WORLD'S FINEST - Fresh Question #84: What Changes Batman?

[Nightwing]

Hello Joe! And hello everyone else who isn't named Joe! It's new Fresh Question Time! Suit up and let's see those thinking caps!

The decades of Batman have shown so many faces and changes. And it's not just the Elseworlds stories. Even individual projects such as movies or TV shows can show a different view or representation. And the first thing that comes to mind for me, is the ever so interesting and always intriguing question: Why? So think about the dark 40s Batman and the goofy, beyond corny 60s Batman and tell me:

What do you think inspires the drastic and sometimes opposing changes to Batman that have happened with a few key decades??

[adoptedBatpuppy]

The artists and writers minds at the time and what is going on around them.

[Mynd Hed]

Well, when it comes to the Adam West show which is the pretty definitive "silly" Batman, I imagine their line of reasoning went something like this.

Creative Guy: Hey, Mr. Network Suit, I'd like to do an intentionally silly, campy take on a popular superhero in a live action TV show. Whaddayathink?

Network Suit: Gee, that sounds like a swell idea. Did you have any notion of which superhero you'd like to use?

Creative Guy: Well, Superman's the obvious choice....

Network Suit: Hmm, I think that's already been done on live-action TV, not sure if that would fly with the audiences. Any other ideas?

Creative Guy: Well, we could go with somebody who's already pretty lame and silly, like Aquaman.

Network Suit: What, and have expensive underwater scenes every episode? I'm not made of money. Keep trying.

Creative Guy: Green Lantern?

Network Suit: And I suppose you'd want to set it in outer space, with all kinds of pricey special effects for his ring? Are you trying to bankrupt me?

Creative Guy: Gee, there's got to be SOME popular, well-known superhero who doesn't have any superpowers that would require an exorbitant special-effects budget to portray on TV....

[Crow]

There is definitely a fad going on around at the moment where anybody who's bad to bad guys and not a 'usual' hero (the Mr Incredible archetype for example) is either in style or getting a movie made about them.

Batman was the one of the pioneers.

It is dying down now though. Something similar, the anti-hero fad, that's coming up now. The horror movie combos (Jason's Voorhees Mum versus Ripley, ad nauseum), Hellboy, King Kong even.

Imagine a Hugh Grant style Batman!

[Anthonynotes]

Batman's one of the few characters who seem to have had multiple variations on how he's presented, ranging from a chipper guy fighting wacky space aliens in the late 50's Bat-books to the current comics' humorless "jerkass" personality (if you can call that a "personality" ;-) ).

As for why the changes, going with what adopted BatPuppy said---the writers and editors of the time.

To highlight a few major turning points/changes I can think of:

1940: Batman went from a very violent guy who occasionally carried firearms to a somewhat lighter-toned person with the introduction of Robin; apparently his creators thought better of said tone.

Late 50's-early 60's: Batman started to gain more sci-fi elements that aped those of DC's best-seller, Superman, in order to boost sales apparently; thus, Ace the Bathound showing up a few months after Krypto did, and the existence of Bat-Mite (an imp similar to Mxyzptlk, but used his powers as part of being a Batman fanboy vs. to annoy).

1964: Julius Schwartz, big-honcho editor of DC Comics from the 60's-80's, took over editing the Batbooks and got rid of Bat-Mite/wacky space aliens/etc. and brought Bats back to his detective and adventurer roots, as well as introducing slicker artwork and the yellow oval behind Batman's bat-symbol. Said change was dubbed the "New Look" Batman.

Mid-60's: The Batman live-action TV show comes along and makes Batman popular among the general public; comic sales subsequently spike, I presume (guessing this is also probably the first time Bats ever outsold Supes...). "Biff Pow" camp-style words become attached to comics for years on end.

Late 60's/1970: Denny O'Neil comes on board the batbooks, and makes Batman's adventures darker in tone; the 70's see the introduction of Ra's al Ghul, the return of a murderous Joker, and so forth.

1986-87: Frank Miller makes over Bats via "Dark Knight Returns" and "Year One" into being, uh, even darker/grimmer. Plus the obligatory retcons-a-plenty.

1989: The first "Batman" movie makes the idea of a darker Bats popular among the general public.

1992: Batman: TAS. Influences Batman's comics via giving them Harley Quinn and the Animated series' version of Mr. Freeze's origin (before BTAS, Mr. Freeze was rarely used in the Bat-books since his late 50's introduction, and had a different origin to boot).

1994: "Zero Hour" retcons Batman some more, as well as the introduction of "Batman's only an urban legend" and Batman's personality becoming, um, completely jerky.

Not sure what since then's influenced things, since Batman's gone rather unchanged since the mid-90's (though Batman Begins was popular, it probably hasn't changed things much beyond retelling Bats' origin story to the general public/making his movies popular again...).

[Legend1203]

I think its due to the cultural changes in society. Everyone need a hero to protray what life is like in that instant.


:cool: LAter

[DisneyBoy]

I think the biggest factor that determines what stays and what goes is today's youth, sad and silly as that is. Without the anime craze, Teen Titans wouldn't have been attempted as it was. But kids responded to anime in a big way, so that's the direction they went with.

Batman, meanwhile, has been reinvented on THE BATMAN with flashier action sequences (as in anime influenced) and a theme song that's certainly more rock than classical. Today's kids dress "edgy" so that's where they took Batman...to a younger, "edgier" place.

Justice League is certainly different then, because it made a point of keeping the stories adult and consistant with continuity...but as JLU went along it too boiled down to fight sequences and lots of characters, many of whom served no purpose. "More" is also a trend with kids todays. Want more, expect more.

[DLM]

Batman's back story is not original (after all what is? since shakespere, homer and the bible explored the full extent of human drama before anyone reading this was even born), but he's iconic in the modern world. The basic story is both roooted in classical basics, and yet still capable of being grafted easily onto the modern world. Otherwise we wouldn't be having new Batman movies some 60 or 70 years since the character first appeared. When you have a character that taps into something so vital, It should be no supprise that it is interpreted in every way possible, from high drama to pure camp.