Tag: dc comics

unpretty:

it’s really wild to see how batman has evolved over time as a consequence of writers wanting to change everything while also changing nothing because any comic that lives that long is a shambling stitched-together corpse

early batman is a swashbuckler and he’s having a good-ass time beating up these bad guys, because he existed in the context of organized crime being a big fucking problem. they were coming out of the 1930s. that’s the era of al capone, you know? john dillinger only died five years ago and he was a fucking celebrity. and batman shows up to be like YOU KNOW WHAT’S COOLER THAN SHOOTING PEOPLE AND BRIBING GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS? BEING BATMAN.

early batman could not have been more clearly edutainment, pulpy enough to make kids feel like they were reading That Good Shit but always with a really obvious message (the message was DON’T DO A CRIME). he fights a lot of giants because having to protect yourself from people twice your size is very #relatable to children.

when he adopts robin it’s very clearly to give kids a character to relate to more strongly than they can bruce wayne–FIGHTING CRIMES ISN’T JUST FOR RICH MEN, IT’S ALSO FOR COOL KIDS LIKE YOU. see how cool robin is, kicking the shit out of these dudes? don’t you wanna be cool, like robin? he’s from the circus, that thing you wanted to run away to because that’s a viable life choice in this era!

bruce wayne was rich but his whole cover was that rich people are fucking useless. a man who inherited money? a fucking useless, lazy shit, no question. this was just accepted by everyone, that obviously an heir would never be suspected of doing anything that might take effort. the difference in attitude on a fundamental level toward the idle rich is staggering.

his wealth is also MONUMENTALLY downplayed, in the same way you see in old movies. they deliberately did not film the philadelphia story in an actual mansion because they didn’t think anyone would believe that the rich got to live like that. so bruce wayne ends up looking like he lives in a tract home in a suburb. “is this how rich people live? yeah, sure, probably. who cares, let’s fight crimes.”

they only introduce a backstory after the comic has been going for a while, because at first it’s like? why would he need a reason to fight crime? it’s fun? but i guess they figured they had to create SOME reason for bruce wayne to not be completely useless, as all rich men are. why is bruce wayne the only rich man capable of doing cool shit? because his parents died, that’s why. check out robin kicking this dude in the head. fucking sweet, right?

there’s a whole storyline where batman fights a whole fucking town because it’s corrupt and the cops are corrupt and THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IS CORRUPT so he’s gonna FIGHT THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IF HE HAS TO, FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR COCAINE.

then the comics code happens and fucks everything. batman can’t fight, like, systemic corruption and dudes with tommy guns anymore. all the crimes get CARTOONY AS SHIT. the joker isn’t just a murderous jewel thief with a weird face, he’s a fucking clown. he’s a weird clown man committing clown crimes. puns everywhere. suddenly batman is fighting Supervillains, and they’re all insane. but they aren’t, really? they are a cartoon’s idea of insanity, like a wolf in a straitjacket getting hit on the head with a mallet. when a character is insane what that actually means is they’re wacky, they do weird shit, they have no meaningful motivation and do crimes for no reason because the alternative is having them commit real crimes for good reasons and that’s not good for the kiddos. the fact that batman changed so much after the code is fucking WILD because, remember, it was ALWAYS for the kids. it was BLATANTLY for the kids. the code still managed to fuck it just through the culture shift it created.

then later there’s this shift, again, away from the code and away from kids entirely. late seventies, i think? fuck if i know, i don’t know shit about damn. suddenly they want to be more GRITTY and REAL and DARK. they want REAL CRIME. batman is PUNCHING RAPISTS IN ALLEYS. but this isn’t the era of dillinger anymore. as a society, collectively, we understand more about crime and the societal forces that drive people to crime and so on. there are a lot of alley rapists in this era of comics tbh and this is probably why. rapists always deserve to get punched regardless of class struggle. also at this point we understand more about violence, and people who are violent, who commit acts of violence and solve problems with violence and enjoy being violent. a rich guy having a blast kicking a guy in the head for robbing a bank is no longer great optics.

so batman stops having fun. this is now his dark mission, his grim assignment. he doesn’t like this job, but someone’s gotta do it. he will not smile as he punches a rapist in the head. this is serious business. i don’t necessarily have a problem with this decision, because i think it’s a legitimate course of action to say “in a modern context, these behaviors become unacceptable, and so we will change his behaviors so that he can continue to be a heroic figure”. that’s valid as a motherfucker and i wish more people would remember that the whole point of making batman a grump was so that he could continue to be a good guy, as opposed to the alternative of gleeful violence.

(getting rid of most of the violence is also good–he’s a detective–but these are comics we’re talking about here so lol)

and then there’s the villains. you’d think this would be the point where they say “hey, maybe let’s go back to the way some of our villains were before the code”. you’d think that if they hated the goofy villains so much they’d just move on. but it’s comics so nothing ever goes in the trash for good. and that’s when you have writers who look at a cartoon wolf in a straitjacket and they say “that’s not what insanity looks like! we should make him a sociopath.”

i mean you could have just said “let’s stop calling him crazy and try to find a better motivation for these crimes, like being an asshole” but instead now batman has all these villains with sociopathy and OCD and DID and schizophrenia, because that makes it REAL, because now instead of being cartoon crazy people committing cartoon crimes they are real crazy people committing real crimes!! OH BOY

and at some point someone looks at this and goes “you know i feel like this might be ableist as shit” and writers could have said “yeah in retrospect the only evil clown i’m aware of was legally deemed sane and didn’t actually commit thematically appropriate crimes, so maybe mental health isn’t the issue here” but instead they said “yes, batman is kind of an asshole to be punching these sick people, but he’s a necessary asshole because without him there would be Crazy Crimes and we all just have to come to terms with that i guess”

now we’re at this place where we’re trying to reconcile about eighty years of nonsensical horseshit and all of these decisions that were made because of shifting cultural attitudes or to sell comics or because one writer in particular assumed everyone would love his cool OC as much as he did, and there are writers going “you know, bruce wayne probably has pretty severe ptsd” and there are writers going “what if batman was the REAL villain all along” and there are writers going “lol rich man wears bat costume to punch the mentally ill and poors, did u ever think about that” and there are writers going “hey have you heard of this ayn rand chick because boy howdy i just did and now i’ve got ideas”

but the reality is that heroism and goodness are not static concepts that look the same to all people even within the same era and trying to reconcile every different version of what the popular conception of heroism has looked like for almost a century is dumb as hell and batman should have entered the public domain in 2014

Why Superman should be older than Batman

phantomchick:

Personally I think Clark should be a little older than Bruce, because Superman’s first appearance in comics was a year before Batman’s first appearance.
THAT IS MY OPINIONNNNNN!

Older batman is passé we’ve seen it, it’s been done!
– a more experienced and world hardened bat confronted with the hopeful goodness of Youthful™ Superman?
non
no more

Instead!

A still hopeful but struggling Superman, wounded by the way humanity treats him, as an alien outsider or as a god, (having always to submit to not exerting as much force in situations or getting involved where he thinks it’s necessary in case they all accuse him of being power mad because of the wide gap in power between him and them) and each other; the blind cruelty of man..
GETS CONFRONTED WITH THIS CRAZY ONLY-A-HUMAN BUT OH SHIT HE JUST BEAT THE HELL OUT OF ME THROUGH TACTICS AND HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE BAT OUT OF HELL!

AND THEN THE HUMAN TURNS OUT TO BE A MUCH YOUNGER VIGILANTE WHO KEEPS CALLING HIM AN IDIOT AND MAKES HIM SET UP A JUSTICE LEAGUE WITH THE OTHER SUPERHEROES HE’S WORKED WITH BEFORE AND OH GOD DID HE JUST ATTACK DOOMSDAY BY HIMSELF? AND HE KEEPS ADVISING HIM ON ‘PRESS’ STUFF WHICH CLARK WISHES HE COULD COMPLAIN ABOUT BEING IRONIC BECAUSE HE IS LITERALLY A MEMBER OF THE PRESS AND HANG ON ISN’T YOUR OWN MEDIA ACCUSING YOU OF BEING A LITERAL MONSTER???
And Bruce just shrugs like ‘that’s intentional’ or something (more dagger like to Clark’s poor battered ego) along the lines of ’I’M not the one scared of what other people think of me so long as I’m doing what I need to do for the greater good’ or ‘If I know what I’m doing’s right why should I let the opinions of people who don’t know me effect my work’ and Clark’s just like ‘well damn’.

And then there’s Bruce fucking Wayne who just bought The Planet and is a total cad who when Clark tries to interview him, accused him of being a has been, and maybe he should dye some of those grey hairs – Clark doesn’t HAVE grey hairs he ages extremely slowly but he can’t quip that at WAYNE

And, and just – Superman. Having his world turned upside down by a young Bruce/Batman who forces the set up of multiple superhero organisations and also rejects all efforts by the government to force the superheroes to out their own secret identities if they want to keep fighting with a counterbalanced very airtight proposal of his own – effectively shutting down any chance of a marvel style civil war, while doing his own Demon thing in Gotham.

Superman, a tired well meaning Superman, faced with an uncompromising HUMAN vigilante that is more than his match and just shakes all his world views to their core,
And then suddenly Clark’s getting involved in incidents he never would’ve crossed the line into before (both in team ups and solo) because of governments on all sides that don’t want him there because suddenly he can? He suddenly feels free to do so even though almost nothing’s changed really just his perspective, but now he feels like he can actually allow himself and he won’t cross over into being a monster for it no matter what anyone says and it is intensely freeing. 
Also if he doesn’t Batman’s gonna judge him which would be infuriating because he is literally a goth child who has no idea how hard it is to navigate international politics as a literal alien / most publicly illegal immigrant there is but acts like he gets it better than Clark does and he’s infuriatingly brilliant and intelligent and Clark hates how much he’s starting to relyyyy on him but also kind of loves it because at last at last the weight of the world doesn’t feel like it’s on his shoulders alone anymore, the burden is shared and lifted with their JLA team members who are swiftly becoming Kal’s most trusted allies, best friends and support network all in one and it makes him want to cry out of joy at all the goodness.

I’m tiiiiired of an embittered aging Batman unable to accept the hope Clark symbolises.

GIVE ME YOUNG TWENTY SOMETHING BATMAN PULLING ON SUPERMAN’S CAPE TO FORCE HIM TO LOOK AT THE WORLD FROM A MORE GROUNDED PERSPECTIVE!  

jumpingjacktrash:

roachpatrol:

comedowntheroad:

raptorific:

I still think it’s hilarious that the reason nobody ever figures out Superman’s secret identity or where he lives or what he does when he’s not saving the planet, is because he already told them all the Kryptonian stuff that can’t be tied to any of his human friends or family. I guarantee you the in-universe wikipedia article on Superman lists his name as Kal-El and the “personal life” section says that he lives full-time at his private fortress of solitude at the north pole. Nobody in the world looks at Clark Kent and thinks “oh my god, maybe he’s superman!” for the same reason nobody ever starts to suspect that their coworker who looks KINDA like Barack Obama is actually secretly Barack Obama – They know who Barack Obama is and know what he does and they know their coworker Greg is Greg and not Barack Obama. They have no reason to assume Barack Obama secretly moonlights as Greg The IT Guy at their workplace even though they’ve never seen Greg and Obama in the same place. At best, “Greg is secretly Obama” would be a running joke at the office, and the same is true at the Daily Planet. “Kal-El of Krypton, who lives in a CRYSTAL PALACE at the NORTH POLE and whose dayjob is SUPERMAN, sometimes puts on a suit and pretends to be a clumsy reporter and lives in a one-bedroom walkup in Metropolis” is a ridiculous concept to anyone who doesn’t already know it’s true

@unpretty

“Hey, that— that guy, in the corner, is that— is that Superman?” 

Clark looks up from his computer at the new intern. “Oh, no,” he says. “You caught me.”

“Clark, you pull this shit every time, man,” his desk neighbor Steve says. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No, the kid’s right, I’m Superman,” Clark says. He gets out of his seat and cracks his back out. “I guess we’re gonna have a superhero fight.”

“Clark, sit back down.”

“Nope. Superhero fight.”

“Clark if you don’t sit the hell back down and finish your article by lunch I am going to tell Perry on you.”

Clark points at the intern. “You get off easy this time, buddy,” he says, and sits back down. 

“So…” the intern says, very lost. “Uh…”

“That’s Clark,” a slightly older and more experienced intern says. “He’s Superman’s asshole twin.”

and any time someone gets a little too speculative about batman’s secret identity, bruce wayne spills champagne down a supermodel’s décolettage and the world collectively goes “naaaah”

next time we get a reboot, i want a Batman who isn’t grim, but instead…

ayellowbirds:

ayellowbirds:

he’s unsettling.

Batman’s whole basis is the idea of scaring criminals, right?

well, sure, outright intimidation through brute force works for that.

But the whole reason a bat was chosen is that the average person doesn’t understand how cute and cool they are, and finds them creepy and gross.

So let’s play that up. A Batman who uses his training in escape artistry, stage magic, and contortionism to move in ways people think humans shouldn’t be able to move. A Batman who reacts to things that he shouldn’t be able to (because his suit is wired with sensors and Alfred is monitoring things through hacked security feeds). A Batman who has a Slasher Smile.

Give me a Batman who, for the villains, seems like a cryptid. An urban legend on the level of creepypasta, some half-glimpsed shadow who, instead of being scary because of his muscles, is scary because holy shit what was that? What just happened? I’m outta here, man!

Give me a Batman where his battles with characters like Scarecrow and the Joker seem more like one of those crossover films where two horror movie monsters fight it out.

And then?

Give me a Robin and Batgirl who are the same way.

As of @sapphic-giraffic‘s 

reblog, this had exactly one thousand notes. I was not expecting that, so i feel i should specify in regards to Robin:

I mean a Robin who is unsettling precisely because of people having the reaction of what the fuck is this bright and cheery child doing hanging around with an escapee from the SCP Foundation? 

I mean a Robin who is a little too bright and cheery, maybe. And you start to wonder amidst all the smiles and quips, why exactly this particular “robin red-breast” has that shade of red on their chest. Why the red looks a little more brownish, why this child smells coppery when they lean in close to tell a joke. Are you sure they’re a child? Are you sure there’s just one of them?

While you’re wondering this, back at the Batcave, Bruce and the like six different kids who act as Robins are having a laugh and reapplying the fake blood Alfred bought in near-bulk quantities at the Gotham Party City during the last After-Halloween sale.