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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2023 8:35:26 GMT -5
So When Did The Post-Crisis Batman Become a Jerk?Critical to upcoming reviews and, ultimately, to our discussion of a Post-Crisis Batman Family, is the question of when Batman suddenly became cold, anti-social, and generally unlikeable. At this point, he is still a smiling fatherly figure in the pages of Batman:  from Batman #408 from Batman #411We've recently seen another side of him come out in his struggles with Dick:  from Secret Origins #13but that certainly isn't his default at this point.  also from Secret Origins #13One could argue that the more anti-social Post-Crisis Batman has his roots in the Pre-Crisis, beginning with Batman #330, where Marv Wolfman first tried to drive a wedge between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson as a means of turning Dick into his own hero/leader of the Titans:  from Batman #330Of course, they resolved their differences and moved on five issues later:  from Batman #335We next see a somewhat unhinged Bruce Wayne two years later Batman #359. There, Gerry Conway was looking to build the argument that Batman was lonely and unstable without a Boy Wonder in his life. Creepy as that might seem in 2022, it was done sincerely in 1983:  That might have been the playbook Mike W. Barr was following when he launched Batman and The Outsiders later that year. Perhaps missing the cue that Bruce was pretty much all better once Jason Todd entered his life, Barr depicted Batman as a raging d*ck to pretty much everyone:  from Batman and The Outsiders #1or maybe Barr just felt this depiction was more fitting with Batman's origin and motives:  also from Batman and The Outsiders #1Whatever the case, this utterly over the top approach  (again) from Batman and The Outsiders #1didn't align with anything else being done with Batman at the time, and it seemed to temper a bit over time:   Both images from Batman and The Outsiders #5So, that brings us back to 1987, with a sometimes angry but generally well-adjusted Batman. Then Frank Miller steps in:  From Batman #405Judging from early solicits, Miller's Year One was likely originally slated to be sold as a graphic novel (much like his earlier Dark Knight Returns), and, looking at how drastically it contrasted with what other writers were turning in for editor Denny O'Neil at this point (including Mike W. Barr, the guy who wrote Batman and the Outsiders four years earlier), it seems highly unlikely that Year One and its depiction of Batman was originally intended to be in continuity. But sales were sales. Dark Knight Returns had been an absolute blockbuster for a struggling DC, so Year One was thrown into the core Batman title at the last minute and made into the definitive origin of the Post-Crisis Batman. This Batman wasn't just intimidating and bad-a $$; he was emotionless - a cold, calculating computer of vengeance ever since the moment his parents were killed and, "all sense left my life." Miller avoids giving him any emotions beyond frustration, and Mazzuchelli always keeps his face neutral/blank at all other times, often not even seen in what should be emotionally powerful moments:  Miller's Batman was the face of trauma, and possibly even a sociopath. Year One was another huge seller for an ailing DC Comics, and it was also an artistic triumph, so inevitably it wasn't long before others would try to emulate it. Sure enough, while Max Collins and Mike W. Barr were writing the Batman they thought they were supposed to be writing - a guy relatively unchanged by The Crisis - Keith Giffen gave us a Frank Miller Batman in his 1987 Justice League series, this particular moment going on to rock the comic industry nearly as potently as Year One and Dark Knight Returns had:    All images from Justice League (1987) #5Cold, emotionless, cool, and never using more words than necessary to convey his meaning. At this point, it was clear to DC after three massive commercial successess that this was the Batman that readers wanted, even if the writers on neither of Batman's core titles understood this yet. Thus, this is the characterization of Batman that will figure into the Post-Crisis Batman Family, even while his characterization will otherwise flipflop repeatedly through much of the Post-Crisis. For what it's worth, Max Allan Collins is off the Batman title two months after this moment, and Mike W. Barr follows suit two months after that. DC was going where the sales were, even if the "darker" writers that followed (Jim Starlin and John Wagner/Alan Grant) didn't end up delivering the total Batd*ck that DC may have been expecting.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2023 11:21:36 GMT -5
Teen Titans Spotlight #14 (September 1987) "Night of The Dragon" Script: J. Michael Reaves Pencils: Stan Woch Inks: Rodin Rodriguez Colors: Adrienne Roy Letters: John Costanza Grade: n/a (just exploring the progression of the Post-Crisis Batman Family in this story) If you blinked, you may have missed this one. Teen Titans Spotlight was hardly a bestseller on the racks (it's seven months away from cancellation at this point), even if it became a regular staple of dollar bins for decades after. Thus, it's a bit surprising how important this issue is to Bat-continuity. In it, Alfred calls Nightwing for help when Batman goes missing and Robin is unavailable:  Up to this point, DC has been working since at least the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths and History of the DC Universe to establish Nightwing as his own hero. The obligatory flashbacks connecting him to Batman in Secret Origins #13 and Batman #408 worked hard to emphasize their differences and their going separate ways. So this marks the first time we see the two in a present day adventure together. Let me be clear: I mean the first time ever. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson never appeared together once Dick became Nightwing in the Pre-Crisis, and while they appeared together in several panels during the Crisis itself, they never actually interacted. So this is our very first glimpse at how the two interact with one another. Most of the issue is spent inside of Nightwing's head, having him reflect on how long he has been away  and how much he has changed since he was Batman's partner:  Contrary to what Secret Origins #13 suggested, these two have not maintained a relationship since that time, and the reason is clear:   We're now dealing with a Frank Miller-inspired Batman - the antihero who will drop Guy Gardner with one punch but never crack a smile; the kind of character who must have been impossible for a young boy seeking affection and approval to work with. Dick knows him better than anyone:  and, yet, doesn't really know him at all.  But there is a glimmer of hope here; a nod to the reader revealing that (unlike Miller's Batman) this guy does have a heart beneath the cold exterior:  Nightwing also indicates in this story that there are only three people Batman trusts: him, Robin, and Alfred  Whereas, by the end of the Pre-Crisis, Don Newton and Doug Moench were only concerned with Bruce's relationship with Jason, this little acknowledgement opens up Batman's world, leaving room for a few other confederates that can share in some part of Batman's life whenever Bruce chooses not to be emotionally witholding. And thus the stage is set for Batman #416 (still five months away), where we will finally get a sense that Batman's world is bigger than that of a solo crimefighter and his boy sidekick. |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 7, 2023 18:17:11 GMT -5
Secret Origins #20 (November 1987) "Flawed Gems" Script: Barbara Kesel Pencils: Rick Leonardi Inks: Dick Giordano Colors: Carl Gafford Letters: Duncan Andrews Editing: Robert Greenberger Grade: A In a story that keeps harping upon the motif of broken promises, one can't help but wonder if Kesel isn't hinting at a broken promise that was made to her five years earlier when she was supposed to take over the ailing Batgirl backup feature in Detective Comics. She got in two issues before Len Wein became editor and scrapped the feature entirely. Perhaps that's why she was allowed to return, five years later, to finally tell the definitive Post-Crisis Batgirl story immediately after DC had made it clear with both History of the DC Universe and Batman: Year One that there was no Babs Gordon in the Post-Crisis DCU. I'm not sure where Len Wein fits into all of this. The infamous "cripple the b*tch" anecdote indicates that Len Wein was an approving editor on The Killing Joke, but the GCD credits Denny O'Neil as the editor of that book, so was Len Wein some uncredited managing editor at DC at the time? If so, perhaps he is the one who approved bringing Batgirl back into the Post-Crisis as a means of making it up to Kesel? All we know for sure is that Kesel gets this issue and then a full Batgirl special before...well...other things happen to Babs Gordon. I've avoided reading this one previously, as Secret Origins stories often seem so skippable. I knew the big change made in this story (Babs is now Jim Gordon's adopted daughter) and figured that was enough. Consequently, I just read this book for the first time now, and WOW. Putting aside, for a moment, all the important continuity that this story affirms and/or changes, let's just discuss this one as a story for a second. I've now encountered more Robin origin stories than I would care to count. Countless retellings of Dick's origin, two versions of Jason's origin, Tim's Origin, Carrie Kelly's origin, Stephanie Brown's origin -- each tried to give a distinct characterization to the new sidekick, but none ever wowed me. This origin, though - really the first time Babs' full origin' had ever been told - is just so packed with characterization that you can't help but genuinely love young Barbara Gordon:  Her dedication, her spirit, her adorably uncompromising drive:  Note: there's a nice nod to "Look to the Mountaintop" from way back in Detective Comics #533It's so lovingly done that it's hard to miss the question Kesel implies but never outright asks:  Why the hell couldn't a girl also be Batman's partner? Especially when she was more qualified than his boy sidekick. The story weaves pretty much every fact and important moment ever established for Babs together into one coherent narrative that is as clever as it is endearing:  Given a better artist and a few more pages, this absolutely could have thrived as a stand-alone graphic novel instead of getting turfed into a volume where it was likely to get skipped over. So, let's get down to brass tacks. What's New:1. Babs was born to Thelma and Roger C. Gordon. Roger was Jim Gordon's brother. After Thelma died in a car accident, Roger fell apart and drank himself to death, leaving Barbara as an orphan.  Obviously, these details needed to be invented because Jim Gordon and wife have a son, but no daughter, in Batman: Year One. If they had one after Year One, there is no way Babs could be anywhere near Dick Grayson's age in the present day. 2. Kessel goes out of her way to explain how Babs Gordon could have run for congress in her twenties:  and also repairs much of the damage Paul Levitz's editorship did to the character by making her lose her congressional seat over her convictions instead of losing it over not being very good at her job:  from Detective Comics #487 from this issue3. No mention of having Kathy Kane (Batwoman) as her mentor. I guess that was one character Kesel wasn't going to convince anyone to carry over into the Post-Crisis. 4. Kesel depicts the Gordon family as a relatively happy and close-knit one,  utterly ignoring the fact that, in Year One, it was on the verge of collapse before James Jr. was even born, Jim Gordon having an affair behind his wife's back.  I guess it's possible things got better, but then where are Barbara Gordon Sr. And James Jr. in the present day? I'm relatively sure it is later confirmed that they divorced and that Jim took Babs. 5. While I approve of and really like most of these changes, I have major issues with this one:  First off, the Babs and Dick will-they-won't-they tension was the absolute best part of Batman Family, damn the age difference. Isn't someone in their early twenties pining over a man a decade older more troubling than someone in their early twenties being attracted to someone who is seventeen? Second, I hate that Babs doesn't know Bruce and Dick's secret identities once again. This was another thing that was taken away from Babs during Paul Levitz' tenure as editor in an effort to weaken her status as a hero, and Gerry Conway gave it back to her on his way out the door in 1983:  from Detective Comics #526Seems like this may have been part of the deal involved with bringing Babs back into Post-Crisis continuity. This little detail clearly places her outside of Batman's inner circle and, thus, outside of any Post-Crisis Batman Family (which we'll soon be coming to in these reviews). Babs is back, but she is also out. No girls allowed in the Bat Clubhouse. What Isn't New:Pretty much everything else. Kesel puts forth painstaking efforts to reference as much Pre-Crisis Batgirl continuity as humanly possible, even some of those sillier adventures that we'd rather forget.  from this issue, but referencing the events of Detective Comics #516-517She also brings back Cormorant, who nearly killed Batgirl back in Detective Comics #491, shaking her to her foundation and setting her on a redemption arc throughout the Cary Burkett run. No one was reading those stories back then, so Kesel does her best to summarize it here:  She makes it the driving force behind Babs' campaign against crime at this point and does not miss the opportunity to undo the cowardise that Babs was unfairly given during Crisis on Infinite Earths:  Kesel instead shows us a Batgirl who truly has believed she could die and found strength in the wake of that, someone who showed no fear cleaning up the streets while the first tier heroes were away during the Crisis:  Way to go, Barbara (Kesel AND Gordon)! In the end, we're given a powerful, exciting, meticulously researched origin story that might well be the best Batgirl story ever written. Perhaps because of its merits, Kesel subsequently gets the greenlight to write a Batgirl Special, which will see print seven months from now. Batgirl finally written by a passionate writer who understands the character better than anyone who has previously touched her, and who is willing to fight to get Batgirl a presence in the Post-Crisis. Sure seems like a new Golden Age for the Dominoed Damsel. Can't imagine anything ruining her success and popularity now. Well, maybe one thing.  But that's still a while off. |
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Post by zaku on Jan 8, 2023 6:19:19 GMT -5
Batgirl gets one more moment in the spotlight during Crisis, at which point she delivers Supergirl's eulogy:  But this moment isn't about Batgirl; it's about showing how Supergirl was everything that Batgirl is not. And as we have already mentioned in the past, it is not even clear why, story-wise, Batgirl is the one to eulogy. In the past she and Supergirl have been portrayed at most as two colleagues who do the same job and respect each other, certainly not as "friends and confidants". They've had, at most, one-two bonafide team-ups but it's clear here that they want the reader to believe that there was a similar dynamic between them as the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader. And all of this just, like you said, belittling the character "You see, I'm just a failure as a super-hero!" |
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Post by zaku on Jan 8, 2023 6:43:48 GMT -5
By the way, why didn't they simply kill her during Crisis? They did kill Supergirl and we can argue she was surely more successful than Barbara. I mean, at least the Maid of Steel had her own comic book!
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 8, 2023 8:37:41 GMT -5
Batgirl gets one more moment in the spotlight during Crisis, at which point she delivers Supergirl's eulogy: But this moment isn't about Batgirl; it's about showing how Supergirl was everything that Batgirl is not. And as we have already mentioned in the past, it is not even clear why, story-wise, Batgirl is the one to eulogy. In the past she and Supergirl have been portrayed at most as two colleagues who do the same job and respect each other, certainly not as "friends and confidants". They've had, at most, one-two bonafide team-ups but it's clear here that they want the reader to believe that there was a similar dynamic between them as the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader. And all of this just, like you said, belittling the character "You see, I'm just a failure as a super-hero!" I didn't mind the friendship. I see where you're coming from, but they did team up twice, talked quite a bit, and Supergirl did build Babs her first quasi Batcave. |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 8, 2023 8:44:50 GMT -5
By the way, why didn't they simply kill her during Crisis? They did kill Supergirl and we can argue she was surely more successful than Barbara. I mean, at least the Maid of Steel had her own comic book! That's a really good question. Maybe they didn't figure she was important enough to earn a death? Looking at it from a licensing perspective, in 1985 the general public knew who Batgirl was from the Batman TV series that was still showing on reruns, whereas the only reason a non-comic readers would know Supergirl was from the failed Helen Slater film. Batgirl was still a potentially profitable license for Warner, even if everyone at DC seemed to be against her. Ironically, I wonder if that's why she got so much hate from within DC to begin with. She was only created to boost ratings for the TV series. DC had long since done away with everything else from that era of Batman in an effort to make him a more serious character. I've never particularly equated Batgirl with the Adam West Batman, but if I did, I'd probably want her gone too. |
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Post by chaykinstevens on Jan 8, 2023 10:07:42 GMT -5
I'm not sure where Len Wein fits into all of this. The infamous "cripple the b*tch" anecdote indicates that Len Wein was an approving editor on The Killing Joke, but the GCD credits Denny O'Neil as the editor of that book, so was Len Wein some uncredited managing editor at DC at the time? If so, perhaps he is the one who approved bringing Batgirl back into the Post-Crisis as a means of making it up to Kesel? All we know for sure is that Kesel gets this issue and then a full Batgirl special before...well...other things happen to Babs Gordon. Wikipedia says: The 48-page prestige format one-shot comic took a considerable amount of time to produce. Both Moore and Bolland are well known for their meticulous and time-consuming work; both creators' then-recently finished 12-issue maxiseries titles – Moore's Watchmen and Bolland's Camelot 3000 – had seen delays.[1] Bolland was aided by the laid-back attitude taken by DC, who he says "seemed prepared to let me do it at my own pace". The original editor, Len Wein, left the company, and was replaced by Dennis O'Neil, a "very hands-off sort of guy", with whom Bolland only recalls having one conversation about the book That should say #526 |
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Post by zaku on Jan 8, 2023 10:37:16 GMT -5
By the way, why didn't they simply kill her during Crisis? They did kill Supergirl and we can argue she was surely more successful than Barbara. I mean, at least the Maid of Steel had her own comic book! That's a really good question. Maybe they didn't figure she was important enough to earn a death? I don't know, I mean, they killed these guys during Crisis and I am sure that only the most ardent comics readers knew them!!   Ironically, I wonder if that's why she got so much hate from within DC to begin with. I have a theory (just a personal theory, mind you). It seems to me that it fits into the general mid-80s trend of making characters more "serious". Perhaps it was felt that having multiple versions of a character somehow detracted from it. With Superman they obviously removed Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto etc etc. Now, there was Batman, who had become a very serious character. So dark and grim. And you had Batgirl, the female version of him who fought crime in a skintight onesie and high heels. Somehow her mere existence ridiculed the Dark Knight. So she had to disappear. So the two possible ways were to simply let her fade away or something more drastic. They chose the second path. Which also fit into the general trend "Too ridiculous or camp characters couldn't live in such a Tough, Violent and Realistic World" (for example, Riddler and Mr. Freeze had practically disappeared in the second half of the 80s). |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 8, 2023 19:57:46 GMT -5
The original editor, Len Wein, left the company, and was replaced by Dennis O'Neil, a "very hands-off sort of guy", with whom Bolland only recalls having one conversation about the book That jibes with what pretty much everyone else who worked in the Batman office of that era says about O'Neil...except when he was pushing a major event. Then you'd better get the hell out of the way, regardless of whatever plans of yours he may have approved just yesterday. |
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Post by shaxper on Jan 8, 2023 20:02:31 GMT -5
Ironically, I wonder if that's why she got so much hate from within DC to begin with. I have a theory (just a personal theory, mind you). It seems to me that it fits into the general mid-80s trend of making characters more "serious". Perhaps it was felt that having multiple versions of a character somehow detracted from it. With Superman they obviously removed Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto etc etc. Now, there was Batman, who had become a very serious character. So dark and grim. And you had Batgirl, the female version of him who fought crime in a skintight onesie and high heels. Somehow her mere existence ridiculed the Dark Knight. So she had to disappear. So the two possible ways were to simply let her fade away or something more drastic. They chose the second path. Which also fit into the general trend "Too ridiculous or camp characters couldn't live in such a Tough, Violent and Realistic World" (for example, Riddler and Mr. Freeze had practically disappeared in the second half of the 80s). I'll partially agree with that theory. There was definitely a clear desire to separate Batman from his campy West/Ward incarnation, and that had been a priority at DC since 1969. As for him being "dark and grim," that persona hadn't really been decided upon yet. Collins (on Batman) and Barr (on Detective) were writing the Post-Crisis Batman exactly the same as he'd been in the Pre-Crisis. Colins made some drastic changes to Jason Todd's origin, but everything else was more or less the same. It's not until O'Neil is salivating over the sales of DKR and decides to make the upcoming Year One GN into actual issues of Batman and, subsequently, the framework for the Post-Crisis reboot, that Batman is suddenly depicted as dark and grim. So yes, I do now suspect that the antagonism towards Babs came from the fact that creators at DC saw her as a shameless cash grab, firmly connected to an era of Batman that they'd been working hard to distance him from. The fact that she was a lucrative license, and therefore had to remain in print, must have been a constant annoyance to some who felt she had no place in a Post-Batman #217 world. So they could make her look ridiculous, campy, or just simply outclassed, but they likely couldn't get rid of her entirely. Of course, if I'm right, then why did Moore ultimately get the greenlight to take Batgirl out of action once and for all? |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 8, 2023 20:17:46 GMT -5
It's funny, I have always HATED the idea of Dick and Babs as a couple.. maybe it's because I read Titans first, but Dick and Kori are a FAR more interesting couple, IMO. I sort thought DC agreed with me for a while.. all those Titans animated movies with Damian shoe-horned in have Dick and Kori as the leaders of the team and if not married, at least co-habitating.
Nightwing's current book says otherwise. It's funny, for a long time they clearly had no idea what to do with Batgirl as a character.. I think she was Oracle for so long because that was a better, more unique niche for her. They someone realized she could be both.
Now, they seem to have no idea what to do with Starfire... sometimes they seem to want her to be a naive alien like at first (plus or minus the sex appeal, depending on the audience and the writer), sometimes they wanted to to be the 'Wonder Woman' of the Titans (Donna has even less place, it seems) and sometimes she's just wallpaper, or an energy cannon.
Funny how such things ebb and flow.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 8, 2023 21:36:53 GMT -5
It's funny, I have always HATED the idea of Dick and Babs as a couple.. maybe it's because I read Titans first, but Dick and Kori are a FAR more interesting couple, IMO. I started with the Titans too, though I was watching the West/Ward television show long before that. I loved the Titans, but Dick and Kory always struck me as a terrible couple. Seems like they were just too different from one another, with nothing in common beyond physical attraction, and Dick was always either disregarding her, judging her, or fearing her. After all, early in the run, Dick essentially gives Kory a "Baby, you knew what this was" speach when she develops feelings for him.  It's hard for me to look past that. Batgirl and Robin seemed more like an inevitability to me. Two junior members of the Bat family who were not related? Seemed like an obvious pairing. Babs was also a strong/confident woman who refused to let Dick direspect or dismiss her, and they certainly had a lot more in common, as well as a shared history. I think you're right on all accounts, here. It sure seemed like DC was pulling for Dick and Kori from 1980 up through at least Nightwing Annual #2 in 2007.  That's the first time I recall DC acknowledging the past romantic tension between Dick and Babs with fondness. After that, the idea seemed to come up more and more often until, suddenly, there was a reboot and Babs could be Batgirl again. |
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Post by zaku on Jan 9, 2023 5:04:06 GMT -5
I have a theory (just a personal theory, mind you). It seems to me that it fits into the general mid-80s trend of making characters more "serious". Perhaps it was felt that having multiple versions of a character somehow detracted from it. With Superman they obviously removed Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto etc etc. Now, there was Batman, who had become a very serious character. So dark and grim. And you had Batgirl, the female version of him who fought crime in a skintight onesie and high heels. Somehow her mere existence ridiculed the Dark Knight. So she had to disappear. So the two possible ways were to simply let her fade away or something more drastic. They chose the second path. Which also fit into the general trend "Too ridiculous or camp characters couldn't live in such a Tough, Violent and Realistic World" (for example, Riddler and Mr. Freeze had practically disappeared in the second half of the 80s). I'll partially agree with that theory. There was definitely a clear desire to separate Batman from his campy West/Ward incarnation, and that had been a priority at DC since 1969. As for him being "dark and grim," that persona hadn't really been decided upon yet. Collins (on Batman) and Barr (on Detective) were writing the Post-Crisis Batman exactly the same as he'd been in the Pre-Crisis. Colins made some drastic changes to Jason Todd's origin, but everything else was more or less the same. It's not until O'Neil is salivating over the sales of DKR and decides to make the upcoming Year One GN into actual issues of Batman and, subsequently, the framework for the Post-Crisis reboot, that Batman is suddenly depicted as dark and grim. So yes, I do now suspect that the antagonism towards Babs came from the fact that creators at DC saw her as a shameless cash grab, firmly connected to an era of Batman that they'd been working hard to distance him from. The fact that she was a lucrative license, and therefore had to remain in print, must have been a constant annoyance to some who felt she had no place in a Post-Batman #217 world. So they could make her look ridiculous, campy, or just simply outclassed, but they likely couldn't get rid of her entirely. Of course, if I'm right, then why did Moore ultimately get the greenlight to take Batgirl out of action once and for all? I haven't read "The Last Batgirl Story" (or whatever it was called) but didn't she decide to retire permanently? At that point they could do whatever they wanted with the character. Moore wanted something shocking to happen to a Bat-Universe character and when you think about it, the choice was limited. Obviously not to a Robin. Not to Gordon. Not to Alfred. Who remained? |
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Post by zaku on Jan 9, 2023 5:17:38 GMT -5
Fun fact: when I read "A Killing Joke" I had read practically NOTHING about the Pre-Crisis Batgirl (in Italy they had published very little of the character). I had seen the television series but I hardly remembered it. So when the Joker shot Barbara Gordon I didn't realize she was had been Batgirl. Simply that she was Commissioner Gordon's daughter (which is shocking in itself). So I wonder how many readers drawn to Moore's name and who had read little or nothing of Batman up to that point understood what really happened in the story.
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