by Stuart Frazer
THE EVER CHANGING FACE OF THE BATMAN
With Batman it seems that the creators, writers, film makers, television writer’s, et al, all seem to absorb influences from aspects of society and the media. Batman still has the ability to change drastically from one incarnation to the next and still manage to hold great power, humour and success. Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in May of 1939 and less than a year later appeared in his own title Batman #1; these gave birth to an almost seventy five year legacy of an American an worldwide cultural icon. The comic books most famous hero at the time was Superman, a wholesome American figure, with advanced strength and super-powers who represents truth justice and the American way, whilst all the time being an alien from another planet, an illegal alien if you will; this differed greatly from what Batman stood for, a darker figure, a human figure whose conscience drives him to solve crime. Batman’s original role is that of a detective, he does not fight characters in clown makeup or cat suits, but investigate police crimes. In his first Detective Comics adventure he solves a case of industrial espionage. Though Batman is a character is reactive, it is also the universe around him that also changes to fit his, and the audiences social context, the city in which Batman is based Gotham City is a fascinating construct and many characters, notably Catwoman embody many values Batman would struggle to uphold.
“The Batman Mythos springs from the popular culture of the 1930s-movies, pulps, comic strips and newspaper headlines-in which both Kane and Finger were fully immersed.” (Boichel, 1991, p6), Bob Kane, Batman’s co-creator with Bill Finger, had publically said two films in particular had a great effect on the creation of the hero, that of The Mark of Zorro (1920, Niblo, United States) and The Bat Whispers (1930, West, United States). The creators intense interest in the popular culture of the time led to an interesting mix of genre, tone and aesthetic, drawing heavily from “lurid Pulp fiction as well as Universal’s horror films and Warner Brothers gangster movies Kane’s inventive artwork… give the series a cinematic and almost expressionistic look” (Wright, 2001, p17). It is this artificial world where Batman became a detective, the procedural drama, which perhaps led to many of his pseudonyms The Darknight Detective and The World’s Greatest Detective.
Batman has evolved with the times, it is very interesting to see how Batman reacts to the environments in which he finds himself, and the writers put him, through the periods of comic book history, from The Golden Age in the 30s through to the 50s where Batman was finding his feet as an icon, surviving the comics code, where Fredric Wertham and his book Seduction of the Innocent condemn the material at the time for its sexual perversions, “With the exceptions ofSuperman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the superhero vanished entirely for a period of several years.” (Boichal, p 13, United States) These events effected the comic book industry vastly and the way gender, sex and sexuality came under such scrutiny was reminiscent of the McCarthy which trials, regulating what outsiders deemed fit for publication, this will be explored further in depth later in this essay. Batman survived this period, after lengthy discussions of the relationship between Batman and Robin to enter The Silver Age of comic books which lasted throughout the 1960s and 1970s, an era which saw Superhero material flourish, with Marvel comics becoming a prevalent force, the emergence of Spider-Man, The Silver Surfer, The X-Menet al all were created in this period leading to a boom in the superhero industry, particularly with Batman’s television show debuting and lasting for three seasons and a movie, it gaveBatman his greatest exposure,. And from then on was a household name. When The Bronze Age came about it was perhaps the biggest reshuffle in the comic books industry, characters were revamped, some pushed to the fore whilst others such as Dr. Fate, were never to be seen again. This period of the late 70s onwards concerned a much more conscious intention to drive characters into more realistic territories, Spider-Man’s love interest Gwen Stacy was murdered, the gay rights/race rights allegory of The X-Men became less subtext and more text (it wouldn’t be until 2001 when Northstar became the X-Men’s and history’s full out, homosexual, mutant superhero), and as this age merged slowly into The Modern Age, Batman became a much more powerful hero. In Frank Millar’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman became something gritty and raw, he was not only an icon but a literary icon, appearing on Time’s list of the greatest novels of all time. Batman was now mainstream, he could change to fit the gritty ages and the now he was the most recognizable superhero on the planet. Then as with Supermanbefore him, Batman was too made into a stand-alone film.
It was the production of Batman (Burton, United States, 1989), and Time Burton’s involvement that lead to the use of The Dark Knight Returns as a key influence of the film, that and with the work The Killing Joke, was used to form a more darker on screen persona. Bob Kane was hired as a creative consultant to stave off the baying fans hating that the director of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Burton, 1985, United States) and Michael Keaton were going to ruin the hero and return him to the Adam West style of Batman. Whilst Batman went through his big screen incarnations, the comic began to experiment, with killing off major character such as Robin, inDeath in the Family, with the character’s fate lay in the hands of an American phone in poll. Batman too was critically injured in the Nightfall Saga, introducing the now iconic character of Bane, leading to Batman to fall victim to very human character traits, such as fatigue and of course depression. Reiterating that Batman is the most human of all the comic book super heroes, limitless strength is not something he can fall back on. Batman: The Animated Series (Various, 1992-1995, United States) premiered on television a spin-off of Burton’s Batman Returns(Burton, 1992, United States), it tonally a darker adaptation yet still for a family audiences, it is lauded amongst for Batman fans for being a very accurate portrayal of The Batman, itself leading to its own comic book spin-offs and full length theatrical and straight to DVD movies, since this series there has rarely been an animated Batman television series off the air ever since.
Burton’s Batman Returns is a highly stylized film, in this film it harks back to both the Adam West TV Show and the darker more grotesque attributes of the characters from Batman’s history, the fetishized comic book heroine amplified to the nth degree with Catwoman, her costume accentuating every aspect of her femininity; to the plot heavily influenced by Hizzoner the Penguin and Dizzoner the Penguin episodes of the 1960s TV show, it uses The Penguin as this strange amalgam of a film met with mixed response yet still performed very well at the box office, yet it led to a distinct change for the following two films Batman Forever and Batman and Robin.
Joel Schumacher was installed as director with Tim Burton staying on as producer, the films became lighter, neon lights shone from Gotham city, the set design no longer resembled art deco, but instead was filled with more Grecian architecture and influences, the Batsuit acquired nipples, Robin was added as sidekick and the whole tone shifted, loaded dialogue was introduced and as the two films progressed became further and further back towards Silver Age/Adam West Batman. The Film Batman and robin is reviled and regularly offered as the worst film ever made in several polls.
Batman’s filmic reboot was what re-invigorated the franchise, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (Nolan, 2005, United States) and The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008, United States), retold and recast the Batman origin story, through to being heavily influenced by distinct plot lines from the comic books, The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns (again), and The Long Halloweeninfluencing The Dark Knight in particular. The films have proved critically and financially successful, leading to The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012, United States) which is to be released in 2012.
In Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (Snyder, 2016, United States) Batman is older, angry and heavily reminicent of Frank Millar’s The Dark Knight Returns. Though not as critically lauded as Nolan’s interpretation, it takes on the shared universe of the comic books, incorporating Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the cameos from The Justice League. His costume sits somewhere between an armoured version of his Animated Series counterpart, but still in the hyper-masculine gym built body. This interpreatation doesn’t really show much to the character of Batman so far, and is meant to set up things to come, his motivation being primarily anger, something not seen in any on screen adaptation yet. A highly violent man, attacking people to stop his own anger; perhaps this fits more with the 80s comic book adaptation.
Batman is a multimedia icon and has been successful in almost every medium “[he] has easily transcended the sphere of his pulp contemporaries… and entered the realm of an icon, sharing with Robin Hood, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes a cultural existence which has to a large extent been freed from its roots in an original text, circulating as common knowledge, common property.” (Brooker, p185. United Kingdom) Batman continues to constantly change; a new animated series, portraying a darker incarnation, yet again, replacing Batman: The Brave and The Bold (Various, 2008-2011, United States) (another light hearted approach), the whole of the DC comic universe is being rebooted and every edition is being reset to #1 (this comes after Batman’s death in Batman RIP, and being replaced, the first Robin, Dick Grayson, becoming Batman, and after Batman’s Lazarus like resurrection), Batman seems to be constantly in a state of flux, reacting, revisiting previous text and constantly in a state of reboot. This essay will address several aspects of how Batman is represented, a gothic interpretation, the homosexual reading and how the reboot has redefined a character completely whilst retaining its sensibilities.
Punk Academia. 