Using big, top tier characters to sell books is part of comics. To hate Superman, Batmans, Spiderman, Wolverine, or even Spawn for that reason just isn't good enough sorry.

If you truely dislike a character, dislike the CHARACTER, not the marketing.

See, as a story it's a good one...but the problem is it's TOO real. It ignores the fact that it's a comic book in favor of being so deathly serious it's not any fun at all. Alan Moore, IIRC, even said he hates it 'cause he wrote it too dark.

Anyway, my primary problems are these: The Joker tries to justify, or at least explain, himself, and Batman tries to reason with him. This is SO far removed from any incarnation of the characters I've ever seen that it's ridiculous.

The Joker is insane. Flat-out. Insane people don't break down when captured and have a serious talk with their arch-enemy.

Batman, while he may have tried to reason with the Joker when he FIRST encountered him, knows with the Joker there is no end to his insanity. He will always be crazy and a murderer. The whole crap about how Batman tries to talk to him about the way one of them is going to end up dead is ridiculous.

The part where the Joker tells a joke (thus indicating his decision to remain who he is, which is an insane person...which is ridiculous 'cause nobody CHOOSES to go insane as far as I know...or are able to switch insanity on or off as they choose) and Batman laughs is so terrible.

But HEY! It has the underpinnings that they're both so devoted to their respective ways of life they're not giving it up so they might as well laugh while they can before one or both dies as a result of their nonsense!

GREAT!

Fact is, Batman laughs at a Joke the Joker tells. Think about this.

Outside of this story, which is contrived to have this happen...would that EVER happen?

NO.

BECAUSE BATMAN WOULD NOT DO THAT.

He's so unrelenting and devoted to his cause, even if the Joker really were funny...like George Carlin hilarious or something...Batman would never laugh, because he doesn't want to give the Joker ANYTHING. He hates the Joker.

I don't care if they were written as real people. So what? Comics aren't about real people. Comics can have realistic characters with realistic psychoses and all that jazz, but if it's at the cost of who that character is then it's really lame. The Killing Joke does just that.

Not only that... but given time, Adam West could BED anyone. The problem with that one? It's true.

Yeah Stu that Bat-tusi sure is mesmorizing!

Adam West COULD beat anyone.

Or bed anyone, which in my mind is far more impressive.

Personally I used to like batman. Though a few things changed that:

1. Annoying fans who say ,"Bat man can beat any body given time." Jeez, I hate that. If thats the case spiderman can beat anyone given time. He usually always does. One guy told me batman can defeat the hulk. I said, maybe he can but that doesn't mean hulk can't savagely beat down bats. If I'm correct Bane broke the batman in half (metephorically speaking.) And the hulks way stronger than that.

Back on subject though.

2.I cant remember the comic books name, but the comic when the blue beetle was killed applied more reason for me liking him less. The way he ignored blue beetle and acting as if he didn't give a !$%% if beetles problem was serious or not just pissed me off. Then he acted very non-shalaunt about him being killed. As if to say "I wasn't his friend, so why should I care that he died." Hmmmm.... thats not how a hero is supposed to act.

3. Last and not least. Batman may be human,but he looks down on humans ,as if they're below him, just like superman and all the of the other super hero big wigs with the off the wall powers. exept wonder woman. Shes so compassionate. Hey lets make a thread about her. She rocks.;)

I like heroes who do the right thing. Heroes who fight crime because they genuinely want to make the world a better place, not out of some absorbed desire to be able to beat anyone and belittle those around them. I don't want to relate to superheroes; I want to look up to them and strive to become like them. Good intentions and having your heart in the right place is more important than how many people you can step on every month.

I like heroes who are heroes, not "badass anti-heroes".

I agree almost entirely, however this leads to why I like Batman and Wolverine a lot.

They both want to do the right thing and their own inner demons makes it hard for them to do so.

Some interpretations manage to get that across for both characters and make them some of the best there are.

For Batman, the Animated Series and Dark Knight Returns (Yes, DKR. DKR is just Batman going a little overboard after 10 years of being denied being himself, but still being a likeable Batman IMO) are the best for me.

For Wolverine, Grant Morrison's stuff in New X-Men, the original animated series, and Frank Miller's mini-series were the best.

All these things managed to make their respective character cool, flawed, triumphant, tragic, and ultimately heroic for me.

As a bit of an aside, I came to love Dark Knight Strikes again last night.

When I first read it it wasn't that bad, it's just it didn't jive with Dark Knight Returns all that well, what with Batman killing people and/or allowing them to be killed. Not only that, but the realistic and societal threats of the original gave way to fantastical nonsense like Braniac and Lex Luthor running the country with the Flash on a giant hamster wheel, powering the half of the US.

However, I came to realize that it was just a big "Stop taking my Dark Knight Returns so seriously." to the kinds of people who've used DKR as an excuse to ruin the Batman character with half-baked psychology and 'cool-ness' over anything even remotely likeable.

My guess is Miller was sick of people taking his interpretation of the character, and stripping it of anything even remotely enjoyable.

What he did, in response, was free himself from the constraints even he had imposed on the character in favor of writing a balls-out fun comic book story.

Any opinions on this? 'Cause aside from the killing perpetrated by Batman, I thought it was pretty fun. Just a crazy romp through DC comicdom.

Yes the art was crap at times, but like somebody said in a review of the book "Miller has done for comics what the Ramones did to music with a pen in his hand and his girlfriend on an iMac..*".

*that quote may not be exact, but it's pretty much the same.

I think this thread is using lots of definitions of the word "like" when people say "i like / don't like batman". I think we could be more specific. Let me illustrate. Do you mean:

a) I like Batman / Bruce Wayne as an individual. If I met him in the pub I would buy him a pint. I admire his qualities.

b) I like Batman the character. He has interesting points, is a fun superhero to read about. Comics are usually better when batman is involved.

c) I like the Batman comics themselves. The stories and villans are interesting and they are worth reading.

These three are all different points, yet all three are being argued about intermixed, without any definition made between the three of them.

Personally I agree with (B) and (C) but not with (A). I guess I am sortof on the side of Biz + co. But I think that Bats is still a wicked character and I like reading about him.

The best thing about the batman comics to me is the deal with insanity. Most series' generally have an strong underlying core theme(s), eg alienation in X-men, morals in superman, loss and family in spiderman, etc.

I think the core theme of insanity and obession make for interesting reading.

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I think though, I would disagree with biz in his quest for a superhero he can look up to. One of the best comics is Watchmen and you certainly dont want to look up to any of them.

Comics / graphic novels are just another medium of art and storytelling. Saying what makes a good one is as difficult as saying what makes a good film or good book.

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The original topic though... the question "how has batman affected you?". I'm afraid i'm going to be boring and say he hasn't affected me at all. He is interesting, pretty darn cool, and even fun and camptastic with Adam West but he has affected me no more than any of the other thousands of fictional characters and settings that we are all exposed to in our lives.


Fun thread though.

Here is a Question, Batman Saw his parents killed in front of him this is horrifing no doubt. Here is the Argument, Magneto survived being in a consenttation Camp.

Now to me this is much worse than Seeing your parents killed. Magneto Is seen as a villain (not by me) and Batman a "hero". They each have thier Goals, Magnetos goal is attainable (destroy or enslave all humans) Who here can tell me what Batmans goal is and would he stop being batman once het met that goal?? Magneto would be a very nice person once all the humans are dead. In order for batman to be nice everyone else would have to be dead.

So in conclusion Magneto>Batman.

Ironically if Batman were a Villian I would like him alot more. I like My Heros Iconic and my Villians with Reasons. By this I mean I dont like Villians who just kill for the thrill (Carnage, Joker) But more so people who have had something bad happen to them and they had the choice between hero and Villian and simply choose the path less taken (Doom,Magneto,

i have no definate base to judge who i like and don't like.

but some of my few are as follows.

green arrow- he is what bats could be, a regular guy, with real emtional problems, he understands that he is a jerk and a bastard, but he loves his family, and while he does not allways show it, his family knows it. he handles the problem that bats, apperently, have grown out of, while batman, a normal human , is out fighting cosmic beings and threats way beyond his reach, Ga is in the trenches fighting the grime and gritty fight, plus he is funny as hell.

deadpool- while he is niether a hero or a villian, he sometimes trys to do the right thing and it always backfires in his face. and he is just so cool, he is my bad-ass worship, dual gun, swords slashing, and funny lines spouting, mad-man. but the best thing about deadpool is his writers, since joe kelly and the present with fabian necieaze(SP?) his book is always intellectual and philisophically brilliant. the moral quagmires he is placed in is quite interesting, and due to his volatile nature, you never what he will choose.

cyclops- this is as close to boy scout as i get, he is no superman, or captain america, he as flawed and as real as it gets, he has been a dead-beat dad, an aldulturer, he has attemtped to kill, and would be if the people he zapt at full blast would stop coming back to life. but he is a man with a clear veiw of life, and what he wishes to make of it. he mostly tries to do the right thing, and he does in his professional super-hero life, but he has a flawed personal life and has made mistakes, but he keeps on ticking.

nightwing- this is an interesting character, raised by a real hard no-nonsense father figure, he has broken the circle of distrust and paranioa, to have a rich and meaningful social life, he is well liked by the super-hero community, his relationship with superman sometimes resembls a sympathetic uncle/nephew dynamic. but he is still a world class fighter and leader, he seems to have the complete package, a good social life, good professional skills and an understanding on how and why that is. his origin may resemble batman, and so does his methods, but they way he achieves and accomplishes his method's is very different than batman.

well at least he was a complete package before the death of donna troi in the graduation day arc, i hope he gets out of the slide he is in, before he becomes too much like batman. but it does make for good reading.

This is just insane. You just buy into all the writers who've leaned towards making Batman a big dickhead. Watch something like the animated series and you'll know why Batman's a hero.

If you think Magneto came out of the concentration camps unscathed, you're as cacked as you think Batman is. He'd be a nice guy if humanity were dead? What the hell? How is that even remotely an argument of anything, let alone him being better than Batman?

Also, if you actually KNEW what the character is like (or at least, DEMONSTRATED any knowledge), you'd know Magneto would STILL not be a nice guy if all the humans were dead. He demands a lot of loyalty and can be quite harsh in his punishment of those who don't aquiesce to his standards.

I also like how you can't like a hero for being as flawed as the villains you love. That's just nonsensical. Your heros HAVE to be such moral arbiters that any villain would melt under the sun of their righteousness? That's ludicrous. What heroes do you like if you have these high standards? I don't see ANYONE fitting this bill without being utterly boring.

I'm sorry, but I hate this reasoning for liking Green Arrow. If Green Arrow is such a champion of the little guy, why do I always see him battling demons or supervillains in his current series?

You also say this as if every Batman comic these days is all about him fighting Darkseid or Imperiex. Have you picked up a Batman comic recently? He fights criminals. Granted, they are more powerful than simple street-level thugs, but no different than who Green Arrow fights.

Oh, they for sure have psychological aspects, but most of them are pretty one-note.

DKR takes Batman from a simple character (some people think that having a bunch of things happen to a character is a substitute for complexity) into an actual literary character. Miller's Batman speaks volumes about the [false] nature of vigilantism, of justice, of heroism. [Sadly, most writers are hacks and turned it into "Batman's a jerk cuz he's so l33t".]

I find that more interesting than characters who can say nothing about the human condition because ultimately they're too fantastical to be human.

I mean, I think the Flash is cool and all, but he's not the sort of character that could ever be the focus of a great novel. Miller's Batman could be in Hemingway.

Ok, here's the root of our differences: I find flawed characters vastly more interesting than admirable ones.

On Topic: Batman hasn't influenced my life much, but I do like him.

Joining in on arguements over batman:

People love him or hate him, just like in gotham.

So hes a nutcase, atleast he knows it.

He is probably the most feared HERO of the DC universe, give him da props for it.


That aside, i do like batman. To me, hes second only to Spider-man in terms of coolness. He is the underdog in a universe of green laterns, superman and cosmic villains. No matter what all you haters think, people will ALWAYS cheer for the underdog.

Oh and btw, although bane is nowhere near on the strength level as the hulk, bats only lost to bane cuz he was EXTREMELY weakned cuz he captured like most of arkham's inmates after bane let everyone out.

I don't know of every single characters escapades over the years, but after reading Knightfall pt 1, the only other superhero that i've seen that determined despite grave injuries is spider-man.

Same here. When i was a kid, I wanted to be superman cuz he flew through the air, had cool powers and always won. I'm all grown up now and I think spider-man is 10x the hero superman is. Not because hes stronger, not cuz superman is to much of a "goodie goodie" but because Spider-man faces problems we face. He has trouble paying his rent, hes got problems with women (first when single, and then even after he married MJ) and he still has to put on the mask after dealing with his personal mask. Of all the super heroes out there, Good old peter parker is the most human.