So...where's Vicki Vale?

[witchboy]

If no one has seen it, the 1949 Batman and Robin serial has a comic accurate Vicki Vale. She looks right, and her personality is the way it was in the Golden Age, friendly but despairing of Bruce for wasting his potential.
It's an interesting contrast to 1989 Vicki's softer, more gentle personality. It really made a lot of sense when I learned that Vicki in 1989 was originally supposed to be Silver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQZjI1xEHAM

[witchboy]

Batman wasn’t being given a lot of romances at the time - I think the period after Batman: Year One saw very few major romances for Batman, at least compared to the 80’s.

And I think the biggest issue Vicki has is that, if a writer’s not careful, she’s “just” the civilian love interest. This characters only rarely have staying power in Batman comics once they’re main creators leave them alone - Silver St. Cloud might be the most successful version of them, and even she really only got appearance when Conway was writing her (and when Smith wanted a good victim for his story.)

I can see what you mean there. I think there is potential for Vicki to work as a supporting character even if it's as a friend instead of a love interest. I could see her being useful in a GCPD type series, where the story could focus on her as a reporter with limited interaction with the Bat-family, seeing the heroes and criminals from a different perspective.
No one besides me is clamoring for a Vicki Vale mini series I guess, but I think under someone like Brubaker or Rucka it could work.

[K. Jones]

Batman wasn’t being given a lot of romances at the time - I think the period after Batman: Year One saw very few major romances for Batman, at least compared to the 80’s.

And I think the biggest issue Vicki has is that, if a writer’s not careful, she’s “just” the civilian love interest. This characters only rarely have staying power in Batman comics once they’re main creators leave them alone - Silver St. Cloud might be the most successful version of them, and even she really only got appearance when Conway was writing her (and when Smith wanted a good victim for his story.)

Prior to the Year One revamp Batman was seeing a lot of ... Catwoman, in and around Crisis. The whole Nocturna tries to get custody of Jason Todd odd-ball storyline. In Year One he obviously interacts with Catwoman. And post Year One it's mostly run-ins with Catwoman. I haven't re-read Year Two in a long, long while, but they did introduce Rachel Caspian - was there a romance angle? Either way it's set in Batman's past and not really 'part of the time', and Andrea Beaumont did it better. I can't really think of any romantic interaction until 94 with Shondra Kinsolving. There's the perpetual Catwoman on-off-again business, but it's like ... Silver St. Cloud goes away in the early 80s and Batman doesn't really meet anybody new and interesting until the mid-90s. That's like if he just stopped dating for a year and a half. Anyway I get off track.

'89 Vicki has overt Silver parallels, you're so right - I think the whole 'learning Bruce's identity' bit being a lift. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vicki Vale never actually learned Batman's identity in the comics, right? I mean in the classic period ... but also the modern. She clearly figured it out during "Bruce Wayne: The Road Home", which was only like ten years ago but also holy hell guys, Bruce Wayne: The Road Home was ten years ago. It's a fairly easy thing to retcon out if you want a different dynamic and think the "reporter who knows a secret identity" angle is covered plenty enough in more obvious other characters or get mad when you actually count out how many people know Bruce Wayne Is Batman.

Now Silver ... oh man Silver through modern eyes is an interesting character. "Socialite", Heiress, later an event planner ... she's basically a Kardashian or a Paris Hilton type. Bruce Wayne legit dated one of these social media/influencer types ... and it was a big relationship for him, very likely in the sort of "Top Five Big Ones" alongside names like Catwoman, Talia al Ghul, Julie Madison, or Andrea Beaumont.