We spent 20 minutes after the last movie discussing whether his bat-shaped throwing star would be worth it or not, whether it would be balanced well enough to throw and hurt someone. We came to the conclusion - yes, if he made the perfectly weighted. So he makes them all by hand and yet they’re all perfectly weighted? :dubious:
Not that I’m criticizing Batman. I’d no sooner criticize the Dark Knight then I would Nightcrawler. Both get my unconditional affection.
Oh yes. That’s exactly what I was thinking of. Those were so good - and yet so unfulfilled - it drove me to fanfiction.
“Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it.”
“But a kiss…can be even deadlier if you mean it.”
Slight hijack Has anyone ever put Batman in a position where he doesn’t have a high horse to ride on?
In ID Crisis, we find out they mindwiped him to prevent him from interfering with Light’s lobotimization. No one’s yet asked him what they should have done with Light, have they? No, because then he’d have to possibly face the ineffectiveness of his methods when faced with certain types of criminals and the world he lives in, I.e. the revolving doors of prisons.
Don’t get me wrong, I LIKE Batman, but he needs more humanity, and someone to just tear into him. Someone who’s not scared of him. My personal fanboi pick would be Aquaman, but anyone would do. Trouble is, he’s just too psychotic, which is a natural resulf of his mission, unfortunatly. Catch 22, perhaps?
Just have to point out that the first statement in the OP – thatr “Sherlock Holmes is always Sherlock Holmes” – is likely to meet with objectyions from Holmes fanatics. Even when only Doyle was writing him, there were differencves, and Holmes scholars have spilled much ink over the differences between pre-Reichenbach and post-Reichenbach Holmes.
and, of course, when other writers take over things get completely changed. This is especially true when you encounter pastiches in which Holmes meets supernatural or science fuictional enemies (In various works, he’s met Dracula and Fu Manchu thrice each. There’s an entire book of Holmes/Lovecraft crossovers and two anthologies of Holmes and Science Fiction)). Doyle’s Holmes didn’t believe in vampires. Is this really different from Batman’s different behavior in the hands of different authors?
That more or less describes every costumed crime fighter from the 1930s pulps. Not just the Shadow, but the Green Hornet, Doc Savage, and even - especially - The Bat, among dozens. Batman’s dirty little secret is how completely derivative his character was.
Bob Kane choose good models, though. There needs to be a balance of day heroes, like Superman, with night heroes.
But you can’t claim anything distinctive about Batman. He’s just an empty shell to pour society’s current neuroses into.
Actually, that’s one of the main reasons that I like Batman so much. He doesn’t take things like that upon himself to decide because he knows that he isn’t fit to judge them himself. Even in the face of the probable ineffectiveness of his methods,he takes them to face the law because he believes that it’s the right thing to do. It takes some serious sack to do that, and it keeps idiot writers from making him “edgier.”
Simply because many other heroes shared the traits doesn’t mean the traits aren’t there…
And Cal, I can see your point about Holmes - though I feel the variations are more minor, and are often underscored in the text - the writer lets you know ‘Here’s my wrinkle on Holmes, this is different from what you may expect - but I did it deliberately, not out of ignorance.’
To me, the definitive batman will always be the early '80s, just Pre-Crisis Batman–the one written by Gerry Conway and later, Doug Moench. This is the guy who had the first Jason Todd as Robin (there’re two Jasons–the original Jason was a really young kid, maybe 10 or 11, and a circus performer who’s parents were killed by Killer Crock. The other Jason was the punk who stole tires from the Batmobile)
This was dark, driven, and non-psychotic. What’s nice is that his detective skills were emphasized too–especially recently (last 15 years or so) writers seem to forget that he’s “The world’s greatest detective”. The early '80s Batman wasn’t quite as driven/dark as I would have liked, but he was pretty darn close to my ideal Batman.
It seems like there’s two basic “philosophies” that Batman writers use: Should Batman’s primary mission be to ‘protect the innocent’ or to ‘punish the guilty’. Yeah, he should (and usually will) do both, but faced with a choice between letting a crook get away or saving the life of a civillian, which would be his first impulse?
There’s justification for both philosophies: he wants to punish the crooks who killed his parents, or he wants to make sure that no-one goes through what he went through.
Frank Miller’s Batman, the current insane one, to a degree the early Adams/O’Neill one from the 70s (although they struck a pretty good balance) are all the “Punish the guilty” types. The '40s Batman, the “New Look” Batman and the '80s Pre-Crisis Batman were all the “Protect the Innocent” type. (the “Batman in Space” guy from the late '50s doesn’t fit either, but he’s not really Batman, he’s the Batman writers saying “Geez…Mort Weisinger’s Superman is really outselling us…we better copy him!”)
Personally, I prefer the “protect the innocent” Batman.
I prefer the Dark Knight version of Batman to all the others.
Want to try something fun (albeit twisted)? Re-read the Dark Knight mini-series, but where Batman has his narrative moments, imagine them in Adam West’s voice. I just did that, and it works surprisingly well.