One Undone

Now that our long national nightmare is over and Chip Zdarsky is no longer writing Batman, I thought I'd check back in again on the title, now that Matt Fraction, a writer I have good impressions of, is writing it.

I have read that his team's immediate intent to do to "one and dones" (or,  as we used to call them, "stories") rather than The Next Arc That Will Push Batman To His Limits And Change Him Forever And Everything You Think You Know About Him And Gotham City.  Of that, I certainly wholeheartedly approve and this first issues is exactly that. Bully.

However, I am less approving of the execution of the idea.

Some of the problem lies with the stupid situations bequeathed by Zdarsky: Alfred is still dead, Jim Gordon has been busted to beat cop, and Vandal Savage has taken over both Bruce Wayne's and Jim Gordon's lives because he's now living in Wayne Manor and serving as Gotham City's Police commissioner.  These developments that feel like lunchtime schoolyard improvisations ("Yeah, well, now MY villain is the police commissioner, so there!") and wouldn't pass the Laugh Test on the Batman '66 television show.

It's substantially LESS credible than the Commissioner Nora Clavicle story, which really says a lot.

It has zero basis in Vandal Savage as a character.  Granted,  he's always been a sonic screwdriver; not a 'real character' with his own motivations (there is no way you don't get over your emotional need to Rule The World after 50,000 years), but a simple plot device to create very specific challenges. 

You know how you can tell Frankenstein's Monster isn't a "real" person?  Because you can see the stitches. So, too, Zdarsky's use of Savage is so transparently ad hoc as to be uncanny (in the bad way).  "I want ONE villain who can cause BOTH Batman and Jim Gordon to suffer peripety. Can't be a bat-villain; can't be too strongly associated with another hero's rogues gallery; needs to be one of those powerful, generic, schemers. Ah! Vandal Savage! No one will get upset about misusing Vandal Savage because no one cares about him!"

You'd think DC might have jumped at the change to retcon away Zdarky's silliness with renumbering of Batman at #1; alas.  I wouldn't expect Fraction himself to reboot all this nonsense away overnight, and I think it likely he has plans to undo it all at some point. Meanwhile...

Fraction's commitment to one-and-done seems to have boxed him into an unfortunate need to have Batman undergo a character arc within one issue.  To do so, however, has him mischaracterizing Batman on each end of the story.

Batman starts as a cynical ****, which is absurd considering how many criminal reformations he has personally bankrolled.

Apparently Batman is one of those absolutists who never recovered from reading Aristotle.

By the end, he's unmasked and is chilling with a newly neotonized Killer Croc.  
Am I the only person who misses when "Killer Croc" was just a gangster with a skin condition?  

Anyway, these extremes of characterization are, well, too extreme.  Batman as Bipolarman has already worn out its welcome.

Speaking of Batman being crazy, he seems to have created an AI version of Alfred who follows him around acting as a virtual sounding board that only he can see and hear.

Except for butterflies, 'cuz they're magical.

No, AI-fred. You asked Batman a literal question ("where are we going") and he replied not with a literal answer ("to the vivarium") but with a figurative one ("playing a hunch").  That's the exact opposite of being "literal", which, I suppose is also exactly the kind of mistake you'd expect an AI to make (but certainly not an accomplished writer like Matt Fraction!).

This is too ludicrous for Fraction to have introduced without comment, so I can only assume that it's a Zdarskyism.  It sure is wacky, but I guess it gives Batman someone to talk to without Robin by his side.

An AI assistant for Batman;
what could possibly go wrong?

Fraction is committed to helping us understand what Batman is doing and how.

TOO committed.

The story is littered with these tech-splanation boxes that remind me of "The Batwave" from "The Batman" cartoon.

 I never DID figure out what the Batwave was.

To me, they seem more interruptive than helpful.  But maybe because I'm such a studied expert on Batman Stuff, that when I see Batman issue commands into a communicator and then the Batmobile obeys the commands, I am brilliant enough to deduce that he's using a voice-command connection to control the Batmobile.

Or maybe I just have four Brother AIs in my house.

It doesn't help that Fraction uses these to explain obvious tech we've seen before while ignoring the techn-ephant in the living room:

"Please state the nature of the butlering emergency..."

I will forgive Fraction's heavy-handed use of THE BUTTERFLY as a metaphor for change, because comics, after all, are not generally a subtle medium.  What I will not forgive however is the lazy use of television news to delivery exposition:

Looks like someone never recovered from reading Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

Well, as long as the overt Millerisms end there it should--

Balls nasty. Licken Chegs in danger.

Ouch. Yeah, I don't know whether that's a knowing parody or an unknowing pastiche, but what I DO know is that I don't want to see any more of it. 

Miller did ONE thing that was wholly positive which everyone does and should imitate (even though almost no one remembers that Miller is the writer who did it):
MILLER made Alfred a dead-pan snarker, thus completely revitalizing the character.

So, there are definitely some hiccups in the #1 of this new "Batman" character. But I am still optimistic that Fraction will do the character more justice than his predecessor.  Am I wrong to think so...?

Adam West, in memoriam

As the entire world mourns and remembers Adam West fondly, what more is there to say about the man? I was a very very little boy when the Batman live action show aired, it entranced me, and sparked my lifelong interest in DC comics. So if you have ever enjoyed ANYTHING on this blog, your thanks are owed entirely to Adam West.

Thousands of pages are being written about how his portrayal brought the character back from the precipice of obscurity and put 'camp' into the ordinary person's vocabulary.  I don't feel a need to add to those.

But a lot of discussion focuses on how different and unique(ly amusing) West's portrayal of Batman was.  I want to focus on something he brought to the character that is NOT unique, but he brought it with such strength that it has informed every single portrayal of Batman since.  Simply put:

(Adam West's) Batman did not care what you thought about him. At all.

Adam West didn't 'play' camp. He didn't wink at the audience or his fellow actors. He didn't wink at anything. Or blink, even.  You want cute winks? Be a Superman fan.

Adam West took Batman with deadly earnest.  Which is exactly how Batman takes Batman.  A billionaire dressing like a bat to beat up muggers at night and throw boomerangs at deranged criminals is a RIDICULOUS concept. Intrinsically.  The only thing that saves it from feeling ridiculous is the sincerity with which Batman does it. And nobody, I mean NOBODY, radiated sincerity more than Adam West.

It didn't matter what they made him do as Bruce Wayne; he was committed to its veracity 1000% percent.  Dancing the Batusi was exactly as sincerely in character for West's Batman as recounting his parents' murder....BOTH of which happened in the first episode, in case you didn't know.

West's Batman (and most subsequent Batmen) don't care whether you think dressing like a bat is ridiculous. He doesn't care whether you cynically deride Virtue, the Constitution, Mercy, Caution, Civic Duty, Driving Safety, Dancing, Nature Studies, or Foreign Language study.  HE understands and believes completely in these things and their value, and if you do not, he merely pities you (in a non-judgmental way, of course).  He takes those things seriously.

Michael Keaton's and Diedrich Bader's interpretations of Batman were dead-on and well received. Why? Because those comedians understood the importance of Batman remaining serious...whether you want him to invoke fear OR laughter.    Even LEGO Batman, the most overtly humorous screen interpretation of the character, has one central characteristic that is source of nearly all its humor: he takes himself very seriously, no matter how ridiculous his behavior or situation might be.

I have always felt that this is the essential conceptual conflict between Batman and the Joker; that Batman takes everything seriously and the Joker takes nothing seriously, without regard to the situations.  That's why, objectively, Batman is hilarious and the Joker is terrifying.  But that is perhaps another story for another time.

For now, I thank the late Mr. West for bringing sincerity to his role as Batman... and to everyone else's Batman, too.

This'll be one helluva a Heroclix...

Bat-theater and Super-Circus

Comparisons of Batman and Superman are a staple of “comic book literary analysis”. While only the comicscenti can consider, say, the measureless variety of the glory of VIBE, almost anyone who lives within a 100 miles of toilet paper can talk about some of the differences between Batman and Superman.

And about 50 percent of them DO. If I had dollar for every time I’ve read a newspaper article explain that Batman is the archetype for all non-“powered” heroes and Superman the archetype for all “powered” heroes, and every time someone has shared with me the “Gotham=NYC by day/Metropolis=NYC by night” observation, I’d be using the interest my fortune generated to run a personal MegaMillions lottery, every week.

Still, just as “every issue is someone’s first”, every person must discover the Batman/Superman dichotomy for himself, and so it’s an issue that always bears re-examination. My observation today certainly stems from all the regular contrasts between the two World’s Finest, but it’s still one I’ve never heard anyone make in quite this form:

Batman is the theater;
Superman is the circus.

Batman’s professional theatricality is well-known. His origin included pondering what costume he should wear for a frightening appearance. His “disappearing act”, that he uses on even his closest allies. The needlessly dramatic Bat-Signal. As Ra’s Al-Ghul says in the current Batman film trilogy, “I see you took my advice about theatricality a bit... literally!" Batman is a stage performer, waiting in the wings, timing his entrances, and even taking a bow. Like any actor, he is essentially a regular person, who makes himself extraordinary through his dramatic role in a plot, usually as the protagonist against an equally threatening antagonist. And, just like the theater, a Batman story is generally a night-time affair. Anyone else remember where Bruce's parents were right before they were killed...?

If Batman is theatrical, then Superman is circensic (that’s “circus-y” for you less Latinate types). It’s no coincidence that his costume is based on that of a contemporary circus performer; Superman is, at his most basic, a circus strong-man.



He can lift things that you cannot. Like the magic mentalist, he can “see through solid walls”. Like the aerialist, he can fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Although, Superman wears a costume, he’s not wearing to scare you or even to impress you; he’s wearing it to signal “I’m working now.” Like the circus performer, Superman’s attraction is really just What He Can Do That You Can’t. He is NOT an ordinary person, and his extraordinary deeds don’t really require a plot at all. Not surprising, then, that the Superman’s ringmasters – writers – often don’t feel a strong need to build a plot around him; some breezy persiflage that draws attention to the incredibility of what he’s about to do is sometimes all you’ll get. That’s a lot harder for the “directors” of Batman’s plays to get away with.



Like Batman, Batman’s villains lurk in the wings of Gotham preparing to make a dramatic entrance, followed by a quick exit, lest the curtain fall on them at the Act’s end. As characters, they are not aware of the audience, only of the other actors in the play. Most of what Batman does isn’t seen by the citizens of Gotham, just by us from beyond the Fourth Wall. Most of what Superman does IS seen by the public; that’s almost the point. Superman foes, they usually just burst into the center ring of Metropolis (or high above it), in broad daylight. They are well aware of their audience: the gawking spectators below, yelling, “Look! Up in the sky!”



And the Man of Steel, with little other prologue needed, leaps into the ring to accomplish the superhero equivalent of bending the steel bar, pulling the locomotive with his teeth, or lifting the elephant.



Since the only thing required for his act is a Great Feat That Needs Accomplished, the ringmaster often does away with even an antagonist for Superman. He’s just as likely to be dealing with a natural disaster or technological accident as with a real “villain”. That almost never happens with Batman; people don’t watch theater to see actors fight forest fires, they want to see characters in personal and ideological conflict with one another. Small wonder that Superman’s villains are generally considered less developed, motivated, and compelling than Batman’s.



I have mentioned in a previous post that in the Fleischer cartoon, Superman never talks; he is man of Action, just like a circus performer. Batman, however, as a stage actor, needs to talk; heck, what do you think Robin was really for? To give Batman someone to talk to about the plot.

Superman’s supporting cast includes, essentially, other ring-performers (Supergirl,-dog,-monkey,-horse, -cat,-boy) and “ringmasters” (that is, reporters, whose job is mostly to point at other people doing stuff: “Hey, look! Another great Superman story for the front page!”). Batman’s supporting cast includes a former actor (Alfred) and the police’s media frontman (Gordon). And…

Robin, the Boy Wonder. Which helps us realize why Dick Grayson, circus aerialist, was the glue that held the World’s Finest team together. Dick Grayson is the intersection of Batman’s theatrical approach and Superman’s circensic approach. And in fact numerous comic book stories have made the point that Robin/Nightwing is kind of the intellectual offspring of both Batman and Superman’s approach to things. If the New52’s Dick Grayson could be written always with that in mind, combining the best of both world’s finest, Nightwing could become a breakout star of the reboot.

Cool and Unusual

Riddle me this, dear readers! What is harder to become the harder you try to become it?

Answer: Cool.

“Cool” as a label is fairly new when compared to more venerable terms of praise like “nice”, “excellent”, or “great”. “Cool” as a slang for “fashionable”, “in style”, or “exemplary in its good qualities” began in about 1933, in large part due to its usage by jazz saxophonist Lester Young.

Lester Young would have sweated "cool", if he ever sweated.

But the term found broader exposure in the beatnik culture of the 1950s and the term really came into its own, I’d say, by about 1953 when the term “uncool” became common. Nothing so firmly cements a concept that being able to label all things either “X” or “un-X”.

A beatnik One who was so cool, he was also smokin' hot. Woof.

A comparative newcomer in the world of Webster, perhaps, among “slang” words no term has had great longevity than “cool”. Most of its contemporary fellows from the 1930s have aged and withered. Seldom do you hear current teenager describe an option as “jake”, condemn someone as a “whanger”, or dismiss the unlikely as “bushwa”. Yet “cool” remains.

Perhaps it is because the concept it represents is so useful. Even-temperedness, unconscious superiority, effortlessness, indifference to the judgments of others—all the things that teenagers in particular long for so earnestly and (generally) find so difficult to attain are what defines “cool”.

The adolescent within us is always concerned with what is “cool”. As adults we may label it slightly differently (“This character has a richness, charm, and depth that both instantly engages the reader and enables the writer to convey subtle but cogent satire” is really just critic-speak for “I like this character; he’s cool.”), but we are still often concerned with what is cool.

For example…. the essential conflict between Batman fans and Superman fans? It’s not “human” versus “superhuman”. It’s about coolness; Batman is “cool”; Superman is not “cool” (as some people define it).

Batman inspires fear and awe.

As does Superman... in his own way.

At least, that’s the traditional view of the characters. If you consider them as people, however, it’s easy to make the opposite case. Batman is less cool than Superman, as a person, because Batman strives to impress others and Superman does not. Such is the quixotic difficulty of pinning down what is “cool”.

But, as in the riddle above, one thing that is generally agreed upon is that “being cool” can never be the result of a conscious effort to “be cool”. The same can be said of any “cool” substitute, such as “edgy”,“bizarre”, or “outre”. We all know people who try to be “cool” and therefore are not. So, too, there are those striving desperately to be unique, or eccentric. The person striving to be “cool” is seeking admiration or popularity among his peers; the person striving to be “unusual” is seeking individuation from his peers. But the idea is the same.

Which leads me to my real point: Why So Many Modern Villains Suck. They suck because the writers are striving too hard to make them cool or unusual. They don’t happen to be eccentric, which lends them interest; their purpose is to be eccentric, which is not really interesting at all.

Take yer classic villains from Batman’s rogues gallery (or even Flash’s or Superman’s). Are they bizarre and eccentric? Of course. But that’s HOW they do things, now WHAT they do. WHAT they do is being professional criminals: in short, they steal things and kill people as part of the process. They are trying to be successful criminals, they aren’t trying to be bizarre; they simple ARE bizarre.

“Professor Pyg”? “The Dollmaker”? Mr Szasz? Deathstroke? Bane? Doomsday? Sorry, modern writers; you are obviously trying too hard to create characters whose very purpose is to be bizarre or bad-ass. As in the Batman/Superman example above, I make the distinction between the purpose of the character and the purpose of the “person”. Because, sure, when a writer creates a villain, he wants him to be a credible threat and be unique in some way. Nothing wrong with that, I’m not saying there is. But when being bizarre seems to be the only purpose of the “person” the character is… well, that’s just some writer trying too hard to cool. And failing.

Ask yourself which of those the Joker currently is the next time a writer uses him…

Batman: Death By Poetry

How bad-ass was the Golden Age Batman?

So bad-ass that not only would he kill you...

he'd do it with haiku.

HE GAINS THE WING WHERE...
"THIS TIME I'LL MAKE SURE YOU DIE!"
KRUGER'S SHOT GOES WILD.

THE BATMAN HOLDS HIS
BREATH AND FLINGS A GAS PELLET.
"AH- AGH! I'M CHOKING!"

Do not mess with Batman.

The Bronze Age Batman Boogie

I grew up reading Bronze Age comics and, like any sensible person, hating them. I reserve particular odium for the Bronze Age Batman.

In the past I've had difficulty finding ways of expressing my exasperation at this goofball version of the Caped Crusader (though that hasn't stopped me from trying). Somehow, he managed to be less competent than the Golden Age neophyte Batman, less emotionally stable than the irascible Iron Age Batman, and goofier than the space-faring Silver Age Batman.

In fact, the only I like about him is that he used to go dancing. A lot. And not subtly, either. But that's okay, because I like my heroes to dance.

But thinking of dancing gave me an idea. I will express myself just as I do on stage: IN SONG!

And so I give you, to the tune of American Bandstand's theme song (Charles Albertine's Bandstand Boogie, as lyricized by Bronze Age goofball Barry Manilow)...

The Bronze Age Batman Boogie!

I'm Bronze Age Batman!

I'm stupid in my own way.

I'm Bronze Age Batman!

I'm stupid both night and day.

I"m Bronze Age Batman,

and I don't care what you say,

'cause I'm Bronze Age

Batman

I'm goin' swingin'

We're gonna swing in the crowd

And we'll be clingin'

And floatin' high as a cloud

My head is ringin'

I'm always talking out loud

'cause I'm Bronze Age

Batman

And I'll jump, and hey,

I may even show'em my handstand
Because I am the dumb

and wholly incompetent Bronze Age

Batman

when we dance real slow

I'll show every slavering Bat-fan

What a swinger I am,

because I'm the Bronze Age Batman

I'm Bronze Age Batman!

Can't trust a word that I say!

I'm Bronze Age Batman!

I'm goofy, happy, and gay.

I'm Bronze Age Batman!

I let the crooks get away,

'cause I'm Bronze Age

Batman

Stupid

Bronze Age

Batman
Bolas away! Suddenly ten, fighting Big Ben, all in day.

Hey I'm makin' my markGee, my bed is jumpin'

Dick made such a fuss just to go for a driveHey, it's Mr. Dick Gray-
son, he's shedding a tear;

Swell, son! The music's hot here

Dancing in line,
Dance like it's nineteen seventy five!

For an all time-low

I'm caught by the dumb Ten-Eyed Man's hands

Because I am,
Because I'm stupid Bronze Age Batman
I react real slowI'm showin' my ass layed out flat, man!
I fight like a girl,
'Cause I'm stupid Bronze Age Batman

I'm Bronze Age Batman

and I am frequently bruised

I'm Bronze Age Batman

and I am easily rused

I'm Bronze Age Batman

you'll find me often confused

'cause I'm Bronze Age

Batman

I'm Bronze Age Batman,

and I am helpless alone.

I'm Bronze Age Batman,

sometimes I'm Matches Malone,

I'm Bronze Age Batman

and I am accident prone,

'cause I'm Bronze Age

Batman

And I'll shout and pout and grouse every chance I can,

Fight on giant props, just because I canTune in, dope up, turn on, drop out, I'm on

No way! (BATMAN!)