorian style offices looks like he has a strong aesthetic direction for the film. Honestly, the fact that Robert Pattinson is in it at all makes me think there's something more interesting about it, since the guy doesn't seem like he's too interested in going back to big budget blockbusters.

I'll take a big, messy superhero film that has the director's prints all over it over a well made movie but with a definite house style any day. Or whatever you want to call the DC style. The only thing that makes me give pause is the "Stop, stop he's already dead" punching scene.
signature

User avatar
nosimpleway
Posts: 4518
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:31 pm

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby nosimpleway » Sun Aug 23, 2020 2:28 pm

Worst vampire ever, it took him over 10 years to turn into a bat

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Sun Aug 23, 2020 8:11 pm

KingRoyal wrote:Matt Reeves at least has better track record on films than Snyder does.


I'm not familiar with his work (the last Planet of the Apes movie I saw was by a Batman director, but not this one), but I hear good things.

And the shots of neogothic architecture and Victorian style offices looks like he has a strong aesthetic direction for the film.


Yeah, and I liked the mid-'80s Batmobile that looks like Jason Todd should be stealing the tires. I appreciate that they're trying something other than "tank" again.

Honestly, the fact that Robert Pattinson is in it at all makes me think there's something more interesting about it, since the guy doesn't seem like he's too interested in going back to big budget blockbusters.


I'll at least grant that this looks like a take we've never seen before, and that's not nothin'.

I've said before that Pattinson is a fine actor who could be a great Batman with the right material -- but so were Affleck and Clooney.

There's also every possibility that the movie is good but just not for me. I've just got less and less patience for different grim-'n'-gritty takes -- and of all characters to grit up, the Riddler seems like one of the most inappropriate.

I'll take a big, messy superhero film that has the director's prints all over it over a well made movie but with a definite house style any day. Or whatever you want to call the DC style.

I mean, I'd say I agree on principle, but in practice it really depends on the director. On the long, long list of criticisms I have of Batman vee Superman, "it didn't have the director's prints all over it" is not one of them. Insofar as it's "DC house style", that's because DC house style is Zack Snyder's style, or at least was until they started backing away from him.

So I'd generally agree that I'd rather see a messy but distinct film than a generic but competently-made one, but it really depends; the truth is I'd rather watch Shazam than Batman v Superman any day of the week. Hell, I'd rather watch Aquaman than Batman v Superman.

User avatar
Büge
Posts: 5440
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Büge » Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:29 pm



this whole twitter thread is pretty on point
Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13170
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Thad » Tue Aug 25, 2020 7:30 pm

I remember Kurt Busiek saying something along the lines of "It's easy to write someone who's smarter than you. It's not a matter of coming up with a problem you can't solve; it's a matter of coming up with a problem it would take you a long time to solve and having him solve it more quickly."

But yeah, there's always been an element of fascism to Vigilante Batman, and it got a lot more pronounced under the Nolans and more pronounced still under Snyder.

And Batman's almost always a vigilante. (Adam West Batman isn't; he's a duly deputized officer of the law.) But there are certainly different ways of playing that. Batman: TAS, as always, is my gold standard, and I think it does a good job establishing that the fights, the punching, all that's just fantasy stuff for kids; the volunteering at soup kitchens and offering jobs to petty criminals, that's the stuff that really makes a difference.

(And of course I haven't even gotten into the "billionaire as hero" part of the story.)

I like Kelly's pitch a lot. I don't think DC would have the balls to do it even as an Elseworlds or whatever the hell they call non-canonical standalone stories these days, but then they did let Morrison bring back Socialist Superman a decade ago, so I suppose a writer with sufficient cachet might be able to get them to agree to something like that premise.

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby Mongrel » Tue Aug 25, 2020 7:38 pm

Image
Image

User avatar
IGNORE ME
Woah Dangsaurus
Posts: 3679
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:40 pm

Re: Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

Postby IGNORE ME » Tue Aug 25, 2020 7:42 pm

My mobile browser doesn't show Twitter embeds so thank you for posting a screenshot of why I let it continue to not do so.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 36 guests