The normally stoic and careful Dark Knight becomes over-emotional, angsty, defenseless, weak-willed, overconfident, and seems to have a disregard for civilians’ safety. DC Comics allowed podcaster Kevin Smith to write a two-part story-arc “Cacophony” and “The Widening Gyre.” In this series, Batman is shown to be off his game as he battles Smith’s villain Onomatopoeia, who kills nonpowered superheroes. While signs popped up here and there, this mainstream toxicity can be traced to 2008 – 2009. Here, I will point out where this got started, why this is happening, and how we can stop it. In modern comics, he pushes people away, lacks any sense of humor, gets talked down to by his heroic colleagues, gets slapped around by his sidekicks, and more. Several new writers are making him a toxic figure, more concerned with being right than the safety of his allies, city, and even himself. However, modern writers are taking a turn so vast, Batman is becoming indistinguishable from his roots. Writers such as Jeph Loeb, Denis O’Neil, Mike Baron, Frank Miller, Chuck Dixon, Neal Adams, and others try to maintain these core elements in the mythology, though they have varied in the level of violence he uses against criminals. Though his cold outlook on life and his methods of solving crime has caused tension in all of these relationships, they always find a way to come to an understanding of Batman and his methods. He has a faithful butler, he works with Police Commissioner James Gordon, his friend Lucius Fox helps on the business side of things, has a female romantic partner such as Vicki Vale or Catwoman, and he has a sidekick, usually Robin and Batgirl. There are a few other staples that have become part of the character. This has become a hallmark of the character and unlike Spawn, Bloodshot, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, Punisher, or even Captain America, refuses to kill his enemies, hoping to stop the cycle of violence. Following that, censorship laws would prevent him from becoming a lethal protector, forcing the writers to change him to see all life as sacred, even his enemies. In the character’s first incarnation, he used a gun to kill a vampire and later some monstrous clones. He uses science, deduction, investigation, and intimidation to often solve the mystery or stop the villain. Bruce Wayne was a man who lost his parents at a young age, trained in detective work and Martial Arts, and later used his family’s wealth to finance a war on crime as Batman, the Dark Knight of Gotham City. He has gone through many iterations over the decades, all vastly different than the pulp vigilante we saw in his first appearances, though many maintain his admiration for justice.
Batman has become one of the most iconic figures not only in pop culture but in society as a whole since his debut in a 1939 issue of Detective Comics written and drawn by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.
0 kommentar(er)
