Batman
“Year One� (issues #404-407)
writer: Frank Miller
artist: David Mazzucchelli
published by DC Comics
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The year 1986 proved to be a pivotal year in the modern era of comics. Back in the halcyon days when comics cost only 75 cents (and I remember being upset by that price jump), several books came out that changed the face of comics. Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Dark Knight Returns. Man of Steel. Watchmen. Swamp Thing. This was a great time to be collecting comic books. Frank Miller, fresh on the heels of his seminal The Dark Knight Returns, turned to the main title, Batman, to write basically a mini-series within the series called “Year One.� Between these two works (along with Alan Moore’s Watchmen), interest in comic books was revitalized, even among non-comic book readers. In fact, so much interest was stirred about Batman that the Batman movie, long languishing in “development hell�, was put onto a fast track, coming out just a few years later (1989).Years later, this book is serving as the inspiration for relaunching the Batman movie franchise as Batman Begins prepares for its debut. (And, by the way, a Watchmen movie is currently in the works.)
This “Year One� story arc spawned a series of “Year One� issues. The premise was simple: what was it like during the first year that the given super-hero donned the tights? The issues examined the emotions that drove them to pursue the life of a hero as well as letting the reader in as they were figuring out their method. Basically, they focused on their purpose, but working it out often proved to be messy.
Miller returns Batman to his roots, including David Mazzucchelli’s Bob Kane (creator of Batman)-inspired rendition. The story is simple: Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City after a twelve year absence after his parents’ death at the hands of a mugger; the event that triggered his war on crime. During that time, he’d traveled the world, training in martial arts and developing detective skills. The idea for Batman hasn’t occurred to him. After a botched attempt to attack the problem as “just another guy�, he’s inspired by the crashing of a bat through his window. Understanding the power of superstition, symbol, and myth, he crafts the image and legend of Batman.
However, the story isn’t about him alone. It is also about Lieutenant James Gordon, the future Commissioner Gordon. New to the Gotham City, he finds that he has to deal with a corrupt commissioner, a corrupt police force, and crime families. All while juggling his marriage to his expecting wife. So while Bruce Wayne is figuring out how to be Batman, Lt. Gordon is figuring out “what it takes to be a cop in Gotham City.�
“You’ve eaten Gotham’s wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over.� –Batman.
Gotham City, for all intents and purposes, is like man’s battle against his sin nature: all temptations and corruption. You see, there are no splashy villains in the story (though we do see Selina Kyle don her Catwoman gear in response to the appearance of a man running around as a bat). Instead there is only the corruption: the relentless, seemingly unstoppable, enemy within.
It never fails to amaze me how the stories of heroes echo the story of Christ.
Here you have a city, a world, caught up in the despair of its own iniquities. A man appears on the scene—before years of experience turn him into the cool, all-knowing, martial arts expert—who’s a “lucky amateur,� but still seems more than a man. He becomes a symbol of hope. He takes quite a beating and more than a few bullets, wounded for their transgressions. But even as he’s about his mission to “cleanup a city that likes being dirty,� he realizes that he can’t do it alone. He needs allies. A united trinity of a lawyer (a pre-Two Face Harvey Dent), a cop (Lt. James Gordon), and a vigilante (Bruce Wayne).
So, as Batman goes about his mission, others join him and in so doing, Gotham City finds out what a difference a few good men can make. Frank Miller triumphs in this bout of simple, yet powerful, story-telling.
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18 Comments:
Oh look, he's done it already, but it isn't a very big one. (This took you several weeks? And you write for a living? I don't write for a living, and I produce more in several minutes! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
(I should record my laugh for you as a .wav file some time!)
Review of "Batman Year One", I mean!
If you want me to bash Miller on the strength of this - well, here is not much bashing to be done, apart from the fact that I found it (the comic) somewhat pompous and boring. But not psychopathic.
Wherever there is fascist dirt, I will weigh in on it! I am the socialist superheroine from Potterland! But I find little of interest here.
What about this Mazzuchelli fool? Where does he fit in? What did he make up, in this thing? Something about the Catwoman, I think.
And I know there was a "Batman Year Two" and "Batman Year Three", I think, but as far as I can remember, Miller didn't write them - or not all of them; did he collaborate? I don't have these books, you see... I have quite a few graphic novels, but not these!
So what was in those?
And didn't Miller write - the thing is, I'm sure I remembered, at the time (1987) seeing a series of books, that looked quite like "DKR", that I thought were sequels to it or something - they looked quite violent.... What were they? Did Miller write anything to go with, or follow up from, the dreaded "DKR"?
"Batman: Year One" even has a mildly idealistic ring. Trouble was, for me, that it was, (and I re-read a couple of parts a year or so ago)... well, kind of trying to be ersatz 30s detective novels, Sam Spade without the Bogart, that kind of thing... Not very glamorous! I just found it phoney; especially since I was looking for... contemporary relevance. Not really nostalgia, at all! Just nothing that encouraged the post-Reagan agenda.
HOW was it taking Batman back to his "roots", anyway, when in the actual vintage comics, there were hardly any stories like this?
The first Batman story, or nearly the first, featured him chasing around things like vampires and monsters (there was one King-Kong like monster!) in a foreign land!! (Eastern Europe or something! I don't have my Batopedia to hand!)
So much for all this "authenticity". Guys, fanboys, you are all full of it!
Full of it!
Just telling you!
Superheroes as Jesus. Well, OK. (I personally THINK that the Batman is NOT most like Jesus, when he goes about pontificating about "how he can make a difference" as "a good man".
I personally find the Batman most Jesus-like when he REFRAINS from doing in the Joker, or any of the others, even though of course he could - just like Jesus calling the angels? - no matter HOW many times the villains try to kill him - THAT, of course, is the truly archetypal, defining "situation", of the comic.... And like Jesus commands, he forgives his enemies "seventy times seven", even though they keep on doing the SAME damn rotten things (or at least they used to! That again was the point - that the type, the LEVEL of the villains' offences never changed - they just did the same thing, varied, in circles!)... That was how it was supposed to be! Like a Goldberg Variations! ENDLESS! You can tell I'm a musician!
They keep on doing the same damn rotten things!! (Like sinners, in the Christian parlance, OK? Like dogs returning to their vomit and so on.) But he has patience; he has calm, he has Zen indeed, (did the old Batman! He was very Zen!), far more than me, for I KNOW he says to himself: "One day my way will prevail... They will see their error, eventually..."
(Or he did!)
It gave me the sensation that HE knew something that both I, and the villains, my companions in sin, didn't!
I liked that feeling!
He had my respect for it!
Miller's Batman knows no such thing, I would wot. Well, he's certainly no Christian - nor Buddhist.
Well, anyway. And Batman proper also fulfils the myth of the old "corn gods", as Lewis too called them, sorry if it sounds corny, but I think that's the correct anthropological definition! He shows us he is like all of these - Jesus, and Osiris, and John Barleycorn, and ALL these archetypes, when he takes "punishment", is seen to suffer, the villains have a good laugh, he nearly succumbs, we think he's had it...
But there he rises again! Eucatastrophe, as Tolkien would call it!
(He's better than Superman in this regard, because Superman doesn't suffer; go through a passion or a struggle! Batman involves our emotions as a good sacrificial deity should...)
And you know what? Neither I nor the Joker would have it any other way... We are both lost in admiration. Behold the Man!
Ah, Maurice, I hope you don't mind ME waxing religious for a change...
Just one or two final remarks; I cannot be bothered "chasing Miller" on the terms of this at all, as you can see...
Let's discuss the Christian attitude towards superheroes and hero archetypes.
You know, before I met you guys, I had this idea, because of other experiences, that Christians DIDN'T really like the idea of heroes, AT ALL; except of course for Jesus, or Bible heroes, either those who followed the Master, or Old Testament Jewish heroes who were right with God.
But I always thought they saw heroes as a rather evil or pagan idea, especially the idea of SUPERheroes!! Who have powers, or are unbelievably talented, or something like that... I thought - no listen - that Christians on the whole felt, that "powers" like that, surpassing those of most normal people, were actually from the Devil, or so they thought, as in the case of Paganini, or other "demon violinists", you know, virtuoso musicians... In times past, superstition or the superstitious used to say that all those superlative skills came from the Devil, didn't they?
Well I thought they did! And aren't there all these hymns, there used to be at my school, saying that followers of God can't rely "on the strength of their own right arm", or whatever!! I wish I could remember the title of the hymn I heard that in? It could be, I think it is: "Stand up, stand up for Jesus/Ye soldiers of the Cross..."
When I was a kid I thought impatiently: But what am I SUPPOSED to rely on, (apart from my family and school), but the strength of my own arms, etc? And legs? And head? I mean, Jesus might be great, but everybody knows he's not going to just pop out of the sky and save people who are in difficulty.. If he were going to, he would have in that news programme about the earthquake I saw last year.... So thought I, as a primary school pupil!
(Superman might be a bit more help! I also thought. Hence my liking for comics.)
So, much as it pains me to agree with a right-wing atheist pain in the ass, I agree with Nietzsche in this, that Christianity as a religion APPEARS to foster weakness... I mean, if it tells kids they can't rely on themselves... who ARE they going to rely on? One worries about them being taught passivity and falling prey to paedophile priests, or any other kind of abuser!!
That's just what I thought and still think, in a way. But seeing that, as a child, I was always able to take things with a pinch of salt anyway, and I was never personally likely to not stand up for myself! I didn't have that sort of personality; I come of stronger stock! So I didn't worry. Then or now.
But you know, that realization, that Christians don't seem to like INDIVIDUALISTS, the strong (even headstrong)stock that obviously formed our tribal heroes in the past (again a bit Nietzschean, but there you are!)... Well, that realization came to me several times as a young person. One time I was reading a book called "The Many Lives of the Batman", by Pearson and Uricchio, I think - an examination of the Bat-phenomenon from the Sixties series to the present - it was published in the early 90s. And in it, I must look it up sometime... But I - again, foolish me! I must have over-expectations of Christians! Well, anyway, there was some sort of a Reverend quoted, as saying some stuff about the new Batman, of the movies and graphic novels... And PREVIOUSLY I would have thought that he would be denouncing them for brutality, or something! (Now a Christian socialist would be!)
But he didn't say ANYTHING about that! Instead, he said something like: "I am unsure whether any human being, even one as talented as this Bruce Wayne, would be worthy of, or fit to, have such power as the Batman"... without the benefit of God, kind of thing! All these preachers just use any old springboard to work God into the conversation!
I would have thought God wanted you to improve his world from the terrible state He (or sin, if you like!) left it; not just call on His name all the time.
Another time, even earlier than that, I was discussing the "Batman" comics with my very own Reverend, at my college, who... let's say he was a friend. (And sparring partner! And nemesis! There was something of the dangerous even about him - which of course I liked!)
But anyway, when I kind of cornered him on the subject, and asked him "well, wouldn't you like to be a superhero"? And just stuff about the Batman... Which we were discussing... Well, I could see HE didn't like the idea, not just of the Batman per se, or of a detective-cum-"vigilante"... He just didn't LIKE the idea of these POWERFUL, individualistic kind of people, both superheroes and supervillains, bestriding the land, doing what they wanted, (he had a problem with people who did what they wanted, or wished to do so!) and basically just fighting each other (like the heroes of old!) And having a great time at it!!
I think he had problems with pagan myths and Greek and Norse mythology for very much the same reason!!
I can't remember exactly what he said, but he didn't like any of it! He didn't like the idea of "heroes". Full stop. Period.
(The funny thing was, he was actually quite tough himself, and one of the few men, a-hem, who could actually stand up to me - though part of that was because of superiority in age and social station, etc. Still - I can psychologically arm wrestle, and I couldn't do it to him! But then he couldn't - make me believe the way HE wanted, either, and I'm not saying he was trying to force religion on me, because there was yet ANOTHER dimension to this situation, which I'm not saying! And it wasn't what you might be thinking!!)
I think most of these Christians have a problem with the idea of freedom! And they have no sense of adventure! And they want a set of restrictive laws to lead them around by the hand all the time!
THAT's what superheroes didn't have. They had rules, all right, but it was the Code! Chivalry! Bushido! Much better!
Then a load of old things out of Deuteronomy - or the legal law books for that matter - telling you what to do!
Americans! You're still a bit of a TRUE individualist culture, aren't you? Well you were!
Maybe it's English Christians who have most problems with heroes, I don't know! Maybe because he was a vicar of the Established Church and still symbolically under the thumb of King George! You tell me!
Glad to know from your profile site, Maurice, that at least some Christian ministers aren't so stuffy as to stifle young boys' heroic fantasies!
But there you are. I got this feeling: Christians and their clerics in general, don't like the idea of "tall poppies". Neither do any dictators. Stalin didn't. If I were truly a Marxist I would worry that even Trotsky didn't! However seeing as I am more along the anarcho-socialist part of the spectrum, I can do and say what I like and I always shall!!
(Maybe until somebody gives me a real job or a ministership!)
Mm. With regard to "Batman: Year One", the only interesting part of this plot, seems to me that Miller or whoever, has thought of the idea of there being an initial triumvirate, of lawyer, cop and vigilante. (But how is Bats REALLY a vigilante, if he does not "mete out justice", ie hurt people? Illegally punish them? That's what vigilantes in the Old West did, anyway! This question of definition has never been answered.)
But anyway, so these writers cooked up the idea of there ORIGINALLY being a trio, of Wayne, Gordon and Dent, did they? That's an interesting idea! I think I've read the same in some prose novels or other.
MY interest as a "plotter", would start here: not so much in how the early gang progressed, but the really interesting point for me would be, HOW Batman felt when Dent was not so long after, "snatched away from him", as it were, away from this early friendship, this little boys' club, the good boys' club, band of brothers??
To join all the EVIL people he (supposedly) hates, like the Joker! And the gangsters, and all that.
Which is chronologically supposed to have happened first, then, according to these clever dicks?? (I bet they're not: I bet they can't plot for toffee; not even to the standard J R R Tolkien could plot, never mind J K Rowling!)
I'm asking, Maurice, whether YOU know - for it's an interesting question! So, according to all these suppositions here, WHICH "transformation" happened first, as a matter of interest... Dent's transformation into Two-Face or the "Red Hood's" (now there's an interesting nickname!) transformation into the Joker?!
(I think it must have been the Joker who went first! Because he met the Joker, as the Joker, before he met most of the other villains... So he must have met him as Red Hood, on that fateful day, well before!!)
But in the ORIGINAL origins, he has Robin with him, I do believe... And that throws up "continuity" problems of its own!!
But anyway... Isn't Batman really thinking, shouldn't he really be thinking, in the "early years" stories, about Harvey Dent, thus: "Damn! I shouldn't have lost Harvey Dent; and I've got to get him back, somehow! I've got to undo the damage that's been done, and get things back to how they ideally WERE, in Gotham!" (With the triumvirate, or trinity, as you call it.) (!!)
"I've got to reform at least Harvey Dent; and get him away from the awful moral company of those who are now his peers; ie, the Joker, the Penguin, the syndicate plus the "weirdos"! They're all having a good laugh at me, and at the "good guys' side" in general - because they KNOW we've lost one to them; one of our greatest assets!"
I KNOW that's what he'd think! For I know the Batman!
As I know all they lot!
So there would be a lot more fuss being made about the fate of Harvey Dent, then there actually is, in this case. The Batman would NOT be minded to be so stoical about it! What is that Bible verse? You can quote me chapter and verse! The one about the shepherd putting himself out most for the one sheep that strayed right away from the rest of the flock!! And being really glad to get it back!
TRULY there are religious messages in comics! Well there COULD be! Better ones than can be found now! If they were written properly...
Anyway, there should ALWAYS have been much more discussion about the possibility of reforming the "bad guys", than there always WAS, in this comic! That was one of its MAJOR flaws! One of the title's FEW old-time flaws! Probably why it all went wrong in the end, because nobody thought to repair it!
(NO redemption = fascism.)
It's not that they're incapable! It's just that nobody's really tried with them, have they? And any who HAVE felt an affinity with, a sympathy for, any of the villains - eg Harley Quinn, in the later comics, in Dini's imagination - well she's gone off to JOIN the sod! Join the dark side! NOT exactly the best blueprint to reform a criminal!!
(But flaming fun!)
THESE COMICS HAVE ALWAYS HAD A PROBLEM - actually it's more like an "unfinished theme" like the stub of a symphony - WITH THE IDEA OF REDEMPTION/REFORMATION.
Actually, I have a theory, or the beginnings of a literary one, which would cover the ENTIRE THING! And would explain why and how it is all to be solved! But that I WILL NEVER part with; not unless either a) DC employ me b) license the characters to me c) I publish it all on the web, as a finished graphic novel (a whole set of them actually) and damn them all! Probably just before I die, if I can get it all ready!!
But nobody REALLY knows the secrets of Gotham! Except me! And I'm not telling! And I probably wouldn't be "believed" even if I did; 'cos it's too way out for you lot!!
Flying saucers are probably too way out for you lot!!
actually, i'm an environmental toxicologist. i do that for a living. i write on the side, though most of it is horror fiction. it actually doesn't leave me a lot of time to do reviews (or reply to posts in a timely way).
based on the success of "year one" there were subsequent "years". i believe that marv wolfman wrote "year two." none matched the success or impact of miller's year one, however.
you might find batman's roots more objectionable than you think. he used to carry a gun when he first appeared.
christianity is full of paradoxes. the whole strength in weakness thing being one of them.
and as a socialist, i wouldn't think that you would place a premium on individualism either, though i might be misunderstanding socialism.
but i think the idea of super-heroes would appeal to christians rather than be an issue to be condemned. what do super-heroes do? they put feet to their faith, joining in God's mission to be a blessing to the world. they do in the extreme what christians should be doing in the ordinary.
i believe that the joker went from the red hood to the joker and later harvey dent became two-face. but, as miller pointed out in "the dark knight returns", bruce wayne never gave up on harvey dent. he saw too much of himself in harvey.
I tried posting before on this section, and it got wiped off before it posted! I think my computer doesn't like the fact that you can only see the comments on this section if you open a special comments window - I hate those things anyway!! Because the full list of commands doesn't appear at the top of the frame...
Another thing I would redesign if I ruled the world!
Well anyway. I know you're an environmental toxicologist, Maurice. I'm sure it's a worthy and definitely a full-time job. I was only teasing... I sometimes forget people can't hear my tone of voice over Internet posts... It is sweet, I do assure you!
(Only my laugh's evil!)
What precisely does an environmental toxicologist do, anyway? (Actually it sounds like a good previous job for a Batman villain - before they turn into Mr Freeze or Poison Ivy or something, you know what I mean!!! Heh heh!)
Yes, you DO misunderstand socialism, Maurice! I will endeavour to explain a little of the whys and wherefores below. But first, if ANYONE thinks "Bush is doing a good job", or anything like that, or that socialism is impossible/irrelevant/not wanted in the USA because y'all is doing so well, take a look at this reference: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/wage-m16.shtml
Enjoy!
Why would "Year One" have had a great "impact" if it had very few ideas in it, apart from the idea of "the early collaboration"? (Something which is no good unless you build on it - which Miller never does - he just writes something in Batman and then goes and effs off, leaving a mess in his wake! Reminds me of that aphorism of bosses being like seagulls, ever heard it: "They come in around here screeching, eat everything worth having, crap over everything and leave!")
HUR!
But I forget: the ways of "fanboys" are beyond me and beneath contempt a lot of the time...
How about comics winning themselves some more "fangirls"? Women spend a lot more on books and publications than men - that's why all the magazine publishers and book clubs are interested in them as their major market! But comics publishers think they know better and hence are still stuck in the Dark Ages.
So, YOU, like me, think that the Joker was the "original sinner", in the Batman comics? The FIRST of them to "fall"! (LITERALLY in his case! (And if you think about it, he's also the "fall guy", which has another meaning to it, an occult one, which I am anxious to explain to Paul Dini,if I get a chance!)
That's what always attracted me to these comic books - the bitter irony!! But originally it all had a positive tinge... Much was impliedly promised, that "all manner of thynge shall be well", as Julian of Norwich said... You must know who SHE was!)
But I always thought the Joker was the first to "turn"... Out of all of them, those talented men and women, who became the villain contingent of these once-delightful comics...
Out of all those that had a defining moment of going bad, of course! But when you think about it (and I have, long ago!), the Penguin must have been going as a criminal even longer than the Joker or any of them, because he's older than most, for one thing, and because, he was "disfigured" from birth, wasn't he? (And highly embittered by his educational experiences as a minor!) So he was probably a crook from his teens! (When Batman was a still a baby!) Now there's a thought!
(One I'm sure a not really very good writer like Miller is totally uninterested in!)
Batman's roots being "objectionable"? AH, but my scholarship is superior to yours in this regard, Mr Broaddus!! Because I don't have to rely on 90s encyclopedias by the likes of Mark Cotta Vaz and his mates, who are right-wingers who only want to mislead me...
I haven't yet had access to the originals, but patience, patience...
I've been all over the other, older encyclopedias... And I can tell you a few things, as I already have!
Firstly, this thing about the Batman "originally" being a "gun-toting" vigilante, is yet another crock! (And there are so many, in modern comics "thinking"!)
There was ONE early comic, OK, just one, which showed him toting a gun on the COVER... Like some covers, this was, I believe, pretty misleading and just a case of tempting the reader to buy it through sensationalism... because inside he doesn't use it.
Ha! Ha! (Another modern comics myth bites the dust!)
Another factor in my argument is that I'm not really very IMPRESSED anyway by anything that occured in early Batman comics (read that as any of the few issues published in Detective Comics in 1939, before he got his own title in 1940, and ESPECIALLY before what I think of as the "real set-up", ie Robin and the first two or three of the major costumed villains, was devised).
I'm not, Maurice, because the fact is, that most characters - especially "cartoon" characters, have their PROTOTYPE. I've seen what might be counted as an early Bugs Bunny cartoon, a prototype in effect, where I think Bugs already has his name (don't quote me on that!) and he has SOME of the characteristics that would later allow him to go on to be famous and archetypal, but not ALL of them, by any means... And the portrayal in this ancient cartoon is "off course", a bit, of what we think of as Bugs Bunny... Well NO-ONE in animation has EVER said, to my knowledge: "Hey! That half-assed Bugs Bunny Warner Bros. started with, way back now - he was the REAL Bugs Bunny, let's go back to him!!"
(Although I know that Warner recently HAVE been doing some certainly objectionable stuff, or piloting same, for Bugs, Daffy and one or two others of their traditional characters - which has already got them into controversy for other reasons and which will all prove to be a costly flop... That's material for a whole other discussion!)
Likewise, NOBODY would nowadays say that "Steamboat Willie" was the "real Mickey Mouse", rather than a prototype of Disney's flagship character.
So all you comics "fanboys" have simply concocted a crock, just because you wanted to create and push something more right-wing!
See Maurice! I've THOUGHT of all this, long before YOU have!!
I see through YOU ALL!!
Yes I do!
And AS for what Miller's Bruce Wayne, or rather Batman, "does" for Harvey Dent... That's rather pathetic, as well... And just another annoying aspect of "Dark Knight Returns."
As Bruce Wayne, Miller has his hero pay for a plastic surgery operation on Harvey Dent. (Has Bats never thought of this before?! Remiss of him!)
But when the operation goes wrong for some unspecified reason (!!!!)... Bats doesn't say "Back to the drawing board!" with a sigh. Instead, he lets Harvey fall off the top of a tall building... So far as I can see from the drawings, anyway, which are like a poorly shot movie in which you can't see what's going on for some of the time!
YEAH, he/Miller REALLY does Harvey some BIG favours, now doesn't he?
That REALLY counts as "not giving up" on your old pal, and as a truly "Christian" act of redemption, DOESN'T it?
I think not, my friends!
The trouble with the modern Sir Bat is that he is not pro-active and definitely not positive enough. In all these portrayals, Miller's included, he sits on his ass moaning. "Why am I a Bat?" "Why did I call my car the Batmobile?" "Why did I lose Robin?" (Well, though, you can see that was MILLER'S idea from the first - yet another of his evil plots!)
The Miller/Moore/Morrison version of the Batman is a pathetic moaner!!
Whereas, in OLDER, better days, Batman definitely WAS prepared to put himself out and on the line a bit, for people like Harvey Dent... (I always wondered why he never EVER tried with the Joker, though... THAT would be a hard nut to crack, but it might be fun to try!)
(He's just too scared of the Joker making a pass!)
But anyway, I remember an old Mike Barr story, where Bats gets together with a female criminal, I forget her name now, but she's disfigured too, and they try hypnotism on Harvey Dent! True! And they nearly succeed!!
See! Being pro-active and positive! That's what being a superhero (should) be all about!!
I'll have to post this now, before my hard-won wisdom gets wiped off by your software again!
Socialism! I can't let you get away with your above remark here!
Yes, of COURSE, socialists, most of them, are interested in "individualism", and are prepared to place a premium on it! "Individualism" as read as the right for each individual to develop themselves, their own talents, their own personality and abilities and human potential to the fullest possible extent...
As will be made FAR more possible in a more advanced society, a less money-grubbing society, and one NOT dominated solely by the profit principle...
There won't be any people in "dead-end jobs" in a socialist society!
To use comic-book analogies, you won't have any talented people (like me!) going out of their MINDS with boredom, and either sitting on the sidelines, like unused sports players, or TURNING TO CRIME and doing all the financial elite's computers over, writing viruses, plotting robberies like Red Hood or various schemes to give themselves, the underdog, financial and personal dominance, as Jim Carrey's Riddler (justifiably!) attempts in "Batman Forever"!
(Which was the only one out of the Batman movies that had a plot which really made sense! But it wasn't perfect as a project, because the cutting was done badly, I later found out...)
What do you think we are these days - a bunch of old Soviet Stalinists?
(Who have all been discredited these days, as wsws.org says, and most of them, eg. David Blunkett in Britain, have gone to join the establishment - AS such authoritarian individuals tend to do!)
Go and ask Noam Chomsky, as well, whether he "places a premium on individualism"! Or not!
Of course, we're not meaning the old PURITAN sense of financial individualism, everybody working for himself to make himself prosper, (often at the expense of their black slaves and so on), giving a few crumbs to his less fortunate neighbours, and making anyone who doesn't conform to his community stand up on a scaffold with a scarlet letter pinned to their breast...
In fact, TRUE socialists are MUCH more impressed with the Enlightenment American ideal of individualism and democracy, as expressed to its quintessence in the American Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and so on and so forth, where it says that "the pursuit of happiness" should be the individual's goal. (As opposed to the pursuit of individual repression and misery, as espoused by the Puritans and all their philosophical brethren since!!)
I would say that most socialists nowadays could agree with those old Enlightenment ideals. With THAT idea of freedom! My current political guides, the World Socialist Web Site people, certainly seem to!
And YOU need to read an essay by the famous/infamous Oscar Wilde, Maurice, one of his most famous essays, indeed, though I don't think it's nearly as well known as it should be in these times. "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". It is to be found in all cut-price one-volume editions of his collected works, which is where I have my copy. It should also be published singly... Let me have a look on Amazon for you and your friends... Wait...
http://www.amazon.com ... actually, just type in the words "Soul of Man Under Socialism" yourself, seeing as I can't actually post a link on this blog (can I?), just write web addresses out... All the ones for books on Amazon are interminably long and if you can't post them as a link it's not worth the candle.
(By the way: Oscar Wilde was a hedonist, so is the Joker, so am I... and it's one of the secrets of life, actually... But Christians would never think so! They've got the spectre of those miserable men in black hats lurking behind them... Of whom I think Frank Miller is a modern incarnation! By the way! But then, ol' Oscar was just as capable of agonies and religious sentiments that would fascinate the committed Christian, so don't think you'll be short-changed there!)
Yeah. And my remarks about "Christians not liking superheroes as an ideal" in my first post up on this blog, wasn't a blanket attempt to say: "All Christians are..."
I'm far more interested in tendencies and trends! (And "memes", but that's a whole other theme!)
You weren't listening to what I said in this regard. Which annoys me, when I go so far as to confess personal experiential detail!
I was saying, that in MY own personal experience, in both my reading and what this Christian Reverend I knew said to me... Well there IS a tendency, among such "authority figures", to NOT like the "rival" authority figures or ideals which superheroes might provide (kids with)...
I'm not saying that ALL Christians HATE superheroes, or have to hate them as a matter of course... I'm just saying that there's a certain TENDENCY, among some of them, to be suspicious of such "attractive" figures... Such INDIVIDUALISTIC figures, indeed... Maybe because they don't "need" God... Come on, very few superheroes in comics profess to any sort of a religion, now do they?
And maybe it's that factor that certain clerics don't like!
And MAYBE THAT'S ALSO the reason why certain Christians, groups and Christian leaders disparage Harry Potter! For VERY much the same reasons! Because Harry aspires to personal power, not over other people, but over himself, his own life and destiny, and of course, over nature - which is what magic/technology gives one!
And Harry doesn't cling to a God's sleeve all the time!
(It's just that I've been trying to work out WHY there is this anti-Potter movement, for AGES, Maurice! And I think I'm onto something, by linking Potter to superheroes, and linking "anti-Potter" to the "anti-superhero" sentiments I've heard expressed, by the people I've told you have expressed them! NOT precisely the same groups of people, but I think their notions are linked!)
Just this above last is an entire theme in itself, Maurice!
As are all my ideas about Christianity and superheroes! Let alone those about socialism!
I abound with ideas and themes, Maurice!
You'll never keep up with me! (She challenges!)
Oh yes, and before I wait for you to respond (as I know you eventually will!), I will just stop to rub in what MUST be viewed as my "eternal" take on Batman, which is, that it IS, in toto, and how I see it as it was always meant to be, the most "bittersweet" of all heroic comics.
That refers to my remarks on the "bitter irony, yet positive tinge" of the old Batman strips.
IN FACT - another connection/analogy here - THAT approach was very, VERY much like the one Joss Whedon has in his justly cult BtVS - VERY positive outlook, yet dark bits and LOADS of irony - eg, the superheroine of that has the SILLIEST name and most unlikely social status possible - Buffy, (actually that's short for Elizabeth, isn't it?!) a high school student - she lives in a town with the "innocuous" name of "Sunnydale" which is situated DIRECTLY over a "Hellmouth", and SO ON and so forth... ALL of which YOU, you clever so-and-so you, have ALREADY pointed out... But you haven't proved capable of applying it to Batman, because of your hang-up as a fan of Frank! (N. Stein I would like to dub him!)
Which is WHY, as I have SAID, Maurice, the ultraintelligent and talented Joss Whedon would have made, in an ideal world maybe, a FAR better "interpreter" for modern times, of the Batman "legend", than Frank Miller, Tim Burton or any of these tits!
Capiche??
since i'll be gone for a while, you can e-mail me off board. my e-dress is maurice@mauricebroaddus.com.
Thanks Maurice.
By the way - I've noticed "Batman: Year One" is on the comic book section now!
It's developed very quickly over a couple of days and nights!
Nice one!
BUT IT WAS ALL MY IDEA!!!
Don't you forget that....!
Mr Bruce, I don't know if you know it, if you're eavesdropping as is your right, but it's true...
Though you guys will probably say that you were kind of thinking of unifying various previous submissions in this manner before... OK!
you're close. it was kevin miller's idea at the beginning of the year. you did provide the impetus for us to get our butts in gear and get it done.
Only close?? And I'll tell you something, else, Maurice, I gave DC Comics an idea for a new site for their comics, through their webmaster on their message board, some young chap with some funny name which I daresay I can look up... Rob Kampmeister or something... DC Kids, which they did NOT have back in 1999 or 2000 or whenever, they just had a REALLY unattractive basic page which was obviously meant to appeal to their few adult fans and no-one else... Well, I told them to put up a site called "DC Kids" - and sometime between then and now, they did!!!
MY IDEA!!
So! (But I know that when you say something like that, everyone does their best to remember something else someone else said on the theme, or something they said they were considering before you turned up... My mother had that very experience herself! Ideas men/women are not much appreciated.)
The villain is the outsider. He is also the great catalyst. He gets everything started - and afterwards, the hero or hero's side has really very little recollection of how it all started.... They think it was a natural process, that it just all turned out like that, by itself!
But it DIDN'T happen like that! It was the abrasive figure of the villain, the catalyst, the troublemaker, that got it all going, and broke the "hero" from his eternal complacence.
From Lucifer onwards, has it always been thus!
And we NEVER, never get appreciated! Whether our name is The Devil or The Joker!!!
In fact, the value of our contribution rarely even is acknowledged.
(I'm just telling you, Maurice, because I KNEW it would happen, as I can see MOST things coming these days... and anyway, the theme of villains as catalysts and their LACK of appreciation by the "straight men" - who of course think that all events stem from them and everything is their idea, sorry... Because that's the way it ALWAYS looks like to them... Has been on my mind for ages!)
Anyway, I'm SURE it was SOMEONE who put me onto it in the first place, because unlike some people I like to trace and acknowledge my sources... But I'm sure it was a children's writer who introduced me to this idea of villain as catalyst, as facilitator, a long time ago.... I think it was probably Russell Hoban, possibly in connection with his excellent: "The Mouse and His Child".
It's just another of my obsessions.
Kevin I hope you read this bit too.
Yes, that's right, I'm evil. And an outsider. And I always will be.
No I'm not, I'm just lacking in self-esteem!!
The trouble is, for people like me - our harshest critic is ourselves. (Which is why we're never going to cut anybody else any slack, either!)
It's actually quite hard, to live with the kind of nature, including complex moral nature, that I have.
As a young woman, just embarking on adult life and due to go on a foreign work exchange, I was described by a sympathetic interviewer, an older woman, as "upright". Very upright!
I think that defines me very well, or it did once, even down to my bearing, my stance.
Overweight and depression plus a bit of cynicism might have bowed me a bit!
But basically, the kind of nature I labour under is best - and very oddly - described, I feel, as "upright villain"!
That's actually what I am! To a T!
I think Socrates knew what I meant, when he said something like he had the base nature of a pig or a bad man, or something similar, but he had worked to overcome it... His higher side overcame it!
I can usually overcome my Joker-like flipside! (I used to run off negative energy like a battery, though! Found it VERY useful!)
But it just seems to ME, sometimes, like I wonder why I BOTHER - when everybody else, not you guys (you're SWEET, my dears! You've seduced me, already!)... But people who get all the MONEY, people who work for Hollywood and that... EVERYBODY who seems to get the "acclaim" these days, particularly in the political sphere... And on TV, and all sorts of other places! In the basic "culture" - the one that is fostered by the modern "deep pockets", anyway...
Are all TOTALLY uncivilized!
I really think we're living in a new Imperial Rome... Full of all the vices and hypocrisy POSSIBLE.
liz, you are neither villain nor outsider nor unwanted. i'm glad to see that you've chosen to engage our site. we're always glad for diverse voices in our conversations. we enjoy having you around (though shorter posts would be appreciated. (-:)
you have brought up an issue that gets touched upon in this storyline. does the rise of the hero signal the rise of the villain or do heroes arise out of a need to face the villain? and are there darwinian forces at work?
i raise this because, as presented in this story, masked villains didn't appear until after batman makes his appearance. but batman arose to face the evil that was present. it seems that in order for heroes to be heroes, they must face opposing forces either their equal or their superior. there's nothing heroic about pounding on someone you heavily out-class.
But Maurice, I so deeply WANT to be a villain - it's my romantic dream! Too deep to be unseated - one analyst's already tried - failed, dismally! %-0
That aside, I guess I'd better just get on with the unromantic business of life and communication, and behave myself... (Sigh! I hate behaving! But I have always had to do it!)
I'll make shorter posts, and if I've got anything more involved to say, I'll post a link to these new blogs I'm going to do... I'll get myself sorted. I'm glad of your suggestions, that you think me worth... encouraging...
Yes, Darwinian forces at work... Good of you to raise the matter!! Archetypes, too, being part of evolution... or at least the Wikipedia article says they are!
Good job you're not a die-hard Creationist... Are there many people on this site who are?
So, the masked villains didn't appear, in the Miller story, until after Batman makes his appearance... But the gangsters and corruption were there first, no??
(I think this parallels what happened in the actual original comics themselves...)
You know what I think... This is my British sense of humour coming out, right? (YOU know our classic sitcoms, "Porridge", "Only Fools and Horses", all kinds of other ones, less politically correct, Alf Garnett, Rising Damp, yeah??)
The British sense of peasant wit (forget Monty Python!) is equal to EVERYTHING! And I have absorbed it well...
See, what it IS, I think, is that there are all these NUTTERS about anyway, OK?? In Gotham as in every big town. BUT - they don't usually come out!! They stay, lurking in the woodwork, they're there, but nobody can SEE them - UNTIL somebody special (Mr Bat) comes along and inspires them, provokes them, sparks them off, and then OUT they come, fully-fledged, or so it appears, masked, costumed and everything!
It just needs someone or something to set them off!
Like with me and this site.
Briefly: on another theme. I think that Mr Miller has actually had at least one sterling idea, in this book... He usually has at least one idea or valid insight - I'm sure Hitler did, too!
HE THINKS THAT GOTHAM'S ORIGINAL PROBLEM WAS ONE OF CORRUPTION.
Well, I agree with him here! I think that the corruption came FIRST - before the crime explosion OR the "nutters". I think that crime and mad villains are just a SYMPTOM of Gotham's original sin - corruption - NOT the cause!
(This latter is probably what Miller FAILS to say - that the masked villains are victim and symptom, not cause! But then I have my own ideas on the matter.)
Yeah, I DID ask myself YOUR question, years ago - which came first, the costumed hero or the costumed villain?? I spent ages pondering that one!
But it's a chicken-and-egg question, and makes no real logical sense.
The REAL answer to the question lies in seeking an external first cause for BOTH.
But Darwinian forces, indeed!
You know, as I know the villains so well in my heart, I know very well they DO find the Batman very stimulating, and they are stimulated, indeed, to EVOLVE by him... And they find this... Well, anyway, evolution is the voice and the will of Gaia, the way people like me see it!
The villains can conceive of nothing more sublime.
(The whole thing must be a RITE to them! Little pagans!)
YOU know how I see them...
Yeah, and of course heroes have to have super villains to oppose them... WHAT would be the point of the Batman pounding on pickpockets, anyway - as, by the way, he is shown doing at the start of Tim Burton's "Batman".
When people find their match - THAT is reason to praise Gaia! I find, have always found. However much it hurts - the matching, I mean, not the praising!
Maurice: This review sure brings back some good memories. I happened to start collecting comics in late 1985, early 1986. I read and still own all of the titles you mentioned at the outset of the article. (I actually bought multiple copies of every issue in the Man of Steel mini-series, most of which have never really increased in value.) Two other titles that I was into at the time were Teen Titans (both the newspring and Baxter paper editions) and the Warlord. I also enjoyed "Weird War," "Sgt. Rock," and "Jonah Hex." Remember when Jonah Hex went into the future and met a Batman-like character who didn't allow guns into the city? That was pretty cool, as I remember it.
liz, i may address this issue of original corruption in my batman begins review. we'll see.
kevin, you may be remembering that as cooler than it was. (-:
but yeah, the mid-late 80s did seem like a golden era of comics. i, too, bought several copies of man of steel (i'm down to 3 copies of each). but i was a big teen titans and legion of super heroes fan, though i remember picking up so many more titles back then. in fact, i was picking up just about every marvel and dc book put out back then, plus more than a few independent titles.
Did you address the issue of "original corruption", Maurice?
I don't think you did yet?!
i think i ended up going a different direction in my review. though in the "batman begins" review i did mention it: "The constant fear is another symptom of the corruption. Crime, despair—this is not how men were meant to live. Gotham City, this modern day Babylon, is rotting; excess decadence is its chief sin. Its taint takes many forms, infiltrating every aspect of their society until it blooms full..."
But was it EVER thus?? (Diegetically, I mean, as well as in comics' history.)
Aren't they blaming Gotham itself for a lot too MUCH, these days?
The silliest - and also most prescient thing, about Gotham City, did I read on some article on Wikipedia the other day, I think it was the one about Gotham. (Which they've recently started to make maps of, apparently, for the stories... as fantasy writing goes, this is a very late stage to make them!... I think that so much should have been thought of before, and is either plain wrong, or redundant, now. In writing terms.)
But no matter.... Whoever wrote that article said that someone said (they never quote their sources!) that somebody had done some evil magic in Gotham back in the old days of its history... maybe in the 18th century? I don't know. Something to do with Masons.
(The Pat Robertson "Illuminati" theory rears its head again!)
Well.... you COULD affect the atmosphere of a place, by doing magical rituals in it... particularly if they included sacrifice and things like that. So I hear tell, for I know supernatural lore!
But... You'd be unlikely to affect an entire city's whole FUTURE like that. With a few silly little Masonic spells!
Anyway, if it HAD been thus affected... you wouldn't want a superhero to solve the problem, would you? You'd want a medium - or a witch!!
Anyway, maybe the "Masons" weren't just magicking up the devil or something... Maybe they were tapping into something that was already there.... not yer Steven King elemental rubbish (don't think I believe in them, anyway), but the energies of the landscape. Geomancy. I could say more, but I shall not.
Now. I've got a completely OTHER theory. Were I on the payroll of a comic book company, I would be expressing it there, and not here!
SUPPOSING... that it was, as I have suggested, something in the ground of Gotham City, that made it so weird? Earth energies ya might say. Maybe, the indigenous people of the region DIDN'T build settlements there, for precisely that reason! Or - MAYBE - it was their sacred place, sacred to the local Native Americans, and so once the white man had wrested the area from them, they put the whole place under an Indian curse, designed to turn the white man MAD! Just an alternative theory!
Actually, the ONLY "Batman" story I have ever heard of, that wasn't really like the above, but DID mention the original "owners" of the place, the Native Americans... that honour goes solely to an episode of the Batman TV series, which I could look up!
So that's your original corruption, I think. Don't steal from Indians is the moral of the story. Then they won't turn you mad so that you all steal from each other. Karma, too plays a part.
Time a nicely sarcastic comic was written, for a change! I hate all this "gloom and doom" which amounts to self-satisfaction!
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