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Batman’s come a long way since that first appearance in issue #27 of Detective Comics, with a cover date of May of 1939. At that time, the Nazis hadn’t even marched into Poland to unleash World War II. Superhero comics consisted of only a small handful of other characters, the most significant of course being Superman, who made his own entry into pop culture history the previous year in the April-dated first issue of
Action Comics. Batman borrowed a great deal from the tradition of
the Shadow and
Zorro, as well as a few of the early superhero characters like Superman and
the Phantom. And there was some influence taken from the feature film
The Bat Whispers, too."
"In those early years, Batman was dark and violent, carrying a gun and willing to kill criminals without a second thought. Even after his sidekick,
Robin the Boy Wonder, was added to the mix a year later for additional appeal to younger readers, Batman stories remained darker in tone and full of plenty of violence and death. But after several more years, the youthful nature of readership coupled with a great deal of censorship and absurd public hysteria forced the publishers to tone down the violence and resort to increasingly silly plots aimed mostly at child readers."
14 comments:
As a connoisseur of comics throughout my life even into the now, I've seen how Batman has evolved as a character going from the original vigilante to the intellectually superior detective with all of his gadgets to give him an edge, to going back to the almost vigilante as the Frank Millar Dark Knight incarnation to now being basically at odds with Superman in the latest Injustice: Gods Among Us, where Superman and Lois Lane are married, expecting a baby and the Joker has been let loose from Arkham Asylum again, to beset the city of Gotham with another of his schemes, but his insanity this time takes a more twisted turn when he takes the scarecrow hallucinogenic drug and changes it for his own nefarious schemes. He tricks superman into thinking that Lois Lane is really Doomsday, the only being who was able to kill Superman. Superman freaks out and grabs "Doomsday" (really a pregnant Lois) and sends her into space. When the drug wears off it's to late. He freaks out, flies back to earth, realizes what happens, confronts the joker, then basically kills him by driving his hand through his heart. Then the rift between Batman and Superman really opens up even more. Eventually Superman basically takes over the earth, criminalize criminals altogether, creates a super powered police force and totally takes over, but there is a group of superheros that don't like it and fight back, then the fight between Superman and Batman gets ugly, and Batman doesn't fare to well. But hey, it's all comics so it's just make believe, but it's fun.
But Batman is the #1 comic book character that everyone admires. Above and beyond Superman.
Batman without Robin is like the Lone Ranger without Tonto, Bret without Bart, Stan without Ollie.
Batman was the first evidence of the influence of homosexual propaganda that now pervades popular entertainment.
Think of the premise. A rich confirmed bachelor "adopts" an adolescent boy who he dresses in spandex and teaches to slide down a pole into a cave?
Seriously?
Batman is greatly overrated as a comic book hero.
The best comic book hero of all time is in fact Captain America.
In general Marvel comics are far superior to the cardboard cut out DC versions.
I will however admit that the Catwoman is the best female villain in all of comicdom. Bar none.
Trooper, remember Cap had Bucky Barnes to keep him warm with patriotic furvor.
And the whole Teen Brigade in the later reincarnation!
This is true. But he never made him slide down his bat pole. Just sayn'
Did you ever notice how in the Batman TV show how Bruce Wayne kept telling his ward (Burt Ward how is that for weird) to beware of the wiles of women.
I was recently re-watching some episodes and I was struck by this.
Holy pedophilia Batman!
A teenage side kick was a common trope in the 1940's I grant you. But in the bulk of his career Captain America teamed up with adult peers. His longest partnership was with Sam Wilson (The Falcon) which appears to be part of the new "Winter Soldier" flick.
I do think it is interesting that they changed the Falcon's origin story. Because you will remember what he was originally in the comic book?
A community organizer.
The creator of the TV Batman show died the same day that linked Forbes article was published, so on the 75th anniversary. Weird.
Trooper York said...
Batman is greatly overrated as a comic book hero.
The best comic book hero of all time is in fact Captain America.
In general Marvel comics are far superior to the cardboard cut out DC versions.
I agree with, not because i'm a marvel fanboy, but because I like capt. America so much more.
Although the recent movie incarnation has been tolerable, Captain America has more often than not been an insufferable hippie fantasy of patriotism, mostly, I suspect, due to the influence of the irritatingly counter-cultural Jack Kirby, but Cap got up to all sorts of square-hating in the Nixon years that you can't lay on Kirby, since he was off stinking up the DC universe at the time with their very own set of damn dirty hippies.
They went back to the original focus of Captain America in these new movies. They also reimagined Bucky who became a peer instead of a teenage side kick.
Similarly they seem to have made the Falcon a soldier instead of an activist as he was in what you rightly describe as Captain America's hippie phase.
Listen nobody hates dirty hippies more than me....but you know what...everything they accused Nixon of?
Well Obama did it in spades.
So to speak.
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