Richard Grayson writes:I would really appreciate it if you could all keep the language in your posts very clean. Otherwise my dad will see to it that I'm off this website faster than a speeding bullet....
Wha...? Why was I thinking you were older than most of us? Or were you making a joke like when Johnny Carson said to an 80-something George Burns, "You've had an amazing career, haven't you? Going all the way back to vaudeville!" and George answered, "Yes, my parents are very proud of me!"
I think as far as art goes you have to ask what the illustrators were aiming for. The older illustrators weren't trying to draw Batman the way it is drawn now. It's a completely different style just like the TV show is different from the comics. It also seems to me that the different eras may have been (unintentionally) aimed at different audiences. The 60's stuff seems to be for younger kids than the stuff from the 40's, and the modern stuff appears to be for a much older audience.
I think comics, like cartoons, started out for all audiences and only over time became "kid's stuff." As for the modern stuff, I don't know who it's aimed at. It's certainly not suitable for children, but it's hard to imagine it appealing to anyone over 12.
Batman got his back broken? Do I want to know how?
Short answer? No you don't.
Long(er) answer: Batman's back was broken by a third-rate villain named Bane in the "Knightfall" storyline back in the early 90s. It was part of an effort to darken up the series with all sorts of violence and angst and bring a new "realism" to the books. So of course at the end of the storyline Batman is magically healed by the touch of his super-powered girlfriend. And having had several months to search the world and his soul from a wheelchair, Bruce Wayne makes a life-changing decision that affects the books for the next few years. Specifically, he decides not to wear his underwear on the outside of his leotards any more.
In other words, a total waste of time and money and you're better off oblivious.
I found a Batman website that starts off with "In the beginning, a criminal killed his parents. In the end, a criminal killed him." DC killed Batman? How could they? Was it only on Earth 2?
I'm drawing a blank on which story this quote is from, but yes it refers only to the Earth-2 Batman, who was killed by a temporarily super-powered nobody in a late 70s issue of Adventure Comics. The story itself was pretty bad, but Alan Brennert and a couple of other writers did manage to use Batman's death as the inspiration for some great stories later on.
TELLE writes:I wanted to post that Frank Miller image of Batman saying "Watch ...wach your language." But can't find it --maybe I dreamed it.
It's from "Dark Knight Returns," near the end of issue 3. A kid at the carnival tells Batman to go kick Joker's a-- but before he can finish, Batman, holding his bleeding side, tells the kid to watch his language.
A memorable moment that showed Miller at least kind of understood Batman once upon a time. In the current All-Star Batman, Bruce cusses out the very young Dick Grayson and seems to hate kids in general.
