SRS

Fletcher Hanks is certainly darker than Batman, but he’s a special case.

It kind of depends on how you define “dark.” There are a handful of pre-Robin stories that are heavy on the grotesquerie– the “Monk” story, which is essentially a riff on Dracula– but one could deem a fairly flat sort of horror, with no psychology behind it, compared to the EC horrors. The grotesquerie is the “focus” of these few stories, but even before Robin, the dominant emphasis was on Batman as the swashbuckling scourge of evil, rather than the weird evils he encountered.

I think they probably were when compared to other work of the same genre, of which there was very little. But I can see and respect your reading of those comics.

I would also add a final note that when dealing with something like the early Batman comics (or the early Superman comics) what individuals find within them to latch onto are almost as important if not more so than the intended qualities of the individual works themselves. So, to my mind, when Frank Miller expands upon the violence and crime elements, or when Dozier and Semple expand upon the campiness and the bright colors, neither is wrong. Each are reacting to elements they found within the work that spoke to them in one way or another.

OK, I’ll concede that point. It is sorta like putting Humpty Dumpty back together to figure out who was the actual creative force behind any give Batman comic at any given time. They did a great disservice to future lovers of comics by branding everything as “Bob Kane”. I’m just learning a lot of this stuff for the first time myself and there is plenty of conflicting and anecdotal info out there.

So if I was to stick to what I know for sure, which is the content of the early Batman comics, one last comment I’ll make is that while there are “dark” moments in those comics they never extrapolate upon them or make them the focus of the story in the way that future creators like Miller did. Not even in a primitive way. The “dark” moments occur within the flow of an otherwise straightforward adventure or crime story. In other words, I don’t think that the “dark” aspects of the old comics were enough to make them stand out in there day and age, and we only focus on them now because of a deliberate effort to isolate and exaggerate their importance out of context.

But Ian, the point I was trying to make was that the people guiding the book during that market were not the original creators. Virtually every Batman story published after “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” is a mixture of multiple individual creative voices, editorial edicts, and corporate concerns. Looking for positive or negative evidence of Original Intent in any of those stories is completely pointless.

Anyway, this was a good movie, I give it an 8.5 but it was missing too many Bat trappings. I did like Two Face’s face. Heath Ledger was great but I am sorry, the Joker does not wear makeup on his face. (unless he is Ceasar Romero in which case it is fine as long as he has a moustache). Might have been nice to see a Batcave or a Manor also. And for all his money, he has to be able to afford a better Bat Signal!

However, back to good ol’ gun wieldin’ Batman… Someone on tcj mentioned that Batman may have used a gun in the 40’s serials, but this has yet to be confirmed.

As far as whether the Golden Age Batman stories fit in more with the Silver Age pre-Adams comics or the Bronze/Modern post-Adams comics is infitely debatable. In my opinion they are still pretty cartoonish and superheroey, certain crude and rudimentary. Hardly the sophistication that O’Neil and Miller and the like brought to the character. Either way they certainly don’t stand out the way that books like Vault of Horror or Tales From the Crypt did only a few years later. Also, like I said, during the height of EC (when superheros were on the dip) Batman continue to progress in the cartoonish direction. If they ever had a good opportunity to make the book the actualization of their dark and grim intentions the time would have benn then, when the market favored it. I will concede however that post-code surely help push Batman (and all comics for that matter) in a lighter direction.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0288619/

Gotcha.

As I said before, I have no real concern for the debate of “goofy v grim” or however one wants to phrase it - I’ve read and enjoyed Batman stories from both camps, and just because one prevails over another at any point in time doesn’t mean the stories I’ve already enjoyed stop existing or being there for me to enjoy if I so choose. I’ve also probably read enough Batman over the course of my life that I don’t feel the same need for more new product that others might feel (not assuming you do one way or the other).

My only real issue with your posts was with the odd and historically inaccurate assumption that Bob Kane exerted any true creative stewardship over the character for more than maybe the first handful of stories (depending on how closely one thinks he worked with Finger or Fox - there’s probably no knowable right answer). DC as a company took over pretty quickly - as I said, artists like Sprang or Infantino (your two earlier examples) weren’t hired through Kane’s studio, but rather directly by the publisher.

Aside from that point: While my reading is as subjective as anyone else’s, I do think that those early issues are fairly obviously obsessed with darkness, death, and violence. I also think that the lighthearted approach you champion could just as easily be labeled “reactionary” as the later, grimmer efforts you seem not to like - the lighter, goofier stories were an editorial mandate, made in direct reaction to the earlier, darker stories. Which is not to say that anyone looking to invalidate the goofier stories can now look at you and say “gotcha, reactionary!”, because what we’re discussing is a couple of pretty young guys’ crude creation which fairly quickly became creatively dictated by a corporate publisher and which has been for the last 70 years. I think sifting through that and looking for some sort of shining beacon of Original Creator’s Intent is, at best, a little too time-consuming for what it’s worth at this point.

Well, I just think that the extent of the “grim & grit” of early Batman has been highly overstated throughout the years to serve the purposes of the creators that have used it as a rallying cry. I respect that you have an appreciation for Batman of all shapes & sizes, in that department we agree. However there are plenty of people who buy into the dark “essentialist” notion of the character hook, line and sinker, and to an extent that is highly dismissive of the pre-Adams comics, the 60’s TV show, as well as the Burton movies. I’m just choosing to push back a little. (just for yucks)

BTW, I’m really looking forward to the Bat-Manga book that’s coming out this fall which collect the 60’s Batman mangas from Shonen King magazine by the artist of 8-Man. Surely it will be another jewel in the crown.

“By the end of the first volume of “Batman Chronicles Vol. 1″ both Robin & The Joker show up as characters so it gets rolling into classic Batman lore pretty quickly. Also for every crime/mob/jewel-thief type of story there is a sci-fi/fantasy/superhero story to balance it out. The genre setting is all over the place.”

I guess I’m not sure what you’re arguing here? Yes, Batman stories are superhero stories - Batman is a superhero. He was created in reaction to Superman. He wears a mask and a cape. I don’t think that’s in dispute.

What I - and I think others - are saying, is that in his earliest stories he was a superhero who starred in grim, dark, violent stories. In my reading of the same book you cite, Batman Chronicles v.1, Robin and the Joker showing up don’t change the fundamental tone of the book. And I don’t think SF/fantasy elements are really relevant either, since those elements are used in grim, dark, violent ways.

Yes, under DC’s editorial direction Batman became lighter over time. There are many reasons for that, none of which have anything to do with or change anything about the earliest stories, which are the only ones I’m referring to.

(I also want to make it clear that I’m not advocating any one version of “Batman” as the one, true version. I enjoy the light, goofy stories and the dark, violent stories. But there was only one type present at the character’s conception.)

“The Joker’s stated motivations, like his stories about the scars, change multiple times throughout the film. I think it’s in character, as you never know when he’s lying, or whether he actually believes them all. I also think that he knew Batman would never come forward, but thought it would be a great way to torture him when he didn’t by piling on the guilt of the Joker’s body count.”

I don’t have a problem with some degree of inconsistency in a madman-character, like what I mentioned above (Joker feels Batman is his only worthy foe but can’t help giving in to the urge to kill him, be it in heated combat or with your basic death-trap). But one shouldn’t feel that the filmwriter has overindulged in such inconsistency to make his job easier, which is what I think Nolan did.

I like your explanation for Joker’s actions better than what Nolan actually put on the screen, but I still hold him culpable for muffing an easy “fix.” My blog-review goes into excrutiating detail about why the central plotline is a fricking mess.

“Any argument that Nolan is catering to the babymen (and yeah, there is cognitive dissonance in the idea of a serious crime drama featuring a guy dressed as a flying rodent) could be easily countered by Burton catering to Hot Topic teenyboppers.”

To whose allegation of pandering are you responding?

Or do specific speakers not matter when one is attacking “babymen?”

The Joker’s stated motivations, like his stories about the scars, change multiple times throughout the film. I think it’s in character, as you never know when he’s lying, or whether he actually believes them all. I also think that he knew Batman would never come forward, but thought it would be a great way to torture him when he didn’t by piling on the guilt of the Joker’s body count.

Haven’t seen Dark Knight yet–and I gotta admit, I’m probably prone to be more partial to any movie that actually shows Batman, you know, actually detecting.

Any argument that Nolan is catering to the babymen (and yeah, there is cognitive dissonance in the idea of a serious crime drama featuring a guy dressed as a flying rodent) could be easily countered by Burton catering to Hot Topic teenyboppers. But I say that because Burton gives me a swift pain and I find his films highly annoying. Except maybe for Beetlejuice.

That said, Batman vs. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t do much for me, either. I think my ideal Batman movie would star Hugh Laurie and involve flying rodent-man solving crimes in chamber rooms. Col. Mustard in the study with a candlestick!

I felt that after seeing the Dark Knight yesterday is that it can’t any better than this than if any Joe Schmoe were to pick up and read a actual Batman comic book and get completely something out of it. The interactions with Gordon and Batman investigating crime scenes together were absolute gems to see depicted on the screen. I mean, the best line in the whole movie to me, was the comment Gordon makes to Dent as far as Batman vanishing in the night: “Yeah, he does that.”

However, one small bone I have to pick: get Kevin Conroy to dub in Batman’s lines instead of Bale. Bale’s growl comes off as some rejected death metal singer who needs a couple of sticks of butter to help soothe his throat. I recently started to get into listening to Opeth ( yeah, at age 44, go figure) and I read somewhere that’s how some of those death metal singers work out their throats by drinking quarts of milk and chewing on butter.

As spectacular as Ledger’s performance is - I had trouble making out some of the lines he was mumbling in some scenes.

If Nolan does a third film - he should figure how to use Black Mask in it.

~

Coat

There seems to be more folklore about the early days of Batman comics floating around then there is fact. For example, the charge that Frank Miller has made on many occasions that “Batman used to wear a gun on his hip.” I’ve heard this parroted by people a million times, but as far as I can tell it’s not true*. Batman handles a gun in certain occasions, but it’s never his gun and he certainly wasn’t wearing it on his hip.

By the end of the first volume of “Batman Chronicles Vol. 1″ both Robin & The Joker show up as characters so it gets rolling into classic Batman lore pretty quickly. Also for every crime/mob/jewel-thief type of story there is a sci-fi/fantasy/superhero story to balance it out. The genre setting is all over the place.

(*If someone can point me to a specific issue, please do.)

I think this is pretty divorced from any sort of historical reality. Not all Batman comics were coming out of Kane’s studio. The most cartoony of the early Batman stories were drawn by Dick Sprang, who was commissioned directly by DC in order to supplement the Batman material they were receiving from Kane (read: Finger/Fox/Robinson/et al). Any half-serious look at the earliest Batman stories would come to the conclusion that the art style was as serious and grim as the ability of the cartoonists (including Kane, a terrible artist) would allow. Also, there’s a fair amount of evidence that Kane did not exert a terribly large amount of control over the material coming from his studio which he did not write or draw (most of it). Comparing Batman comics to the EC Comics doesn’t make any sense, either - it was in large part because of the backlash against EC comics in the early 50s that superhero books like Batman got goofier and more sedate. Yes, Batman could have evolved in keeping with the early stories about brutal violence and death, IF the backlash against that kind of story hadn’t existed, which it did, so discussing evolution of the character in terms of artistic intent is sort of impossible.

But…Burton is a better director than Nolan? I think that’s like comparing apples and oranges. Burton’s Batman (both films) are entirely different…as is his overall style. He’s at his best when he’s doing fairytales like Edward Scissorhands which I think is his most unique and layered work.

Nolan did Memento. That’s not even in the same league as Burton. And while it’s fine that you don’t like his style of directing, your preference doesn’t define who is a better director empirically. His style doesn’t work for you, cool. But seriously, that makes it sound like anyone who liked the film or enjoys his directing just doesn’t know any better because their opinion is different and they see the layering in the work. I think it’s an unfair generalization.

Let’s see if a linkless post works.

BTW, though BATMAN BEGINS has problems similar to TDK, it does seem to have a stronger central plot.

I agree, it’s different strokes for different folks. The only reason I raise the point at all is because “this is the way Batman is supposed to be” has pretty much become groupthink at this point. I’m just challenging some of the basic premises to that claim. I’ve enjoyed plenty of “grim & gritty” Batman stories in my time, but I think this movie might have taken it to it’s Omega.

(*not as an artist or writer or anything though, lol)

Now, The Happening…. I believe we can all agree that sucked.
Right?