Tag: batman

I don’t have the comic with me to pull the direct quotes- but anyone else want to complain about the speech in Batman: Hush that bashes Dick Grayson and Jason Todd to shill Tim Drake as Robin, that not only is that the bad writing happening here but that it also rings very false?

*brief google search later*

Here’s the panel:

image

Now, Hush was the very first Batman comic I read, though I had watched several movies, tv shows, read the wiki articles and followed and listened to the fandom for years – so I wasn’t going into this blind. Preconceived notions and a general idea of what backstories were and thus what would logically fit those.

Then this page. I couldn’t overlook even in the first read-through that this was a) Gross Victim Blaming WTF and b) didn’t line up to what I understood of the bare-bones of why these three characters (Dick, Jason, Tim) became Robin.

Everyone knows Dick Grayson’s backstory – his parents are killed by a mobster, he becomes Robin with Batman so to get vengeance on his parents’ murderer. Distinctions of vengeance versus justice aside, when I read Dark Victory a few months later, that I was seeing an angry little robin gave me vindication. That Dick could find exhilaration, ‘a thrill’, in being Robin and that he was -in comparison to Bruce- more lighthearted about how he went along with life outside and in the cowl, I found to be in-character. Was the thrill why he did it? No. Dick leaving Bruce to become Nightwing was a superhero equivalent of going off to college, wanting some independence from his father-figure when entering adulthood. The nuance seemed a little off, but not terribly so.

Then we get to Jason and Tim.

Oh-boy.

So first a confession of what I knew and my biases coming in. Sometime when I was a kid in the late nineties I learned that there was more than one Robin, that the two other robins were some kid who killed by Joker via crowbar and then another replacement. Something, maybe because young me thought the word crowbar was inherently ridiculous, latched onto the absurdity and later the tragedy of ‘Robin #2 killed by a crowbar’. Then I learned more details of their one-sentence backstories. Jason was a street-kid that stole the Batmobile’s tires. That was very memorable and awesome. Tim was the kid that figured out who Batman and Robin were by following them and taking pictures. Okay, less plausible, less entertaining. More I read up on who Tim was, my strong early impression was “He’s a Batman fan self-insert.” You could have told me he knew who Batman was because he read Batman comics and he got pulled into the comic universe from the real world – because that fanboy character was the exact vibe he had to me. Last Action Hero.

Jason was latching onto becoming Robin because his alternative was poverty and a life of crime. He was the opposite of sheltered rich kid. I couldn’t and still can’t understand this concept of Jason treating dangerous crime-fighting as a game.

But Tim? Whose character was built around a distant admiration of the symbols of Batman and Robin? I could see the “wanted to be the world’s greatest detective”. It made Tim sound like the Riddler, driven by ego of being smarter than everyone else. But if I had to pick which Robin I would expect a comic-book to say “he saw being Robin as a game”, I thought it was obvious that quote would be in regards to TIm. That his arcs would be all about learning the reality behind being a hero. That it was dangerous. What the impacts of crime and social inequalities would be on real people. Basic rookie arcs. And yet the implication of “Tim the best Robin, the only one to know what it’s about”….what.

Still baffled by this.

lysical:

i want the timeline where instead of tim drake’s ‘batman needs a robin’ it’s stephanie brown’s ‘i’m going to fight crime and defy my abusive dad all on my own no matter what you say’ who eventually becomes the third robin. 

batman would’ve wanted her to stop and spoiler would be all ‘lol no’ and batman doesn’t want another partner after jason but spoiler sometimes reminds him of jason in the best of ways and she’s not giving him the option she doesn’t even want to be his partner she’s just gonna do her own thing with or without his help. 

he would’ve brought her in eventually and maybe just as spoiler because jason’s death still haunts his every moment and he sees a lot of jason in steph and it hurts but they aren’t bad memories and he sometimes still compares them but it’s the good things that make him smile about jason and eventually maybe he’d give her the suit and let robin fly again

storyadvocate:

asocialjusticeleague:

whatisthisoutsideyouspeakof:

asocialjusticeleague:

soyelgrancapitan:

jaded4fox:

thankyoulordforhenrycavill:

frankenbaby:

edkn:

Everyone goes on an on about how crazy Batman is to dress like a bat and fight crime, how he’s just as insane as his rogues gallery. But the moment the films portray him with an /actual/ mental illness like ptsd, they freak out and make fun of it ad nausea. Just saying.

Because for nose people, the driven, obsessive Batman is an acceptable kind of crazy. Nolan’s Batman almost seemed a little ashamed of the Bat theme, which is why the vehicles and suit were repurposed military tech and the only concession to the theme was painting them black and the cowl and cape. After Batman Begins, we only saw Bat themed weapons once with the bat darts in Rises. The suit became more like armour. The theatricality was pretty thin after Begins. Besides that, Bruce just seemed like a man with a singular mission, waiting for the moment he could retire.
BvS’s Batman is seriously disturbed. Still having nightmares about his family, still having triggers, he’s unbalanced and dangerous. This is a man who is choosing to dress like a bat until somebody kills him. The bat was his coping mechanism, his comfort blanket, but now it’s just his routine, his addiction.
We finally got a Batman whose mental issues make sense and explain better why he’d dress as a bat and fight people every night, and it gets so much ridicule and misunderstanding.

Maybe it makes them uncomfortable that their male fantasy role model is a man who is dealing with serious trauma and mental illness. A man who isn’t as “cool” as they’d like him to be, as if being cool is the most important thing about him. They’ve attached a sort of toxic masculinity and invincibility to batman. It also shows how mental illness is still an “avoided” topic, how they’ve minimized/trivialized its influence/effect on the character.

Batman and Superman might be the biggest victims of hyper male power fantasy roles out of all the comic book characters.  Batman is dubbed cool because even though he has no powers, he is rich, has no boss and has a shitload of gadgets.  A lot of those Batman fans you guys are talking about don’t see why he should have a Robin and gloss over the moments in the comics where he shows kindness and empathy towards people, especially kids.  They also gloss over his paranoia and the trauma watching your parents get killed in front of you would bring. Hypermasculine men aren’t supposed have feelings or trauma!  They are supposed to do whatever they want consequences be damned!

And then there’s Superman. He isn’t rich, but he does have actual superpowers and is considered one of the most powerful superheroes ever.  Yeah haters deem him too powerful, but I’m not talking about haters.  I’m talking about the Superman fans who scream “Not muh Superman!” when it comes to Henry Cavill’s Superman.  They too buy into the hypermasculine idea that since Superman is so powerful then he must always be right. And since he’s the symbol of Hope, he must always be a perfect role model.  Always smiling,  always be a good example for humanity.  He can never have self doubt, or his own trauma that comes from fighting powerful villains like Zod(”Do the nightmares ever stop?”) A symbol of Hope must have none of these things.  Oh and he’s supposed to be able to save everyone all the time and if he doesn’t then he’s “selfish” and “apathetic”

There are many things about Batman v Superman I am grateful for, but the one thing I’m most grateful for is stripping away that toxic masculinity narrative and showing who Batman and Superman actually are.  They have always been more than the hypermasculine Might makes Right tropes that people want to slap on them.  They’ve been written to be more than that long before Zack Snyder came along.  It’s just nice to see it finally on the big screen

A lot of what you guys are saying is true but it doesn’t justify mass murdering Batman, if you remove that from the movie we arguably have the best Batman on the big screen. And Superman should absolutely NEVER doubt whether or not he should save people. What makes him Superman is that even if the whole world tells him to stop he won’t because he knows he should save people.

I am SO TIRED of this ridiculous argument. If you want heroes with flaws that can be fixed with a band aid inside of a two-hour movie, go back to the MCU they are HAPPY to provide that service. You’re arguing against some of the GREATEST Superman stories ever told right now, probably in defense of the dcau version or the Donner version of this character. Superman NEEDS self doubt, Batman NEEDS to make bad choices, these are just the needs of good storytelling.

Are you hearing yourself?? If the whole world authentically wanted Superman to stop what he was doing, HE WOULD, because he isn’t some bullshit paternal figure, he’s not our god, he is a man who can do more than most of the people on planet, and he absolutely needs to do so with our consent. How terrifying a hero would Superman be if he didn’t consider the consequences of his actions, if he didn’t consider the fallout? If he just DID things based on his own internal sense of right and wrong and never once questioned his choices? This is EXACTLY what Superman stories deal with; what he should and shouldn’t do, what he ought to use his power for. If you aren’t interested in seeing him wrestle with that, what the heck do you come to those stories for??

If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but stop confusing a narrative that’s not to your taste with a misinterpretation of these characters.

I agree with you on superman: self-reflection is a necessary path for his character to take because honestly, it’s a really human thing to do
But Batman indiscriminately killing is not a “hero with flaws” or a different interpretation of the characters
Affleck’s Batman’s mental illness as a fully realized thing was fantastic and incredibly welcome, but taking away his basic moral code of “no killing” ruins his basic character for me
Yes, he’s mentally ill and probably dangerous but the fact that he respects human life and puts limits on himself despite how violent he is makes him an actual hero for me, not a trussed up murderer like the punisher
For all people I follow are saying that this is the most accurate batman they’ve seen, I wanted my batman. A flawed, mentally ill, PTSD ridden vigilante yet with a vast family of orphans and outcasts, a kindness and a strict moral code that he truly believes in
I got a punisher rip off because edgier = deep in today’s comic world. Go figure

I mean, I agree with you that Batman wasn’t acting like Batman and that that was hurtful and frustrating, those are definitely emotions I felt, and if I thought that that wasn’t in a very large way the point of the narrative, I would feel like it was a writing mistake.

But the movie shows to me, over and over again, that we go from a character who IS Batman, running through the streets of Metropolis caring for its people and helping those on the ground, to a character who is basically NOT Batman, the creature that Bruce has created, (with A LOT of help from Lex Luthor, because Lex is a GREAT villain) the man wasting time and effort and resources on chasing a rock in order to execute an alien, to finally being someone on the road to being the Batman we know and love again, someone who respects that 20 years in gotham fighting crime is worth the time and it means something.

I mean, we should KNOW something is wrong because for him to discount all this good work he’s done is frightening and repugnant. It’s a betrayal of those of us who love this character, those of us to whom he means something. Something is very, very, wrong that needs to be fixed. That’s the whole point.

When I say Batman “makes bad decisions” that is a HUGE understatement. In this movie, Batman is destroying everything that he stands for. If the narrative thought he was on the right path, then Alfred wouldn’t be so pissed at him in literally every single scene they share.

Totally agree with that last comment. The Batman that Bruce becomes in this film isn’t meant to be the one we all know and love. We’re meant to see how far over the line he has gone, and how Superman ultimately helps him see that and changes him. We’re not supposed to be happy with the killing, or his obsession with killing an alien on the off chance he’ll go bad. The movie’s narrative clearly shows us it’s different and not ok. This is not who Batman should be.

Alfred is the stand-in for the audience, telling Bruce things have changed and not for the better, showing censure in everything he says to Bruce in this film. That whole exchange in the plane after Batman and Superman fight, where Bruce tell Alfred he doesn’t deserve him and Alfred replies “no sir, you don’t”, and later when Bruce realizes he needs Kryptonite weapons to tackle Doomsday, and Alfred tell him that would be helpful “if he had any left”. Oh the frustration and censure in his tone! Alfred isn’t just being sassy, he’s giving the hard truth to Bruce. If he hadn’t wasted his time trying to kill an innocent man he’d be better prepared. As he is now, Bruce doesn’t really deserve Alfred’s loyalty and service, even though Alfred will continue to give it.

This film was about showing the heroes we love at their darkest and most difficult point, where they almost lose themselves and their purpose. It’s not Zack’s definitive view of these characters, it’s showing that they can still be that symbol of hope and justice even after enduring challenges that strip them to their most basic levels.

This film is about losing oneself and finding it again. It’s about hope and change even in dark times. That Batman that you want, @whatisthisoutsideyouspeakof I’m willing to bet that we will see for real in Justice League. We are continually hearing about how Bruce has been inspired by Clark’s example, that he is more hopeful, that he is more caring, even of the criminals he fights. We’re getting to that Batman, and this was the transition piece to get us there.

This approach may not work for everyone, but I loved it because seeing a hero I love truly struggle and then decide to do what’s right even in the face of loss and hardship is far more affecting to me than one who simply is that way and never deviates. It makes them far more relatable and human to me.

the dark knight returns is an accurate batman characterization and should be a reference point to all batwriters: no
the dark knight returns is an exacerbation of the darkest subtext within the batmythos and therefore most of its relevance is metatextual: yes

raptorific:

I’m fairly certain that the people who make the “batman could make himself obsolete by using his money to solve the economic strain that drives many people to crime” posts are only familiar with Batman through Will Arnett’s spoof performance in the Lego movie, since that’s the only version of Batman I know where he isn’t hiring so many ex-convicts at his company so they have a legitimate source of income and using so much money to fund social programs that all the other bigwigs at Wayne Enterprises hate him and want him gone

Literally every version of his origin story I can remember involves him realizing that he can’t just treat the symptoms as Batman, he has to treat the root cause as Bruce Wayne. A huge part of the plot of “The Dark Knight Rises” is that his company is on the verge of bankruptcy because Bruce keeps spending all their profits on things like “clean energy” and “food and shelter for orphans.”

The opening of “Arkham City” shows him campaigning against mass incarceration because the majority of the inmates in Arkham City are not public menaces like the Joker, they’re desperate people with no other options, and Gotham should be providing them with legitimate means of stability rather than punishing them for having none.

Especially since the majority of his villains are independently wealthy people (doctors, lawyers, business executives) who are exploiting people’s desperation in order to get themselves henchmen, and the henchmen almost always have jobs with a living wage waiting for them on the other side of their sentence, and Bruce has a standing offer to pay out-of-pocket for the therapy of any of his villains whose crimes are the result of a mental illness (which Bruce is sympathetic to since he is mentally ill himself)

But what’s really damning about these posts is that a lot of them suggest Bruce should use his money to give the police the resources they need to deal with crime on their own, which makes it clear they’ve never actually consumed a piece of Batman media, since the issue with the Gotham Police is not that they’re underfunded. They have a bloated budget, they’re almost militant, and they’re so corrupt that they actually encourage crime, both violent and economic, because they’re on the payroll of the richest criminals. 

Also, some of them refer to Batman as a “old rich white man’s wet dream” and I really disagree here. A story that says the only rich dude in the world who’s not a criminal drain on society is the one who spends the majority of his hefty inheritance and all his corporate profits trying to correct the imbalance that allowed him his wealth in the first place, whose staunch belief is that the best crime control policy is building a world where no one feels crime is necessary, as well as refusing to support mass incarceration or police corruption, systems which stand to benefit him financially? Batman is an old rich white man’s worst nightmare. 

Hi LYS! Been a while since I sent in a headcanon: Dad!Bruce is slightly panicking as Little!Jason has not been seen for over an hour and this was his first time out in a public place as Bruce’s son. Scenarios run through his head before he suddenly hears whispers under the catering tables. Bruce lifts up the floor length cloth and sees a watery eyed Jason, knees tucked to his chin and Selina Kyle quietly assuring him its ok to be overwhelmed. Bruce hides with Jason and hugs the boy to his side

lysical-secondary:

; ; how dare

“Tony Stark was an arms dealer”

raptorific:

tonystarkdefenselegion:

So was Bruce Wayne (in fact, Wayne Enterprises had a huge weapons manufacturing wing, way bigger than Stark Industries), yet you don’t see as many bent out of shape antis in the Bruce Wayne tags.

nice try but Wayne Enterprises’ manufacturing wing very specifically does not make military weapons. In the Nolan Films as well as most other tellings of the Batman mythos, Wayne Enterprises will make things like body armor (i.e. the batsuit) and transport vehicles (i.e. the tumbler) but very explicitly does not manufacture bombs or guns, and Bruce himself intentionally discontinues any scientific development he feels could be used to create weapons even if it means sustaining massive financial losses (see: the cold fusion reactor Bruce developed for clean energy purposes and then immediately shelved when a scientist proposed a way to weaponize it, causing the company to all but go bankrupt rather than allow a dangerous weapon to fall into anyone’s hands)

Plus there’s this bit from the animated series:

So, maybe the reason the Bruce Wayne tag isn’t full of “Antis” yelling at him for stuff Tony Stark did is that Bruce Wayne’s biological father was a surgeon and his adoptive father was a combat medic and they both raised him to believe human life is more valuable than profits, whereas the Stark family, unlike the Waynes, literally made their fortune trading in deadly weapons, and Tony’s “heroic” journey is about washing the blood off his hands while Bruce makes a point of trying not to get blood on his hands in the first place?