Does Anyone Else Feel Like Batman Was Better A Long Time Ago?

It was more Miller's work on making Batman a more brooding, emotionally closed-off, distrusting of metahumans/superpowered heroes that started the trend that made Batman what he is now. Batman used to have better relations with Dick and the other Bat members and with other members of the JLA but most writers nowadays make Batman the most mentally damaged hero in comics. I much prefer the Batman of old over the new socially/emotionally closed off Batman of now. It's gotten boring having him constantly getting in arguments with his Bat family where they break away from him then rally together for some big crisis in Gotham only to cycle through it again a year later.

I'd rather have it be small disagreements among members but when help is needed those disagreements are easily pushed aside and aid is given without some big melodrama or reluctance involved.

[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5296606]Pretending a lot of old stuff isn't canon anymore (even the harmless non-problematic stuff) is pretty BS itself. I don't see why any of the older stuff can't be on the table just because some editors in the 80s deemed it so.[/QUOTE]Because we had a pretty consistent continuity post COIE, and some of the older stuff just contradicts it or just doesn't fit into the tone they set for Batman (some of the silver age stories are really wired or goofy).

And the "non-problematic stuff" was probably never out of continuity.

It's not really Miller's fault per se... but more the unintentional fault of DKR. The effect that The Dark Knight Returns had on Batman and the industry is what turned Batman into a psychotic. What few seem to understand is... DKR was supposed to be Bruce Wayne's endpoint... a brooding shell of a man. The Batman of the 70's and 80's was much more well-rounded and stable... lonely and obsessed, but stable.

After DKR came out and was a huge success for Batman and the industry, editors and writers slowly pushed the DKR persona on whatever Batman currently was... and he gradually became an *******. I think Miller was just trying to tell the last Batman story and he did not have an agenda to make a pre-DKR Batman into what he has become. Watchmen and DKR have both had terrible effects on the industry that gave way to THE DARK AGE (is that really Moore and Miller's fault?) and, while there was a lot of good to come out of the 90's, too many creators just took the style and flash of those 2 books without much of the substance, and the entire decade suffered as a result. This is why the very early 2000's, with a few exceptions, are seen as bland with not many memorable stories.

As for Morrison, there were several SINS that he committed with his Bat-run that the editors and Powers That Be in the 80's had established SHOULD never happen. Denny O'neil himself said that Batman would never sire a child, which is why, Bruce officially adopted Tim before Damian came along. The stories of the mid 40's through the 60's were seen as off limits by many because they contradicted what Frank Robbins, Denny, Neal Adams, Englehart&Rogers etc. had turned the character into in the 70's and when Post Crisis happened, Batman's continuity and trajectory was pretty solid. I think by the mid-90's Batman started to fall apart, and, with the exception of Dini and a few other brightspots, the Batman that was laid down by O'neil Adams etc. has not really been present for sometime. Morrison started the silver-age love letter (as Johns did with Superman) and all of a sudden the stories of the mid 40's through the 60's mattered again.

Not even along time ago

I'd look just before king took over and be happier with that


But I get what you mean

Morrison brought back superhero Batman which was a breath of fresh air, but subsequent writers turned that into Power Ranger Batman, which I don't enjoy.

[QUOTE=Aahz;5296673]Because we had a pretty consistent continuity post COIE, and some of the older stuff just contradicts it or just doesn't fit into the tone they set for Batman (some of the silver age stories are really wired or goofy).

And the "non-problematic stuff" was probably never out of continuity.[/QUOTE]

COIE itself was disruptive to continuity, so it being upended eventually seems fair.

Personally, the tone and characterization for Bruce throughout the mid-90s-early 2000s was dull and unpleasant for me. I blame it for the influx of "Batman is boring and an *******, the Bat-family is way better than he is!" opinions from a certain generation. Injecting the weirdness and fun back into him reminded me why Bruce is an awesome character. Tight continuity isn't worth it if the character ends up sucking, IMO. And anyway, most the really weird out-there Silver Age stories were explained by Morrison as being dreams/hallucinations, so it didn't contradict too much.

Yeah,it's not as if he brought back Silver Age elements wholesale. He recontextualized those aspects to fit into a post-crisis continuity.

I really liked New 52 Bats, idk if that counts as a long time ago tho.

Batman is always, always reinvented. It's been happening since his first appearance. I can't remember who it was that said that you can put Batman in any situation/style/whatever and it works. And it does.

I grew up in the 70s, reading the O'Neil/Adams/Aparo Batman but my gateway drug was Batman '66, which played in reruns every afternoon in the 70s while I was reading that entirely other Batman in the comics. And it never occurred to me that they weren't the same character. Even as a child, I had no trouble reconciling one with the other (or with the Super Friends version, which was also current to that time) and I loved them all because they were all Batman.

As to which Batman is 'better,' that's entirely subjective. I've read pretty much every Batman run at this point and Tom King's run was my favorite by a long shot. But as most of the posters here would tell you, that doesn't make it 'better.' Most here hated it. There's no accounting for taste; all art is subjective.

[QUOTE=BatmanJones;5298075]Batman is always, always reinvented. It's been happening since his first appearance. I can't remember who it was that said that you can put Batman in any situation/style/whatever and it works. And it does.

I grew up in the 70s, reading the O'Neil/Adams/Aparo Batman but my gateway drug was Batman '66, which played in reruns every afternoon in the 70s while I was reading that entirely other Batman in the comics. And it never occurred to me that they weren't the same character. Even as a child, I had no trouble reconciling one with the other (or with the Super Friends version, which was also current to that time) and I loved them all because they were all Batman.

As to which Batman is 'better,' that's entirely subjective. I've read pretty much every Batman run at this point and Tom King's run was my favorite by a long shot. But as most of the posters here would tell you, that doesn't make it 'better.' Most here hated it. There's no accounting for taste; all art is subjective.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely... It's all subjective... I'm still waiting on meeting a Bat-fan who is not a fan of either Knightfall and No Man's Land. I'm not a fan of those stories. They have their moments, but I don't see the appeal I guess.

[QUOTE=TheBatman;5295753]Morrison was the last head writer to at least try to go back to a more Bronze Age style Batman. [/QUOTE]Honrstly I never found Morrisons run of Batman particularly Bronze Age, I found it just really messy and hard to read.

And I don't think that any of the silver age stuff he brought back added really anything important.

I feel Batman has enjoyed many peaks and very few deep valleys as a franchise, and at its best managed to be different types of “peaks” at the same time.

Like, for me, the RIP/Inc. era was a renaissance of Batman, but not because Morrison was the main dude; it was great because you had Morrison for people who like his stuff, but that the same time that you had Paul a Dini on Detective Comics and Streets of Gotham in the early part of that era, and the you had Scott Snyder doing his thing in the latter half.

Understand, all three of those guys have [I]very[/I] different version of Bruce and Batman... but all three were roughly active at the same time, and alongside DickBats, OG Damian, Red Robin Tim, BatSteph, and Black Bat Cass.

Do I think that era was “perfect?” No.

Was it still effectively an epoch of totally different types of Batman fiction? Oh, hell yeah!

If you wanted more Bronze Age type Batman, than Dini had that, and Yost did that with Tim. You want more goofy but still fun stuff? Bryan Q. Miller had Stephanie Brown fighting Dracula clones with Supergirl and teasing Damian on his first play-date. You wanted 90’s Bat-prep? You had Morrison’s Bruce and Nicieza’s Tim. You wanted solid, Batfamily hijinks? Gates of Gotham.

[QUOTE=BatmanJones;5298075]Batman is always, always reinvented. It's been happening since his first appearance. I can't remember who it was that said that you can put Batman in any situation/style/whatever and it works. And it does.

I grew up in the 70s, reading the O'Neil/Adams/Aparo Batman but my gateway drug was Batman '66, which played in reruns every afternoon in the 70s while I was reading that entirely other Batman in the comics. And it never occurred to me that they weren't the same character. Even as a child, I had no trouble reconciling one with the other (or with the Super Friends version, which was also current to that time) and I loved them all because they were all Batman.

As to which Batman is 'better,' that's entirely subjective. I've read pretty much every Batman run at this point and Tom King's run was my favorite by a long shot. But as most of the posters here would tell you, that doesn't make it 'better.' Most here hated it. There's no accounting for taste; all art is subjective.[/QUOTE]

Well said. I wasn't as big as you on King's run but I did have a great time with Snyder who's similarly divisive here. Batman has a pretty amazing run these last 40 years. You can't please everyone but I think almost everyone has gotten an incarnation they really like while the character still consistently feels like Batman through all the changes

I've always loved the adaptability of him. It's why I could enjoy the detective and down to earth stories of Dini or Brubaker, the more comedic spins in Brave & Bold, and full on Batgod by Morrison. They're all Batman to me

[QUOTE=Aahz;5298506]Honrstly I never found Morrisons run of Batman particularly Bronze Age, I found it just really messy and hard to read.

And I don't think that any of the silver age stuff he brought back added really anything important.[/QUOTE]

In terms of characterization, Bruce was closer to his Bronze Age self than he had been in a while, and it was a breath of fresh air.

The Silver Age stuff added to the flavor of the run, celebrating how awesome Batman is in his various aspects and tones. It's very important to that run by itself. Whether or not it's important in the long run, that's more YMMV, since not everyone will use it. But honestly, a lot of what we've gotten since then (and before it) wasn't that great anyway, so it hardly makes a difference.

[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5299879]In terms of characterization, Bruce was closer to his Bronze Age self than he had been in a while, and it was a breath of fresh air.[/QUOTE]Maybe but his run gave me mostly headache from trying to understand what was going on, so I didn't pay much attention to Bruce characterisation.

And for writer who does a great Bronze Age style Batman I go with Dini (and the other DCAU Writers) over Morrison.