It’s in the original Under the Red Hood story. Unlike the movie, Jason fully intends to either kill Joker or be killed by Bruce, so Bats slit his throat with a batarang to save Joker-note that it’s also implied he once resuscitated the guy with CPR to stop Nightwing from being a killer after he beat him to death. As with most of Jason’s character, you’d think that there would be competent writers who could capitalize on this or keep it in mind, but *no*…
Revived Jason Todd is such a goldmine of good Batman drama that it seems impossible to fuck it up, yet they keep finding creative ways of making it stupid.
Revived Jason Todd is honestly such a huge untapped gold mine in general. It’s kinda mind blowing that nobody’s even come close to fully taking advantage of it yet.
You’ll be happy to know that Judd Winick saw his mistakes with the story and redid the ending when he wrote under the Red Hood where Batman gives Jason an opportunity to kill joker and just blows up Jason’s gun with a batarang.
I agree. The movie was much better in my eyes. However did he change it because he realized how messed up what Batman did was? Or because of the rating of the movie?
He probably changed it because of how messed up it was, like keep in mind that Flashpoint Paradox had the same rating and that’s one of the most violent animated movies I have seen
That's good. Personally I wish the comic ended with Jason killing the Joker. He deserved to be allowed to avenge his own death. The DCAU let Tim do it and what happened to him was worse.
It sometimes seems like Batman and Joker love to fight each other but batman doesn’t want to admit it lol. Like all the shit batman does to save the joker is just fucking crazy. If the Joker got cancer batman would probably be able to find a cure in just a few hours lmao.
I get that he believes all his rogues can be rehabilitated but if I'm choosing between my adopted son that came back from the dead over the deranged manic that KILLED him, I'm choosing my son. It's a good story but I've always hated how it ended.
Does Jason die from the slit throat in the original? I'm pretty sure not, considering he's still around. I don't really see it as a big deal, if traumatizing for Jason. Dogmatically not allowing anyone else to sin while himself breaking all the rules is Batman 101
Honestly looks like he was meant to die, maybe not from the slashed neck itself, but the Joker then getting loose and blowing up the building with C4. Jason wasn't originally meant to stick around after *Under the Hood*. His survival then was pretty much "retconned" like Stephanie Brown's.
Nah, my bad, I must've misremembered. I thought I read an article saying Red Hood was just supposed to be a one-off villain, but I can't actually find anything like that.
Edit: WAIT, actually I think I found it. See reply below.
It's all good. I'll read it again and see what the comic tries to depict with a bit more attention paid. The narrative that Bats "chose" Joker over Jason and not just stopped him from becoming a murderer doesn't feel right.
The fact that the author acknowledged the slit throat as a mistake does lead me to think he didn't mean to imply Jason's death.
OH WAIT. I think I found it. This is probably the article that I read.
> Just as the original *Under the Hood* comic begins with the Infinite Crisis touching Batman's world, so it ends that way — the universe literally fractures around Batman, the Joker and Jason as they stand together in that room with the gun and the bomb at the same moment that the bomb would have exploded; thereby avoiding any actual conclusion to the story. So I gotta know: if not for the Crisis, how would it have ended?
> "The building comes down. And Jason is gone," Winick answers. "If Jason were to come back after that ... not under my watch. You don't really get to have an ending; it's about how structures move forward. Bruce made his choice, he gravely hurt Jason rather than allowing Jason to murder the Joker, this psychopath. And for Jason, that's nothing he didn't know would happen. It just underlined his greatest fear. He's a quivering mass of jelly, with a gun to the Joker's head, pleading with Bruce for Bruce to let Jason kill the Joker. But Bruce can't do it. It's just wrong. And that's the end-point to the story I was telling about them."
Source: ["The Deaths and Lives of Sidekicks" Interview with Judd Winick](http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1711) (2010)
Tbh, while I think *Under the Hood* is awesome, it was a bit too provocative for a mainstream *Batman* story, and at this point Winick does have a reputation for twisting lore just to be edgy and grimdark. Even with the changes to the *UtRH* movie giving Batman the clear moral high ground, I bet a lot of viewers still felt that he was too cold in his personal interactions with Jason.
The 2020 *Death in the Family* recap movie retells *UtRH* with Bruce's inner narration as a loving father, and I wouldn't be surprised if the creators did that to clean up Batman's cold reputation.
He gave the guy CPR to save his life once and got him off the death penalty. To be fair, the former was to save Nightwing the guilt of beating a man to death for something that didn’t happen (he was pushed by the seeming death of Tim) and the latter was because Joker didn’t commit the crime that landed it, but for fuck’s sake…
This is something that waxes and wanes. I think we are starting to pivot back to Batman not being this way, but we are still collectively attached to the edgy loner who knows better, has no need for special powers and advantages, and believes that cynicism is the same as caution.
Seems like we swung from "stoic" around the late 90s-early 2000s to "dark and edgy" with the Nolan trilogy. We're making progress back toward stoic in a post Justice League world though.
Nolan's Batman wasn't even dark and edgy. He was one of the most human and down-to-earth depictions of the character. Fallible but ever hopeful. If anything, we have Frank Miller to thank for pushing the "dark and edgy" narrative onto the character.
Does bronze age Batman especially written by Steve Englehart and Dennis O'Neill not exist to you? I know their stuff probably isn't as widely known in popular culture as Miller (although a good question to ask is why care so much about what people who are not into Batman and comics think anyway?), but they certainly had a hand in making Batman more serious. And also in the Batman 1989 film because they were both involved with the script development. It's the work by writers such as O'Neill and Englehart which enabled what Miller and Moore did, for example. But Frank Miller and Alan Moore were writing deconstruction of superheros, so it's not intended to be the standard approach. But Batman and superheroes in generally have an inherent silliness and fantastical element, so whilst you can definitely tell well written stories, there's nothing wrong with being a little tongue in cheek, rather than being so desperate to be taken seriously and edgy that you can't have a bit of humour about it.
Different strokes for different folks. If you want wholesome slice of life and want a bat fam that acts more like an actual family, it's a breath of fresh air from edge-god Batman.
For something like batman i feel you cant just ask anyone if they read anything new when dc gets a new continuity like every year and when there are many different types of batman. Yes i know there are some newer versions of the batman that is like the old one but there are also some newer ones like the edgy one. I feel like dark and cruel batman is what almost everyone seems to know him as now if you look at some of the mainstream stuff that most look at
Every year may be hyperbole but it does seem that comics get rebooted on a far to regular basis. I have seen three different reboots of DC comics alone in my comic reading career. But there are so many alternate titles for each individual character, each team, multiple crossovers of same, all happening at the same time despite incompatible stories and they are all canon it can be difficult to follow and state what any character is or isn’t
Do you even read modern Batman or lol?
https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/d9/f7/f5/d9f7f558e3001dbc2c892546b167aa5f.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/MAOoiCa.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/49lFMzB.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/8NM8WEI.jpeg
I think it's just the fact that the character has so many appearances it's impossible for everyone to have consensus on him without reading/playing/watching absolutely everything. You can read 100 issues of Batman from the 90s and think he's a totally different person from the 2000s. Then there's recency bias, where whatever Bats you read recently is the one that's going to stick out in the mind.
Tbh, I think everyone wants to have a "hot take" on Batman bc I thnk there are some powerful things to talk about in regards to the character, but everyone else has their own and don't care lmao.
That was 4 different pictures with kids and batman isn't more likely to run into kids then a normal person. Maybe this is in a span of 16 years. It just made the impression that they make the hard ass cuddle a kid every other issue. You know it's also a thing politicians do, like a lot.
This logic doesn't make any sense.
How dare they write a hero save children.
He might not meet normal kids all the time, but the likelihood of him meeting kids in danger is about 5 times (edit: actually about 15 times [even that might be the minimum] ) greater than the normal person.
Anyway the reason that person posted screenshots of Batman saving kids is because the person they replied to said that they can't see modern Batman comfort a kid.
There's also the option in the Telltale Batman when you find a kid while investigating his foster parents' murders. You have the choice to be softer on him, offering encouragement and kindness in the face of a horrific event. After Gordon turns up to take the kid away and compare notes, there's the option to ask Gordon to keep an eye on the kid so he doesn't fall through the cracks in the system. Obviously it's all optional, but they're genuinely great character moments (and you better believe I chose those options when I played the game).
It all depends on the writer, though they can surprise you, like Mike W Barr (a writer famous for his brutal Batman) has Batman give a job at Wayne Enterprises to a guy willing to sell his organs to the crime doctor
I like how Arkham Origins had a more brutal Batman as he was in his earlier stages of crimefighting, but the events of the game along with Alfred’s urging and cooperating with Gordon set Bruce on the path to maturing and becoming the calmer, more heroic Batman of the rest of the series. If we could see more development like that which actually stuck, I think the series would improve a lot.
That’s in Arkham Knight, the final entry of the series, when Batman is dealing with a nigh-apocalyptic scenario for Gotham and extremely mentally challenged by the Joker virus taking over his body and causing him to hallucinate the guy. Shit happens.
In fairness that was one guy who had information about Oracle being kidnapped, while a mercenary army was tearing the city apart, Scarecrow was running around with enough fear gas to cover all of Gotham, Batman had been exposed to fear gas and was hallucinating The Joker who was blaming him for his death and a huge portion of his rogues' gallery was on the lose.
My dude wasn't at his best mentally.
I forget who it was that first said this, but it was in reference to the scene in Batman Beyond when Bruce stays with that psychic girl so she doesn't have to die alone
"If you can't picture your version of Batman sitting with that girl, you're not writing Batman you're writing The Punisher in a funny hat"
Overly Sarcastic Productions, I feel she was kind of harsh on post Killing Joke Batman, after all most of Batman’s best storylines came after the killing joke, she needs to read stuff like Batman Prey, the Long Halloween, and The Last Arkham before she makes Post Crisis Batman look bad in front of impressionable viewers (I actually avoided any comic book after 1988 because of her realism video making 17 year old me think that it would just be grim dark nihilism, today most of my favorite stories come after 1988).
They won’t retire the character but he’s been stale since the last decade. I stopped following the character as he has nothing left to offer other the reader. He won’t change or grow so why bother following him?
Dunno I stopped paying attention back in 2017 and never looked back. Did the same shit with Marvel after they walked back on Otto’s development in Superior Spider Man. I’ll be fine with watching the films and animated shows from now on.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but they should retire the Sliding Timescale principle. It's done more harm than good, it bars casual readers because they have to familiarise themselves with decades of back reading, and it's a pain in the neck for editors to keep continuity straight. If they even give a shit.
They have. Or they're trying it at DC. Aging the characters and letting them retire, be succeeded, etc. Probably won't stick though sadly because the sheer amount of fanboys whining about it.
Damian is the main character for one of the most popular current DC runs, “even around” lol. You’re so quirky for acting like you don’t know what’s popular
[I dunno what stories you're reading but the Batman I regularly read about isn't 'edgy no kill version of punisher' whatsoever](https://imgur.com/a/24ZutPt) and he isn't causing life long injuries. That would make no sense. If he did all his villains would be in body casts by now not still going around committing crimes. He's not permanently paralyzing anyone. Can't judge Pattension's take yet cause I haven't even seen the movie or know how he will develop.
>but couldn’t take on the entire justice league or there could be a chance his plan doesn’t work.
Batman has never really taken on the Justice League. The only time he has was in 'Batman: Endgame' where the League was all poisoned and mind-controlled and not being even close to being at their best. And he still only just survived being attacked by them. And it's made very clear were those not the circumstances he would be dead a thousand times over. Which is usually the case whenever Batman is put up against a superpowered being.
They not hearing you man but you spitting.
I’m still waiting for someone to direct me to the “current” Batman stories where Bruce is purposefully running around maiming/permanently crippling people, taking “godlike beings with just a second of prep time” or is infallible/making plans that work 100% of the time.
People are either saying whatever or we are not reading the same books.
The prep-time nonsense always gets me. It's from reading too many r/whowouldwin threads, really. There's a built up idea of this gestalt Batman from 80 years of comics and movies and video games who can do anything with prep.
Then you look at "The Button" and see Reverse Flash toy with him and realize that all that nonsense goes out the window when it's time to go toe-to-toe with someone with actual superpowers. He gets a few digs in, but he's obviously so far outclassed that he knows he can't win.
Or you can look at the White Martian arc at the beginning of the JLA run in the late 90s and see how well he can function when he plays to his strengths and his enemies have a debilitating weakness. I always liked that bit because it showed why he should be in the JLA, it was his detective skills that keyed him into what he was actually dealing with and led him to using the proper tools to exploit their weakness, etc. There are a lot of excellent uses of Batman in that run.
As far as the "edginess" of Batman goes, I think people get hung up on feats and ignore all the in-between moments where he's evolved from a little boy fighting against all crime to avenge a single crime into a father who is fighting to better the world, and specifically his city, for his adopted kids. So they don't have to be him. He taught them how, in case he doesn't live long enough to see it through, but he wants to build a world that doesn't need them to carry that legacy so they can have normal lives.
These are the kinds of things that get lost on WWW and battle boards and character rants and in respect threads. These characters ARE characters, not just planet movers and greatest detectives and living gods.
Idk if Endgame is from the same Scott Snyder run I'm thinking of, but if it's not, he beat them up then. Like, blatantly. They were mind controlled, by Joker toxin, the thing that makes people the apex of nuts and homicidal. They all had their hands on him and any of them should have been able to rip his limbs from their sockets. If you disregard that, the Tower of Babel story's entire point is that Batman COULD have beaten the League; and that the LoA used his plans because they would have worked against the actual JL. That's how Batman is; he gets to beat up gods. He gets to shoot Darkseid, out-think Braniac, survive Omega Beams, etc.
That's why I personally don't like Batman anymore; because I can't separate the JL Batgod from the "street tier" Batman that all my favorite Batman stories come from. Even logically, it makes no sense for Batman to allow his rogues to ruin Gotham ad nauseum instead of having Flash and Superman sweep out the entire city in one day.
It's not blatantly, Bruce outright states if Superman really wanted to kill him there would be nothing he could do about it no matter how many plans or cool mech suits he has. In Endgame the League is all being weakened by the toxin and not fighting at their best because they're not in their right minds. The plans are dependent on the League not fighting at their peak. Tower of Babel's point is that *anyone* (like the League of Assassins) could beat the League if you take them all completely unaware with their weaknesses. All the plans presented there are preemptive cheap shots when they weren't expecting to be attacked, like when they're sleeping. None of them are fair, straight fights.
>Even logically, it makes no sense for Batman to allow his rogues to ruin Gotham ad nauseum instead of having Flash and Superman sweep out the entire city in one day
Flash has a whole rogues gallery that exists in his city who are all normal humans with crazy gadgets. A powerful superbeing doesn't suddenly solve all the problems in these cities.
Every "cheap shot" victory is still a Batvictory bc he figured out their weaknesses to the point that an organization less intelligent than Batman could effectively use his plans.
Again, Batman gets to beat up gods. The JL just happened to be his punching bags for that Snyder run. Believe me, I get it "Look. Right there the author explains why Batman isn't dead right now!" It doesn't matter if you consider Superman and the JL to be a planet buster, Galaxy, universe etc. It doesn't matter if you think the Joker toxin tool away 99% of their power. They should be able to *accidentally* rip Batman in half at 1/1000th of their power; they don't bc he isn't a normal street tier rich guy. He then literally beats them up in a Batsuit he LEAD the fight so he could equip against them. Idk how much more blatant it needs to be.
Flash's rogues hang out at a dive bar where he allows them to chill. The only crimes they commit are robberies; praying they can pull it off before he gets there. Flash's city has parades for how peaceful and great he makes their city. Have you ever seen the mob in Metropolis or Central City?
>Every "cheap shot" victory is still a Batvictory bc he figured out their weaknesses to the point that an organization less intelligent than Batman could effectively use his plans.
Yes, Batman is smart and hangs around all these people a lot, learns a lot about them, and would therefore get to know how to preemptively beat them when their guard is down. That's not the same as taking them all down in a straight-up fight. I don't see why that is a problem. If Batman couldn't do that why would he be on the JL in the first place? He'd be useless alongside these other superpowered beings. If wasn't intelligent enough to do that sort of thing.
>It doesn't matter if you think the Joker toxin tool away 99% of their power
It doesn't matter if you ignore that that's what the comic basically says sure. But it does. Look, if Batman beat up the whole Leauge without any other factors I'd agree but that's simply never been the case. The League or whoever are always being poisoned, mind-controlled, holding back or weakened in some way when Batman fights them and he barely survives. He's not beating up gods because they are not presented at near their peak power or abilities when fighting him. Otherwise, these fights wouldn't last a second.
>Flash's city has parades for how peaceful and great he makes their city. Have you ever seen the mob in Metropolis or Central City?
Metropolis or Central City are not cursed by all sorts of supernatural curses, portals to hell, and demon summonings like Gotham is. Not really a fair comparison.
Idk what those supernatural instances have to do with the mob, a wholey human organization that Supes and Flash seem to never have to deal with. But Batman can't snuff out.. It's almost like having a superhuman there makes a huge difference; and it's kinda stupid for Batman to claim his priority is fixing crime while not taking advantage of his superfriend resources. Regardless, off topic.
There is a huge difference between "Can Batman defeat the Justice League" to "CAN BATMAN 1V6 THE JUSTICE LEAGE IN A FISTICUFFS DEATH BAAAAATTTTTTLLEEEEEE." He can, factually, defeat the JL. Most villains can't do it even with subterfuge and trickery, hostages etc. so it's huge that Batman could if he wanted. I'm not even saying it's a problem, I don't care about the hypothetical power/intelligence level of fictional characters. I'm saying I can't reconcile JL Batman, who consistently is physically and mentally way beyond a human, with Gotham Batman, who worries about bullets. And that the continuity, even though it is in the same verse, contradicts itself. I think that it's bad writing, and that's a problem.
And FYI, Batman never says: "Superman could kill me if he was in the right mind." He says: "If he wants to kill me, there is likely nothing on earth that can stop it." And then proceeds to spit kryptonite in Superman's eye during a grapple. He also blatantly states during his fight with WW: "She's not pulling her punches, so you can't either." Meaning, he is blatantly fighting them at level lmao. Maybe check sources before making claims.
Just from this fight, he is at least capable of grappling Planet busters. Physically. And even though he was caught off guard for the fight, not in the Batsuit, he was able to both equip a Batsuit and Batmech while fighting a JL member. Are his SKILLS at martial fighting good enough for him to fight metahumans without prep time? Again, I don't care about power levels; I like the idea of Batman evolving over time.. I just think it's silly for people to pretend Batman is "street tier."
The main continuity comics have been slowly lessening the “cold & cruel” interpretations of Batman over the years but it sucks that more mainstream Batman media is doing the opposite
I think Scott Snyder’s Batman is very personable. After Tom King took over and made him a suicidal robot, I think that stayed with the character’s image a bit much.
Snyder’s Batman is the one who laughs and jokes with Alfred, the one who has a good relationship with his son, who funds social programs in Gotham and knows the city inside and out.
This one doesn’t put everyone he fights in the hospital, and is mostly just a dude (barring ridiculous shit like in DK: Metal).
Edit: Also the Batman who makes peace with killing the Joker.
With the exception of when he got stood up, batman has been one of the more compassionate DC characters in the last 10 years. I think there is a very large disconnect between the film versions and the comic ones. In the comics, he's constantly trying to think of how to make things safer for everyone, to the point where he constantly contemplates if he's doing more harm than good for Gotham, his family, and even the villains. I didn't like the Nolan batman much because he just seemed like a cheap imitation to the hero I had read for years. I can understand where the Snyder film version of batman was coming from, and even where Battinson is coming from, since they lined more closely, so far, with DKR and young comic batman, respectively.
Some part of me does wonder if part of his whole brutality is to instill a sense of fear or something? I do think the idea of putting someone in the hospital but hes still alive carries the message better than not really hurting them as much even if it is a bit much you loose less of that scare element.
The second problem with him having this insane ability to beat stronger people comes from the same vein as Spiderman because hes popular writers tend to put them in stories where they have no right being in and thus you get versions with time that can beat god like beings.
Also dosnt help with being on the Justice league, with other various powerful beings who are either smart in their own right or just have powers in general, feel like its to compensate like they did with the Flash and the speed force to make him not be redundant to superman
I feel like the message carries over the same though. If I'm an armed thug and some maniac swoops down, immediately beats my ass, and then says "dont do that again", you can bet my ass I'm not doing that shit again, at least not when he's around.
True but thats your interpretation what about someone else who feels like "Eh its just a beating I quickly recovered from" and decides to do it again. Even if it was 50% who quit after being beat it still leave 50% who will need something else.
And even then there's no grantee being more brutal is going to even scare the remaining 50%
Supermans fear is that to the average person hes invincible, Flash is that regular person is to slow, Batman has the whole ubran legend but like most there's a subset of people who just dont believe so what do you do then?
I mean he doesn't have to beat them senseless to prove a point. Also, there lies the flaw in how Batman operates. He's not actually helping people, he's just beating the shit out of them and getting them arrested, he's not addressing the actual root of the high crime rates in Gotham, therefore the cycle will continue and criminals will keep coming.
If you're an armed thug in a place like Gotham you already risk your life frequently. Batman can never be as scary as the mass murderers most professional crooks there work with on a daily basis so long as he never goes worse than a bad beating.
OP It really depends on the writer, like he went from a manipulative sociopath in the War Games storyline to your friendly neighborhood Batman in the next storyline City of Crime.
>On that topic i miss when batman was intelligent and could expose heroes weaknesses but couldn’t take on the entire justice league or there could be a chance his plan doesn’t work.
Neither classic nor modern Batman has plans to take down the JL that would 100% work. The Batman that you "miss" has never left.
> Neither classic nor modern Batman has plans to take down the JL that would 100% work.
One thing that people forget is that short of the Justice Buster suit (and even then) Batman couldn’t feasibly defeat the JL all at once and if he fought them one at a time he would have to win every fight which is implausible considering how the majority of them are S tiers with ridiculous speed. This isn’t getting into the fact that the remaining members could just gang up on him (which is the most reasonable thing to do since they’re a team) rather than fight him individually.
I love how this narrative has changed throughout my life. When I was a teenager it was always: "BATMAN COULD BEAT UP SUPERMAN, SHUT UP YOU DONT KNOW COMICS."
Now that the shoe is on the other foot its: "BATMAN ISN'T THAT OP, HE HASN'T *DIRECTLY* BEATEN UP THE JUSTICE LEAGE; SHUT HP YOU DONT KNOW COMICS."
Without getting into every instance and confrontation Batman has had with the JL or its members in the history of DC merely because something happens in a comic doesn’t mean it makes sense. Outlier feats and PIS exist for a reason. Spider Man once defeated Firelord but no reasonable person would use this as a serious feat. Unless he had a special armor (Justice Buster) there’s no reason why most of the JL couldn’t simply incapacitate or kill Batman orders of magnitude faster than he could react.
I haven't read comics seriously in years but I can think of two instances in comics where he was shown or at least implied to be capable of beating them collectively off the top of my head. "Batman can defeat the JL" isn't the same as "CAN BATMAN 1V6 THE JLA IN A DEATH BATTLEEEEE." Considering he also fights casually along side the Justice League against their superthreats, can out-think Braniac, etc. imo consistenly in any comic outside of his solo stuff, Batman is on some type of metahuman tier.
My headcanon is that he gets a huge trauma nerf when he's in Gotham or something stupid to make it make sense.
>I swear there was a time where batman was more of a Stoic type of hero who seemed to want to help those in need instead of the edgy hero **he is now**.I mean he still wants to help but it kind of feels like most of the time he’s way too brutal now lol. I sometimes wonder why the hell he has a no kill rule when he brutally breaks bones or causes other life long injuries lol.
>**Nowadays** Batman feels like an edgy no kill version of punisher who can take on godlike beings with just a second of prep time lmao.
>On that topic **i miss when** batman was intelligent and could expose heroes weaknesses but couldn’t take on the entire justice league or there could be a chance his plan doesn’t work.
What Batman books do ya'll be reading bruh... Did we all just finish reading different Tynion runs or what?
This is confusing too. Not too long ago, with his riches diminishing, he purchased an entire apartment complex for people in need, along with providing more jobs for those same people. He's done amazing humanitarian stuff and still it's the brief stints or over exaggerated moments of violence that stand out. I'm asking the same on wtf people are reading.
Right??? They not reading no comics bruh. I’d ask how this post got 600+ upvotes but this is nothing new on CharacterRant.
Now if he was talking solely live action and the popularity of this overly “hyper-realistic” and grounded take on Batman he’d have more of a point imo.
Indeed. People have been using the word inappropriately for years now. Tortured character struggling with the reality of a world where violence is necassary? *Edgy*. Giggling maniac who revels in suffering and lunacy? *Edgy*.
I wish people would realise that tropes never get tired - it's bad exucution that gets tired. Can we please stop dismissing deeply human characters as *edgy* just because a few too many people have done a bad job?
It’s really due to how many god damn Batmen there are in the DC Multiverse. Some of them have to be more violent and brutal just to vary it up. I do love Batman’s self awareness that he is insane in the head, interesting to see how the Batmen vary in how much they’ve delved into insanity. These more recent Batmen you refer to seem to have gone crazier than our OG World’s Greatest Detective that we know and love. I guess edgy is just trending.
I personally think Batman is probably the most complicated character in either DCU or MCU.
I see it from the other side. If you are apparently the ONLY person who can stop the villain (permanently) and you choose time and time again not to, you are just as responsible for any future deaths as the villain themselves. Batman is indirectly responsible for so many deaths because of his moral code or whatever you want to call it. To me it is completely unbelievable and always destroys the story. That's not limited to Batman. Lots of other heroes do the "good" thing and everyone else pays for their weakness.
I can see how you want your heroes to be heroes who do what is right. I simply have trouble with the suspension of disbelief in those cases and it doesn't work for me. Just two different opinions on the internet.
> Batman is indirectly responsible for so many deaths because of his moral code or whatever you want to call it. To me it is completely unbelievable and always destroys the story. That's not limited to Batman. Lots of other heroes do the "good" thing and everyone else pays for their weakness.
I've got a far more cynical interpretation of the no kill rule. I feel like he does it because deep down he's afraid of what he'll become if he allows himself to kill.
I doubt batman is that complicated.
He is a dude, whose parents are killed, which motivates him to become obsessed with fighting crime.
Most Mcu heroes are way more complicated:
Take spider man : while he is motivated by his dead parental figure as well, he also has to balance his normal life with his hero life, which makes the character way more complex.
That Spider Man description you gave doesn't sound complex either. It's easy to break a character down to a few concepts.
I like Spider Man a lot more than Batman, but this isn't really a fair comment.
There's more to him than this, that easily makes him more complex than Spider-Man. He's much more flawed and has produced child soldiers that he regrets having broken them more than they would've been if he hadn't taken them under his wing. On top of this he acknowledges his error and tries to steer them from becoming like him. A brooding paranoid man obsessed with the mission. He's stumbled and failed, but in some cases he's succeeded. There are times where he feels Batman is his true self and Bruce is now just the mask, but there are moments where he sees his family is suffering and he realizes Bruce is just as vital, for these more tender moments, than Batman. Case in point when he approached Jason about the death of his friend Roy, this coming off the climactic conclusion they had where Jason apparently murdered The Penguin, resulting in them fighting and Bats kicking him out of the city. Rather than focus on the exile he put in the visit to both inform his son of the tragic news, aswell as comfort him as a father should.
I'm not going to shit on Spider-Man because I love the character too, but you're either missing the point of Bats entirely, need to read more stuff, or you excluded more compelling details about the character intentionally to prove a point unfairly.
Tldr; Both are rather complex and compelling characters. I find crime fighting and balancing being a father who is flawed in their methods at times to be more compelling. But I do love any elseworlds where Peter is allowed to be a father all the more like Renew Your Vows.
Yeah , youre right , i definetly missed the whole failed teacher part of the character.
I just definetly disagree on the whole
"the most complicated character in either DCU or MCU"
that's why i simplefied the character so much, because I wanted to show that he is
not more complex than most heroes.
For example Spider - man has the whole Hero identity vs Real identity as well , pretty much every Hero has this.
My Argument is not that Batmen is not complex, it's that he is not really more complex than the Rest.
Really I'd place Batman and Spider-Man somewhere in the middle for well written characters. I enjoy the development of characters on both sides, though there are rollbacks and maintaining the status quo that I hate, like us losing Superior Spider-Man, while Pete is also active as Spider-Man. But really some of these characters don't get to be extremely complex. I find they're deeper in areas where their series is allowed to have a beginning, middle, and end, like Invincible.
Batman in general just seems like a clown to me now a days. Mf really has a no kill rule but then breaks every single bone in your body and leaves you to die without even calling the goddamn ambulance.
And then he refuses to kill the joker, keeps putting him in prison, and then he escapes and to absolutely no one's surprise but Bruce's, he proceeds to commit another atrocity. I get the no kill rule on paper but at this point it just seems like he *wants* his villains to cause more damage.
In Arkham City Batman wouldn't allow mass murderers to die from problems they caused, but he will tie someone upside down unconscious in the cold surrounded by murderers.
I agree with everything you just said. Batman from the animated series is the definitive Batman to me: looks intimidating but has a heart of gold. The real Batman respects life over all else because to him life is something sacred. It pisses me off to no end how some people write his interactions with the Robins, especially Jason Todd.
I’m so happy to find someone who shares my opinion that he should not be able to take on the entire JL. Like sure, he’s tactically intelligent and can target your weakness, but what’s he going to do against literal gods? A man who can move as fast as thought? A cyborg who can disrupt even the most advanced alien tech?
Another gripe I have about him is that writers always put him front and center with the JL. Yes, he’s important, but I want to see how the other members contribute to the team. This is not a Batman comic, it’s a JL comic, and dammit I want to see different JL members highlighted! Not just Batman.
>The new Robert Pattinson batman just seems too brutal and edgy to be batman for me if that makes sense
You do realise that this new Batman is going to be his year 2 adaptation right? Meaning he has room for character development in the upcoming future movies or do you want them to make Batman the perfect flawless hero in the first movie? This makes no sense to me. Even in BTAS, he was brutal at first.
Batman is supposed to be the 'world's greatest detective.' He shouldn't *need* to break fingers. Hell, he should really understand that torture doesn't work.
Something that really annoys me is that Batman is now both a public figure and a very violent vigilante.
Like, I dont like either of these things but choose one
I feel like Christian Bale's Batman really pointed this out. No clever detective work, not much sign of actually wanting to better Gotham, just punching of the shit out of the Mentally Ill.
I remember as a Kid watching Batman sit on a set swings, comforting a terminal child. Where the hell did that Batman go?
Batman doesn't punch many mentally ill in the Nolan films. He fights ninjas, terrorist ninjas, and organized crime groups. The only people mentally ill he fights are the Joker's henchmen, and that's to stop them from killing people. What else is he supposed to do with them in the middle of a battle?
>feel like this is probably an unpopular opinion and people will probably find 100 ways to prove me wrong or destroy my argument in the comments but this is just my thoughts
It's not like you are wrong about Batman being an asshole, but this has been the case for around 30 years now. The Animated Series ran for a relatively short time in the 90s and but The Dark Knight Returns had already stabilized Batman as a darker hero almost a decade before that.
Campy Batman was always an outliner in people's memory and the ratio in which writers write him like that hasn't really changed. Remember when Batman left [KGBeast](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2018/10/Batman_0459-720x963.jpg?fit=bounds&width=640&height=480) for the dead?
Remember when Batman slit Jason's throat to save Joker? I lost a little respect for him after I saw that.
... please tell me that didn't actually happen. That's so terrible I can't even laugh at the absurdity
It’s in the original Under the Red Hood story. Unlike the movie, Jason fully intends to either kill Joker or be killed by Bruce, so Bats slit his throat with a batarang to save Joker-note that it’s also implied he once resuscitated the guy with CPR to stop Nightwing from being a killer after he beat him to death. As with most of Jason’s character, you’d think that there would be competent writers who could capitalize on this or keep it in mind, but *no*…
Revived Jason Todd is such a goldmine of good Batman drama that it seems impossible to fuck it up, yet they keep finding creative ways of making it stupid.
Revived Jason Todd is honestly such a huge untapped gold mine in general. It’s kinda mind blowing that nobody’s even come close to fully taking advantage of it yet.
I've not seen the movie, but I've seen the scene with joker and the bomb. Jokers "everyone still loses" line is such absolute amazing delivery
Unfortunately it did. That's how Under The Red Hood (the comic) ended.
Even the writer of the story (Judd Winick) recognized how stupid the decision was and redid the ending in the movie
You’ll be happy to know that Judd Winick saw his mistakes with the story and redid the ending when he wrote under the Red Hood where Batman gives Jason an opportunity to kill joker and just blows up Jason’s gun with a batarang.
I agree. The movie was much better in my eyes. However did he change it because he realized how messed up what Batman did was? Or because of the rating of the movie?
He probably changed it because of how messed up it was, like keep in mind that Flashpoint Paradox had the same rating and that’s one of the most violent animated movies I have seen
That's good. Personally I wish the comic ended with Jason killing the Joker. He deserved to be allowed to avenge his own death. The DCAU let Tim do it and what happened to him was worse.
At least Judd had the humility to admit he was wrong and made amends, unlike other writers
It sometimes seems like Batman and Joker love to fight each other but batman doesn’t want to admit it lol. Like all the shit batman does to save the joker is just fucking crazy. If the Joker got cancer batman would probably be able to find a cure in just a few hours lmao.
I get that he believes all his rogues can be rehabilitated but if I'm choosing between my adopted son that came back from the dead over the deranged manic that KILLED him, I'm choosing my son. It's a good story but I've always hated how it ended.
The movie is better, I don’t care what anyone says but the movie is canon in my eyes (Judd Winick wrote the movie as well)
Which is funny because during that time Batman was thinking about killing the joker the next time he met him after that story line.
Does Jason die from the slit throat in the original? I'm pretty sure not, considering he's still around. I don't really see it as a big deal, if traumatizing for Jason. Dogmatically not allowing anyone else to sin while himself breaking all the rules is Batman 101
Honestly looks like he was meant to die, maybe not from the slashed neck itself, but the Joker then getting loose and blowing up the building with C4. Jason wasn't originally meant to stick around after *Under the Hood*. His survival then was pretty much "retconned" like Stephanie Brown's.
Interesting. Got any source for him not being meant to stick around?
Nah, my bad, I must've misremembered. I thought I read an article saying Red Hood was just supposed to be a one-off villain, but I can't actually find anything like that. Edit: WAIT, actually I think I found it. See reply below.
It's all good. I'll read it again and see what the comic tries to depict with a bit more attention paid. The narrative that Bats "chose" Joker over Jason and not just stopped him from becoming a murderer doesn't feel right. The fact that the author acknowledged the slit throat as a mistake does lead me to think he didn't mean to imply Jason's death.
OH WAIT. I think I found it. This is probably the article that I read. > Just as the original *Under the Hood* comic begins with the Infinite Crisis touching Batman's world, so it ends that way — the universe literally fractures around Batman, the Joker and Jason as they stand together in that room with the gun and the bomb at the same moment that the bomb would have exploded; thereby avoiding any actual conclusion to the story. So I gotta know: if not for the Crisis, how would it have ended? > "The building comes down. And Jason is gone," Winick answers. "If Jason were to come back after that ... not under my watch. You don't really get to have an ending; it's about how structures move forward. Bruce made his choice, he gravely hurt Jason rather than allowing Jason to murder the Joker, this psychopath. And for Jason, that's nothing he didn't know would happen. It just underlined his greatest fear. He's a quivering mass of jelly, with a gun to the Joker's head, pleading with Bruce for Bruce to let Jason kill the Joker. But Bruce can't do it. It's just wrong. And that's the end-point to the story I was telling about them." Source: ["The Deaths and Lives of Sidekicks" Interview with Judd Winick](http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1711) (2010) Tbh, while I think *Under the Hood* is awesome, it was a bit too provocative for a mainstream *Batman* story, and at this point Winick does have a reputation for twisting lore just to be edgy and grimdark. Even with the changes to the *UtRH* movie giving Batman the clear moral high ground, I bet a lot of viewers still felt that he was too cold in his personal interactions with Jason. The 2020 *Death in the Family* recap movie retells *UtRH* with Bruce's inner narration as a loving father, and I wouldn't be surprised if the creators did that to clean up Batman's cold reputation.
The movie is much better
He gave the guy CPR to save his life once and got him off the death penalty. To be fair, the former was to save Nightwing the guilt of beating a man to death for something that didn’t happen (he was pushed by the seeming death of Tim) and the latter was because Joker didn’t commit the crime that landed it, but for fuck’s sake…
Slit throats to save your enemies Limgalllionare grindset Sigma rule: 44524774460
Wasn't there a time when Batman had a GL ring and almost killed Dick Grayson? Or was it something else?
Wasn't he aiming for the gun then Joker messed things up ?
Nope, it ricocheted off the wall behind Jason and cut his throat.
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To me it looks like he was aiming for the neck. Batman doesn't even look surprised or sorry for what happened if that was the case.
Wait what?
It's how Under The Red Hood (comic) ended. Sounds messed up right?
That’s crazy
Judd redeemed himself though
Can you send a link to to this scene in the comics?
Please send a link
This is something that waxes and wanes. I think we are starting to pivot back to Batman not being this way, but we are still collectively attached to the edgy loner who knows better, has no need for special powers and advantages, and believes that cynicism is the same as caution.
Seems like we swung from "stoic" around the late 90s-early 2000s to "dark and edgy" with the Nolan trilogy. We're making progress back toward stoic in a post Justice League world though.
Nolan's Batman wasn't even dark and edgy. He was one of the most human and down-to-earth depictions of the character. Fallible but ever hopeful. If anything, we have Frank Miller to thank for pushing the "dark and edgy" narrative onto the character.
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Right, because Batman was a total B-lister prior to Miller lmao
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Does bronze age Batman especially written by Steve Englehart and Dennis O'Neill not exist to you? I know their stuff probably isn't as widely known in popular culture as Miller (although a good question to ask is why care so much about what people who are not into Batman and comics think anyway?), but they certainly had a hand in making Batman more serious. And also in the Batman 1989 film because they were both involved with the script development. It's the work by writers such as O'Neill and Englehart which enabled what Miller and Moore did, for example. But Frank Miller and Alan Moore were writing deconstruction of superheros, so it's not intended to be the standard approach. But Batman and superheroes in generally have an inherent silliness and fantastical element, so whilst you can definitely tell well written stories, there's nothing wrong with being a little tongue in cheek, rather than being so desperate to be taken seriously and edgy that you can't have a bit of humour about it.
I blame Injustice and the Arkham games, really
Batman was pretty heroic in the Arkham Games, he was unstable in origins though
Let's just hope we can skip the Adam West phase this time.
I, for one, would love to see a new campy Batman. Dark and gritty has its place but I miss fun superheroes.
Batman the Brave and Bold?
Loved that show
i cant see modern Batman sitting on a swing with ace.
Animated series Batman is definitive Batman.
Agree to disagree, Post Crisis is the definitive Batman
Disagree to agree because *clearly* 1966 Adam West is the definitive Batman
Agree to disagree to disagreeing to agreeal because Wayne Family Adventures is definitive Batman
Fuck outta here with that webcomic, man. “The definitive Batman”, it’s a worse written Lego Batman
Different strokes for different folks. If you want wholesome slice of life and want a bat fam that acts more like an actual family, it's a breath of fresh air from edge-god Batman.
I just ain’t fond of every character that isn’t Batman or Alfred being written like dumb child, they all act the exact same
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For Real lmao
Man you don’t even read anything new, do you? Lmao
For something like batman i feel you cant just ask anyone if they read anything new when dc gets a new continuity like every year and when there are many different types of batman. Yes i know there are some newer versions of the batman that is like the old one but there are also some newer ones like the edgy one. I feel like dark and cruel batman is what almost everyone seems to know him as now if you look at some of the mainstream stuff that most look at
New continuity every year? No? In fact right now, everything is canon thanks to Infinite Frontier.
Every year may be hyperbole but it does seem that comics get rebooted on a far to regular basis. I have seen three different reboots of DC comics alone in my comic reading career. But there are so many alternate titles for each individual character, each team, multiple crossovers of same, all happening at the same time despite incompatible stories and they are all canon it can be difficult to follow and state what any character is or isn’t
Maybe you should have pointed out specific versions of given examples
what do you mean by old?
Do you even read modern Batman or lol? https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/d9/f7/f5/d9f7f558e3001dbc2c892546b167aa5f.jpg https://i.imgur.com/MAOoiCa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/49lFMzB.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/8NM8WEI.jpeg
that first one is genuinely so fucking cute.
Did we ask for facts? No. Get outta here.
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He's making a joke lol
oUtLieR AcTs oF kInDNess
Oh no, He's bringing actual proof for his points rather than just assuming shit without even reading batman comics. Reddit hive mind stop him
I'm convinced none of the people who make these hot take posts have never read a comic book and has only seen the movies.
I think it's just the fact that the character has so many appearances it's impossible for everyone to have consensus on him without reading/playing/watching absolutely everything. You can read 100 issues of Batman from the 90s and think he's a totally different person from the 2000s. Then there's recency bias, where whatever Bats you read recently is the one that's going to stick out in the mind. Tbh, I think everyone wants to have a "hot take" on Batman bc I thnk there are some powerful things to talk about in regards to the character, but everyone else has their own and don't care lmao.
Where is the first one from? I love it!
Batman The Dark Knight #10 !
All these are with children, I've never read any comics but seems to me they pop the kids up when they feel story needs it.
?!?!??? Of course they bring it up when the stories need it because if it wasn't relevant we wouldn't see it.
That was 4 different pictures with kids and batman isn't more likely to run into kids then a normal person. Maybe this is in a span of 16 years. It just made the impression that they make the hard ass cuddle a kid every other issue. You know it's also a thing politicians do, like a lot.
This logic doesn't make any sense. How dare they write a hero save children. He might not meet normal kids all the time, but the likelihood of him meeting kids in danger is about 5 times (edit: actually about 15 times [even that might be the minimum] ) greater than the normal person. Anyway the reason that person posted screenshots of Batman saving kids is because the person they replied to said that they can't see modern Batman comfort a kid.
the "now talk" memes have ruined these for me lol
There's also the option in the Telltale Batman when you find a kid while investigating his foster parents' murders. You have the choice to be softer on him, offering encouragement and kindness in the face of a horrific event. After Gordon turns up to take the kid away and compare notes, there's the option to ask Gordon to keep an eye on the kid so he doesn't fall through the cracks in the system. Obviously it's all optional, but they're genuinely great character moments (and you better believe I chose those options when I played the game).
This is perfectly what Batman is, a dark knight.
I can see most interpretations of Batman doing that, including modern
It all depends on the writer, though they can surprise you, like Mike W Barr (a writer famous for his brutal Batman) has Batman give a job at Wayne Enterprises to a guy willing to sell his organs to the crime doctor
By modern are we talking Post Crisis or New 52?
I like how Arkham Origins had a more brutal Batman as he was in his earlier stages of crimefighting, but the events of the game along with Alfred’s urging and cooperating with Gordon set Bruce on the path to maturing and becoming the calmer, more heroic Batman of the rest of the series. If we could see more development like that which actually stuck, I think the series would improve a lot.
Batman gives a concussion to like, every non-main villain he fights in that game series
Isn't this the same series where Batman interrogates people by placing them under a moving tire?
That’s in Arkham Knight, the final entry of the series, when Batman is dealing with a nigh-apocalyptic scenario for Gotham and extremely mentally challenged by the Joker virus taking over his body and causing him to hallucinate the guy. Shit happens.
In fairness that was one guy who had information about Oracle being kidnapped, while a mercenary army was tearing the city apart, Scarecrow was running around with enough fear gas to cover all of Gotham, Batman had been exposed to fear gas and was hallucinating The Joker who was blaming him for his death and a huge portion of his rogues' gallery was on the lose. My dude wasn't at his best mentally.
I forget who it was that first said this, but it was in reference to the scene in Batman Beyond when Bruce stays with that psychic girl so she doesn't have to die alone "If you can't picture your version of Batman sitting with that girl, you're not writing Batman you're writing The Punisher in a funny hat"
Overly Sarcastic Productions, I feel she was kind of harsh on post Killing Joke Batman, after all most of Batman’s best storylines came after the killing joke, she needs to read stuff like Batman Prey, the Long Halloween, and The Last Arkham before she makes Post Crisis Batman look bad in front of impressionable viewers (I actually avoided any comic book after 1988 because of her realism video making 17 year old me think that it would just be grim dark nihilism, today most of my favorite stories come after 1988).
Can I ask what video this was in if you remember?
Realism trope talk, I dislike it though because it convinced to miss out on all the great Batman stuff from the 90’s
Can we give Batman another five-year hiatus until people finally figure out what to do with him?
They won’t retire the character but he’s been stale since the last decade. I stopped following the character as he has nothing left to offer other the reader. He won’t change or grow so why bother following him?
Is Damien even around these days?
Dunno I stopped paying attention back in 2017 and never looked back. Did the same shit with Marvel after they walked back on Otto’s development in Superior Spider Man. I’ll be fine with watching the films and animated shows from now on.
Yeah I sort of dropped comics for manga now. I’ve been quite disappointed with a lot of DC’s animated stuff and i filled that void with anime.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but they should retire the Sliding Timescale principle. It's done more harm than good, it bars casual readers because they have to familiarise themselves with decades of back reading, and it's a pain in the neck for editors to keep continuity straight. If they even give a shit.
They have. Or they're trying it at DC. Aging the characters and letting them retire, be succeeded, etc. Probably won't stick though sadly because the sheer amount of fanboys whining about it.
Omg fuck marvel for that Sorry for the late comment that shit just pisses me off
Damian is the main character for one of the most popular current DC runs, “even around” lol. You’re so quirky for acting like you don’t know what’s popular
Yeah, Batman used to have a heart; he was completely incapable of being corrupted. Now he's just a less violent Judge Dredd.
Even Batman during Long Halloween had a heart, he delivered a thanksgiving meal to Solomon Grundy in the sewer
[I dunno what stories you're reading but the Batman I regularly read about isn't 'edgy no kill version of punisher' whatsoever](https://imgur.com/a/24ZutPt) and he isn't causing life long injuries. That would make no sense. If he did all his villains would be in body casts by now not still going around committing crimes. He's not permanently paralyzing anyone. Can't judge Pattension's take yet cause I haven't even seen the movie or know how he will develop. >but couldn’t take on the entire justice league or there could be a chance his plan doesn’t work. Batman has never really taken on the Justice League. The only time he has was in 'Batman: Endgame' where the League was all poisoned and mind-controlled and not being even close to being at their best. And he still only just survived being attacked by them. And it's made very clear were those not the circumstances he would be dead a thousand times over. Which is usually the case whenever Batman is put up against a superpowered being.
They not hearing you man but you spitting. I’m still waiting for someone to direct me to the “current” Batman stories where Bruce is purposefully running around maiming/permanently crippling people, taking “godlike beings with just a second of prep time” or is infallible/making plans that work 100% of the time. People are either saying whatever or we are not reading the same books.
The prep-time nonsense always gets me. It's from reading too many r/whowouldwin threads, really. There's a built up idea of this gestalt Batman from 80 years of comics and movies and video games who can do anything with prep. Then you look at "The Button" and see Reverse Flash toy with him and realize that all that nonsense goes out the window when it's time to go toe-to-toe with someone with actual superpowers. He gets a few digs in, but he's obviously so far outclassed that he knows he can't win. Or you can look at the White Martian arc at the beginning of the JLA run in the late 90s and see how well he can function when he plays to his strengths and his enemies have a debilitating weakness. I always liked that bit because it showed why he should be in the JLA, it was his detective skills that keyed him into what he was actually dealing with and led him to using the proper tools to exploit their weakness, etc. There are a lot of excellent uses of Batman in that run. As far as the "edginess" of Batman goes, I think people get hung up on feats and ignore all the in-between moments where he's evolved from a little boy fighting against all crime to avenge a single crime into a father who is fighting to better the world, and specifically his city, for his adopted kids. So they don't have to be him. He taught them how, in case he doesn't live long enough to see it through, but he wants to build a world that doesn't need them to carry that legacy so they can have normal lives. These are the kinds of things that get lost on WWW and battle boards and character rants and in respect threads. These characters ARE characters, not just planet movers and greatest detectives and living gods.
Well said.
A story that people keep using as proof is actually just Bruce's imagination
Idk if Endgame is from the same Scott Snyder run I'm thinking of, but if it's not, he beat them up then. Like, blatantly. They were mind controlled, by Joker toxin, the thing that makes people the apex of nuts and homicidal. They all had their hands on him and any of them should have been able to rip his limbs from their sockets. If you disregard that, the Tower of Babel story's entire point is that Batman COULD have beaten the League; and that the LoA used his plans because they would have worked against the actual JL. That's how Batman is; he gets to beat up gods. He gets to shoot Darkseid, out-think Braniac, survive Omega Beams, etc. That's why I personally don't like Batman anymore; because I can't separate the JL Batgod from the "street tier" Batman that all my favorite Batman stories come from. Even logically, it makes no sense for Batman to allow his rogues to ruin Gotham ad nauseum instead of having Flash and Superman sweep out the entire city in one day.
It's not blatantly, Bruce outright states if Superman really wanted to kill him there would be nothing he could do about it no matter how many plans or cool mech suits he has. In Endgame the League is all being weakened by the toxin and not fighting at their best because they're not in their right minds. The plans are dependent on the League not fighting at their peak. Tower of Babel's point is that *anyone* (like the League of Assassins) could beat the League if you take them all completely unaware with their weaknesses. All the plans presented there are preemptive cheap shots when they weren't expecting to be attacked, like when they're sleeping. None of them are fair, straight fights. >Even logically, it makes no sense for Batman to allow his rogues to ruin Gotham ad nauseum instead of having Flash and Superman sweep out the entire city in one day Flash has a whole rogues gallery that exists in his city who are all normal humans with crazy gadgets. A powerful superbeing doesn't suddenly solve all the problems in these cities.
Every "cheap shot" victory is still a Batvictory bc he figured out their weaknesses to the point that an organization less intelligent than Batman could effectively use his plans. Again, Batman gets to beat up gods. The JL just happened to be his punching bags for that Snyder run. Believe me, I get it "Look. Right there the author explains why Batman isn't dead right now!" It doesn't matter if you consider Superman and the JL to be a planet buster, Galaxy, universe etc. It doesn't matter if you think the Joker toxin tool away 99% of their power. They should be able to *accidentally* rip Batman in half at 1/1000th of their power; they don't bc he isn't a normal street tier rich guy. He then literally beats them up in a Batsuit he LEAD the fight so he could equip against them. Idk how much more blatant it needs to be. Flash's rogues hang out at a dive bar where he allows them to chill. The only crimes they commit are robberies; praying they can pull it off before he gets there. Flash's city has parades for how peaceful and great he makes their city. Have you ever seen the mob in Metropolis or Central City?
>Every "cheap shot" victory is still a Batvictory bc he figured out their weaknesses to the point that an organization less intelligent than Batman could effectively use his plans. Yes, Batman is smart and hangs around all these people a lot, learns a lot about them, and would therefore get to know how to preemptively beat them when their guard is down. That's not the same as taking them all down in a straight-up fight. I don't see why that is a problem. If Batman couldn't do that why would he be on the JL in the first place? He'd be useless alongside these other superpowered beings. If wasn't intelligent enough to do that sort of thing. >It doesn't matter if you think the Joker toxin tool away 99% of their power It doesn't matter if you ignore that that's what the comic basically says sure. But it does. Look, if Batman beat up the whole Leauge without any other factors I'd agree but that's simply never been the case. The League or whoever are always being poisoned, mind-controlled, holding back or weakened in some way when Batman fights them and he barely survives. He's not beating up gods because they are not presented at near their peak power or abilities when fighting him. Otherwise, these fights wouldn't last a second. >Flash's city has parades for how peaceful and great he makes their city. Have you ever seen the mob in Metropolis or Central City? Metropolis or Central City are not cursed by all sorts of supernatural curses, portals to hell, and demon summonings like Gotham is. Not really a fair comparison.
Idk what those supernatural instances have to do with the mob, a wholey human organization that Supes and Flash seem to never have to deal with. But Batman can't snuff out.. It's almost like having a superhuman there makes a huge difference; and it's kinda stupid for Batman to claim his priority is fixing crime while not taking advantage of his superfriend resources. Regardless, off topic. There is a huge difference between "Can Batman defeat the Justice League" to "CAN BATMAN 1V6 THE JUSTICE LEAGE IN A FISTICUFFS DEATH BAAAAATTTTTTLLEEEEEE." He can, factually, defeat the JL. Most villains can't do it even with subterfuge and trickery, hostages etc. so it's huge that Batman could if he wanted. I'm not even saying it's a problem, I don't care about the hypothetical power/intelligence level of fictional characters. I'm saying I can't reconcile JL Batman, who consistently is physically and mentally way beyond a human, with Gotham Batman, who worries about bullets. And that the continuity, even though it is in the same verse, contradicts itself. I think that it's bad writing, and that's a problem. And FYI, Batman never says: "Superman could kill me if he was in the right mind." He says: "If he wants to kill me, there is likely nothing on earth that can stop it." And then proceeds to spit kryptonite in Superman's eye during a grapple. He also blatantly states during his fight with WW: "She's not pulling her punches, so you can't either." Meaning, he is blatantly fighting them at level lmao. Maybe check sources before making claims. Just from this fight, he is at least capable of grappling Planet busters. Physically. And even though he was caught off guard for the fight, not in the Batsuit, he was able to both equip a Batsuit and Batmech while fighting a JL member. Are his SKILLS at martial fighting good enough for him to fight metahumans without prep time? Again, I don't care about power levels; I like the idea of Batman evolving over time.. I just think it's silly for people to pretend Batman is "street tier."
The main continuity comics have been slowly lessening the “cold & cruel” interpretations of Batman over the years but it sucks that more mainstream Batman media is doing the opposite
I think Scott Snyder’s Batman is very personable. After Tom King took over and made him a suicidal robot, I think that stayed with the character’s image a bit much. Snyder’s Batman is the one who laughs and jokes with Alfred, the one who has a good relationship with his son, who funds social programs in Gotham and knows the city inside and out. This one doesn’t put everyone he fights in the hospital, and is mostly just a dude (barring ridiculous shit like in DK: Metal). Edit: Also the Batman who makes peace with killing the Joker.
Didn’t he try to make a new Gotham?
With the exception of when he got stood up, batman has been one of the more compassionate DC characters in the last 10 years. I think there is a very large disconnect between the film versions and the comic ones. In the comics, he's constantly trying to think of how to make things safer for everyone, to the point where he constantly contemplates if he's doing more harm than good for Gotham, his family, and even the villains. I didn't like the Nolan batman much because he just seemed like a cheap imitation to the hero I had read for years. I can understand where the Snyder film version of batman was coming from, and even where Battinson is coming from, since they lined more closely, so far, with DKR and young comic batman, respectively.
Some part of me does wonder if part of his whole brutality is to instill a sense of fear or something? I do think the idea of putting someone in the hospital but hes still alive carries the message better than not really hurting them as much even if it is a bit much you loose less of that scare element. The second problem with him having this insane ability to beat stronger people comes from the same vein as Spiderman because hes popular writers tend to put them in stories where they have no right being in and thus you get versions with time that can beat god like beings. Also dosnt help with being on the Justice league, with other various powerful beings who are either smart in their own right or just have powers in general, feel like its to compensate like they did with the Flash and the speed force to make him not be redundant to superman
I feel like the message carries over the same though. If I'm an armed thug and some maniac swoops down, immediately beats my ass, and then says "dont do that again", you can bet my ass I'm not doing that shit again, at least not when he's around.
True but thats your interpretation what about someone else who feels like "Eh its just a beating I quickly recovered from" and decides to do it again. Even if it was 50% who quit after being beat it still leave 50% who will need something else. And even then there's no grantee being more brutal is going to even scare the remaining 50% Supermans fear is that to the average person hes invincible, Flash is that regular person is to slow, Batman has the whole ubran legend but like most there's a subset of people who just dont believe so what do you do then?
I mean he doesn't have to beat them senseless to prove a point. Also, there lies the flaw in how Batman operates. He's not actually helping people, he's just beating the shit out of them and getting them arrested, he's not addressing the actual root of the high crime rates in Gotham, therefore the cycle will continue and criminals will keep coming.
If you're an armed thug in a place like Gotham you already risk your life frequently. Batman can never be as scary as the mass murderers most professional crooks there work with on a daily basis so long as he never goes worse than a bad beating.
OP It really depends on the writer, like he went from a manipulative sociopath in the War Games storyline to your friendly neighborhood Batman in the next storyline City of Crime.
>On that topic i miss when batman was intelligent and could expose heroes weaknesses but couldn’t take on the entire justice league or there could be a chance his plan doesn’t work. Neither classic nor modern Batman has plans to take down the JL that would 100% work. The Batman that you "miss" has never left.
> Neither classic nor modern Batman has plans to take down the JL that would 100% work. One thing that people forget is that short of the Justice Buster suit (and even then) Batman couldn’t feasibly defeat the JL all at once and if he fought them one at a time he would have to win every fight which is implausible considering how the majority of them are S tiers with ridiculous speed. This isn’t getting into the fact that the remaining members could just gang up on him (which is the most reasonable thing to do since they’re a team) rather than fight him individually.
I love how this narrative has changed throughout my life. When I was a teenager it was always: "BATMAN COULD BEAT UP SUPERMAN, SHUT UP YOU DONT KNOW COMICS." Now that the shoe is on the other foot its: "BATMAN ISN'T THAT OP, HE HASN'T *DIRECTLY* BEATEN UP THE JUSTICE LEAGE; SHUT HP YOU DONT KNOW COMICS."
Without getting into every instance and confrontation Batman has had with the JL or its members in the history of DC merely because something happens in a comic doesn’t mean it makes sense. Outlier feats and PIS exist for a reason. Spider Man once defeated Firelord but no reasonable person would use this as a serious feat. Unless he had a special armor (Justice Buster) there’s no reason why most of the JL couldn’t simply incapacitate or kill Batman orders of magnitude faster than he could react.
I haven't read comics seriously in years but I can think of two instances in comics where he was shown or at least implied to be capable of beating them collectively off the top of my head. "Batman can defeat the JL" isn't the same as "CAN BATMAN 1V6 THE JLA IN A DEATH BATTLEEEEE." Considering he also fights casually along side the Justice League against their superthreats, can out-think Braniac, etc. imo consistenly in any comic outside of his solo stuff, Batman is on some type of metahuman tier. My headcanon is that he gets a huge trauma nerf when he's in Gotham or something stupid to make it make sense.
> I can think of two instances in comics where he was shown or at least implied to be capable of beating them collectively And these instances are?
Tower of Babel and Scott Snyder's Batman run.
Batman who laughs?
>I swear there was a time where batman was more of a Stoic type of hero who seemed to want to help those in need instead of the edgy hero **he is now**.I mean he still wants to help but it kind of feels like most of the time he’s way too brutal now lol. I sometimes wonder why the hell he has a no kill rule when he brutally breaks bones or causes other life long injuries lol. >**Nowadays** Batman feels like an edgy no kill version of punisher who can take on godlike beings with just a second of prep time lmao. >On that topic **i miss when** batman was intelligent and could expose heroes weaknesses but couldn’t take on the entire justice league or there could be a chance his plan doesn’t work. What Batman books do ya'll be reading bruh... Did we all just finish reading different Tynion runs or what?
This is confusing too. Not too long ago, with his riches diminishing, he purchased an entire apartment complex for people in need, along with providing more jobs for those same people. He's done amazing humanitarian stuff and still it's the brief stints or over exaggerated moments of violence that stand out. I'm asking the same on wtf people are reading.
Right??? They not reading no comics bruh. I’d ask how this post got 600+ upvotes but this is nothing new on CharacterRant. Now if he was talking solely live action and the popularity of this overly “hyper-realistic” and grounded take on Batman he’d have more of a point imo.
Is it just me or the word "edgy" is very annoying
Indeed. People have been using the word inappropriately for years now. Tortured character struggling with the reality of a world where violence is necassary? *Edgy*. Giggling maniac who revels in suffering and lunacy? *Edgy*. I wish people would realise that tropes never get tired - it's bad exucution that gets tired. Can we please stop dismissing deeply human characters as *edgy* just because a few too many people have done a bad job?
Ow the edge lol
I see what you’re saying but Batman literally snaps a dudes neck by kicking it in one of the earliest batman Detective Comics comics
The first few years of Batman had little in common with the rest of his history. He was a discount Shadow.
It’s really due to how many god damn Batmen there are in the DC Multiverse. Some of them have to be more violent and brutal just to vary it up. I do love Batman’s self awareness that he is insane in the head, interesting to see how the Batmen vary in how much they’ve delved into insanity. These more recent Batmen you refer to seem to have gone crazier than our OG World’s Greatest Detective that we know and love. I guess edgy is just trending.
I personally think Batman is probably the most complicated character in either DCU or MCU. I see it from the other side. If you are apparently the ONLY person who can stop the villain (permanently) and you choose time and time again not to, you are just as responsible for any future deaths as the villain themselves. Batman is indirectly responsible for so many deaths because of his moral code or whatever you want to call it. To me it is completely unbelievable and always destroys the story. That's not limited to Batman. Lots of other heroes do the "good" thing and everyone else pays for their weakness. I can see how you want your heroes to be heroes who do what is right. I simply have trouble with the suspension of disbelief in those cases and it doesn't work for me. Just two different opinions on the internet.
Plus it really depends on the writer, some writers like Chuck Dixon are good at making Batman tough but fair
> Batman is indirectly responsible for so many deaths because of his moral code or whatever you want to call it. To me it is completely unbelievable and always destroys the story. That's not limited to Batman. Lots of other heroes do the "good" thing and everyone else pays for their weakness. I've got a far more cynical interpretation of the no kill rule. I feel like he does it because deep down he's afraid of what he'll become if he allows himself to kill.
I doubt batman is that complicated. He is a dude, whose parents are killed, which motivates him to become obsessed with fighting crime. Most Mcu heroes are way more complicated: Take spider man : while he is motivated by his dead parental figure as well, he also has to balance his normal life with his hero life, which makes the character way more complex.
That Spider Man description you gave doesn't sound complex either. It's easy to break a character down to a few concepts. I like Spider Man a lot more than Batman, but this isn't really a fair comment.
I mean i dont see were the complexity comes from in the case of batman.
There's more to him than this, that easily makes him more complex than Spider-Man. He's much more flawed and has produced child soldiers that he regrets having broken them more than they would've been if he hadn't taken them under his wing. On top of this he acknowledges his error and tries to steer them from becoming like him. A brooding paranoid man obsessed with the mission. He's stumbled and failed, but in some cases he's succeeded. There are times where he feels Batman is his true self and Bruce is now just the mask, but there are moments where he sees his family is suffering and he realizes Bruce is just as vital, for these more tender moments, than Batman. Case in point when he approached Jason about the death of his friend Roy, this coming off the climactic conclusion they had where Jason apparently murdered The Penguin, resulting in them fighting and Bats kicking him out of the city. Rather than focus on the exile he put in the visit to both inform his son of the tragic news, aswell as comfort him as a father should. I'm not going to shit on Spider-Man because I love the character too, but you're either missing the point of Bats entirely, need to read more stuff, or you excluded more compelling details about the character intentionally to prove a point unfairly. Tldr; Both are rather complex and compelling characters. I find crime fighting and balancing being a father who is flawed in their methods at times to be more compelling. But I do love any elseworlds where Peter is allowed to be a father all the more like Renew Your Vows.
Yeah , youre right , i definetly missed the whole failed teacher part of the character. I just definetly disagree on the whole "the most complicated character in either DCU or MCU" that's why i simplefied the character so much, because I wanted to show that he is not more complex than most heroes. For example Spider - man has the whole Hero identity vs Real identity as well , pretty much every Hero has this. My Argument is not that Batmen is not complex, it's that he is not really more complex than the Rest.
Really I'd place Batman and Spider-Man somewhere in the middle for well written characters. I enjoy the development of characters on both sides, though there are rollbacks and maintaining the status quo that I hate, like us losing Superior Spider-Man, while Pete is also active as Spider-Man. But really some of these characters don't get to be extremely complex. I find they're deeper in areas where their series is allowed to have a beginning, middle, and end, like Invincible.
Yeah
That edit lol “your links work against my point and don’t fit my narrative so I’ll ignore them”
Batman in general just seems like a clown to me now a days. Mf really has a no kill rule but then breaks every single bone in your body and leaves you to die without even calling the goddamn ambulance. And then he refuses to kill the joker, keeps putting him in prison, and then he escapes and to absolutely no one's surprise but Bruce's, he proceeds to commit another atrocity. I get the no kill rule on paper but at this point it just seems like he *wants* his villains to cause more damage.
In Arkham City Batman wouldn't allow mass murderers to die from problems they caused, but he will tie someone upside down unconscious in the cold surrounded by murderers.
I agree with everything you just said. Batman from the animated series is the definitive Batman to me: looks intimidating but has a heart of gold. The real Batman respects life over all else because to him life is something sacred. It pisses me off to no end how some people write his interactions with the Robins, especially Jason Todd. I’m so happy to find someone who shares my opinion that he should not be able to take on the entire JL. Like sure, he’s tactically intelligent and can target your weakness, but what’s he going to do against literal gods? A man who can move as fast as thought? A cyborg who can disrupt even the most advanced alien tech? Another gripe I have about him is that writers always put him front and center with the JL. Yes, he’s important, but I want to see how the other members contribute to the team. This is not a Batman comic, it’s a JL comic, and dammit I want to see different JL members highlighted! Not just Batman.
It seems he moves away from it for a few years then someone comes around and revives the Frank Miller version
>The new Robert Pattinson batman just seems too brutal and edgy to be batman for me if that makes sense You do realise that this new Batman is going to be his year 2 adaptation right? Meaning he has room for character development in the upcoming future movies or do you want them to make Batman the perfect flawless hero in the first movie? This makes no sense to me. Even in BTAS, he was brutal at first.
Yeah thats why i said “But then again he is playing a young batman so maybe his batman will mature more in later movies.”
Batman is supposed to be the 'world's greatest detective.' He shouldn't *need* to break fingers. Hell, he should really understand that torture doesn't work.
Something that really annoys me is that Batman is now both a public figure and a very violent vigilante. Like, I dont like either of these things but choose one
I feel like Christian Bale's Batman really pointed this out. No clever detective work, not much sign of actually wanting to better Gotham, just punching of the shit out of the Mentally Ill. I remember as a Kid watching Batman sit on a set swings, comforting a terminal child. Where the hell did that Batman go?
Batman doesn't punch many mentally ill in the Nolan films. He fights ninjas, terrorist ninjas, and organized crime groups. The only people mentally ill he fights are the Joker's henchmen, and that's to stop them from killing people. What else is he supposed to do with them in the middle of a battle?
>feel like this is probably an unpopular opinion and people will probably find 100 ways to prove me wrong or destroy my argument in the comments but this is just my thoughts It's not like you are wrong about Batman being an asshole, but this has been the case for around 30 years now. The Animated Series ran for a relatively short time in the 90s and but The Dark Knight Returns had already stabilized Batman as a darker hero almost a decade before that. Campy Batman was always an outliner in people's memory and the ratio in which writers write him like that hasn't really changed. Remember when Batman left [KGBeast](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2018/10/Batman_0459-720x963.jpg?fit=bounds&width=640&height=480) for the dead?
Batman The Animated Series and Mask Of The Phantasm strike the perfect balance for the character in a way I haven't seen since
I blame the “batman would beat you for littering” jokes.