B:TAS, censored?

[Frank White]

My roomate and I were watching some Batman the other day and he was amazed at how afraid all the crooks were of Batman. His argument was that it was unrealistic for them to be so afraid considering Batman won't hit you unless you provoked. He thought that for all of them to be so afraid of them, Batman must be really beating the crap out of people or else they'd figure out that he won't hurt you unless provoked.

[Mynd Hed]

Wow, that's a heckuva provocative title considering that there's absolutely nothing in your actual post to indicate that B: TAS is being, has ever been, or will ever be censored.

But anyway, I think the idea behind Batman is that he's become a bit of an urban legend, and you know how those sorts of things tend to grow in the telling. In the same way that your brother's boss's girlfriend's cousin saw an alligator in the New York sewers, probably after the first couple times Batman roughed some 'hoods up just a little bit in pure self defense, the story got exaggerated more and more each time it was told until it was like, "Yeah, I heard about Batman from my old cellmate in the slammer. He said the Bats thrashed an old partner of his within an inch of his life, broke his leg and three ribs-- yeah, it's amazing the guy can still walk-- and then bit the head off a bat Ozzy-style and spit it out onto the poor guy's broken body. True story. Yeah, the Bats is a loose cannon, total psycho."
Criminals do, after all, tend to be a "superstitious cowardly lot." (-:

Note to impressionable children reading this post: Don't worry, there aren't really any alligators in the New York sewers. It's a well-known fact that New York is croc country. Have a nice day. (-:

[Barb Gordon]

I agree. The whole point of Batman is that he's a legend, a myth. Some people believe he exists, others don't. I mean, we see episodes where newspaper headlines talk about Batman being a creature or a monster. We know he's not, but most of the city doesn't know that. They know nothing about him. The crooks might not be scared of boys in blue, but their certainly freaked about a giant bat. Not all of them have come across him, so it travels via word of mouth when one has the ill fortune to cross his path. And not all the crooks are scared of Batman, the bosses aren't, only the lowly thugs.

~Barb

[Bleu Unicorn]

I agree. The whole point of Batman is that he's a legend, a myth. Some people believe he exists, others don't. I mean, we see episodes where newspaper headlines talk about Batman being a creature or a monster. We know he's not, but most of the city doesn't know that. They know nothing about him. The crooks might not be scared of boys in blue, but their certainly freaked about a giant bat. Not all of them have come across him, so it travels via word of mouth when one has the ill fortune to cross his path. And not all the crooks are scared of Batman, the bosses aren't, only the lowly thugs.

~Barb

Well everyone's already talked about Batman as an urban legend, so I won't waste time rambling about that.

I do want to make a comment on the bosses not being scared of Batman. While I don't think it's the same level as what Frank described above (the all encompassing fear 'cos they don't know anything really about him), there has to be some level of fear, or they'd just run-amock through Gotham. While the big guys (Two-Face, Joker, Penguin, etc.) know more about Batman than the legends, they still don't know everything about him - and in some ways their entanglements with him are more like obsessions than out-and-out fighting (especially Joker). But to say they aren't afraid of him, imho, isn't completely true.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers!

[Mynd Hed]

Well everyone's already talked about Batman as an urban legend, so I won't waste time rambling about that.

I do want to make a comment on the bosses not being scared of Batman. While I don't think it's the same level as what Frank described above (the all encompassing fear 'cos they don't know anything really about him), there has to be some level of fear, or they'd just run-amock through Gotham. While the big guys (Two-Face, Joker, Penguin, etc.) know more about Batman than the legends, they still don't know everything about him - and in some ways their entanglements with him are more like obsessions than out-and-out fighting (especially Joker). But to say they aren't afraid of him, imho, isn't completely true.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers!

Killer Croc: Well, ya know what I think....
Joker: Not the robot theory again!
Killer Croc: ...well, he could be!

(-:

[Bleu Unicorn]

Killer Croc: Well, ya know what I think....
Joker: Not the robot theory again!
Killer Croc: ...well, he could be!

(-:

I rest my case.

[Barb Gordon]

lol, exactly. And as for civilians, remember the tales of the dark knight episode with the three kids? They all had such completely differerent views of what he looked like and how he acted.

~Barb

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

His argument was that it was unrealistic for them to be so afraid considering Batman won't hit you unless you provoked. He thought that for all of them to be so afraid of them, Batman must be really beating the crap out of people or else they'd figure out that he won't hurt you unless provoked.

If I had anything to contribute that hasn't already been said, it'd be centering around this assessment of Batman. It seems to me that committing a crime is grounds enough for Batman to slam your face into the concrete, whether you've provoked him personally or not. Lots of the comics have people Batman's assaulted ending up in the hospital with casts or crutches.

Admittedly, they don't show quite so much of this in the Animated Series or its associated comics, but that's more a function of the target audience (the kiddies) and the mandates of BS&P. However, off the top of my head, I can think of the sequence at the end of "It's Never Too Late," where Bats beats seven shades of snot out of a bunch of mob enforcers who aren't even looking for him.

There's also the bit in "Robin's Reckoning" where he gets the "OK, dirtbag, it's just you, me, and 30 stories" line. You don't have to hit someone to scare them. I can imagine some interesting games involving slipknots in the scenario above.

There's no doubt in my mind that Batman dishes out object lessons in walking the straight and narrow on the less socially conscientious of Gotham City. We just don't see a lot of them on civilians is all.

-- Ed/Ace

[DianaGohan]

Well it's not like BTAS showed everything that happened in Batman/Bruck Wayne's life. So of course they could "edit" out some of the "rougher" battles Batman's had and of course leave the audiance to ask about it.