After 1,000 issues of Batman in Detective (and roughly an equivalent number of issues of combined Batman runs...) I was HOPING for an actual change like this.
I don't want all the toys back in the box, I was rooting for Bat/Cat. Oh well, maybe in another 1,000 issues...
if that were the case I would have been okay with this but they would have to rebuild batmans characterization again which was not happening so far in kings story
Again, with respect, how can you comment on the essence of a story you didn't read? If I told you your favorite comic/novel/movie/TV show/song was terrible and you asked me why I thought so, would the fact that I'd read some reviews or recaps be sufficient for you?
No offense intended but I'm reminded of nothing so much as the passionate protesters that haunted every screening of The Last Temptation of Christ, not based on anything they actually knew about it, but based on what they'd heard.
Sandman and the rest of the JSA are horrible characters. I know because I read all their wiki entries.
The second Bruce attacks Alfred I don't want to read anymore from that writer on Batman. that was the last straw that made me hate All Star Batman and Robin. That's something you just don't do. Bruce hitting any of the Robins can be argued for mind control and the like but should also be a general no no unless it's important for the story. Alfred is Bruce's surrogate father, hitting him is sacrilegious in my eyes.
"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does? - Gaff Blade Runner
"In a short time, this will be a long time ago." - Werner Slow West
"One of the biggest problems in the industry is apathy right now." - Dan Didio Co-Publisher of I Wonder Why That Is Comics
I won't argue sacred cows when it comes to characters we've all been reading for most of our lives. I will suggest that I believe any/every real person or fictional character can be driven by the wrong circumstances to do the one thing they'd never in a million years do.
Most people don't want to see that from their heroes (real or fictional) and many believe that 'sacrilege' in the sense you used it here is unforgivable under any circumstances. For me personally, I love to see my favorite characters pushed beyond each and every breaking point because I'm a lover of deeply dark tragedy if it's well told, but I recognize I'm an extremist that way and I'd never argue someone should feel differently than they do feel about King's Batman or about any piece of art. (I use the term "art" in the broadest sense.)
I guess I'm saying I find it sacrilegious too but I'm okay with sacrilege if it's earned. But we all have our limits.
I've had mine well tested by the Snyder films. Not that Superman killed Zod because I appreciate a moral dilemma that forces a hero to make a truly bad/otherwise way out-of-character choice. Not even that Snyder's Batman killed(!) and with guns(!!!) though that drove me up a wall and his subsequent comments on the subject were even worse. For me the unforgivable sacrilege was that Clark Kent would stand there and watch Jonathan Kent die. For me, that was the most grievous sacrilege in a couple of films that were littered with them.
Personally I was far more upset that such a thing would happen in a major motion picture than in a comic book because movies about our comic book heroes are (even in today's climate) relatively rare and new comics come out every week.
My main point though is that everyone has things they can live with and things they can't. And I've never been as sympathetic to Snyderverse fans as I have been since yesterday's news about the premature end to my favorite Batman run in all my 50 years. DCEU fans, I feel you. But since Snyder was given the keys to the franchise, I'd still have preferred they let him finish his Justice League movie. Even if I'd have hated it, and everything I know about it makes me ever more certain I would have hated the hell out of it.
I'd hope some that hate King's Batman as much as I have everything Zack Snyder did with the DCEU might see things the same way. I was happy Snyder had the DCEU taken away from him. I wasn't happy he had it taken away from him the way he did. And it didn't make the JL movie better; it made it worse. Even if Zack Snyder's JL movie had made me irate, once it was in progress, I still believe it should have been allowed to exist.
So while I mourn the early end to my favorite Batman run, I've also always been in the #releasethesnydercut camp.
But, @byrd156, my fellow Teen Titans lover, if you've read this far, I feel you. I really, really do.
Of course I read the whole post, always do. I understand and agree that it's always possible to do something we never thought or want to think about. Stories should always provoke something and push some sort of boundaries but then again there is a time and place. You don't put a dance number in the middle of a shoot out and you don't have Batman be absolutely insane and then assault the man who raised him for feeding a little boy who just saw his parents die. If you have a story idea where Bruce hits Alfred and it works then it works. For example the recent Bruce punching Tim was completely out of place and pretty stupid. I'm more of just jaded at the point when I see a lot of people try they miss the mark for me by a wide margin. I was just talking about in the Wally West thread about how intent is all well and good but doesn't really matter when it's the execution that will rise and fall on it's own merits.
At this point in time comics don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. It's the movie versions, the game version, the tv show version, the other media that drive these characters. Snyder's DCEU and Batman was the MAIN Batman to the world for those few years and the world didn't like it. (I know I didn't, I've had issues with pretty much every live-action batman minus Adam West.) You can only have the keys if the studio likes the public reaction and they didn't. And I think the DC movies are better off without him steering the ship.
As for the Snyder cut I doubt there is a finished version that exists, I don't doubt that he has a rough edit that has been through the ringer a few times but I don't think there is some end all be all cut of the film by Snyder and the editing team that is sitting in a storage drive somewhere waiting to be found. When he left the production I don't think he was sitting alongside Joss in the editing bay. At that point he wasn't the director anymore, his name was there but it was no longer his movie which sucks. It must be horrible to lose the project the way he did but that's what happened and there's no reason to dwell on it. he still has more movies to make.
"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does? - Gaff Blade Runner
"In a short time, this will be a long time ago." - Werner Slow West
"One of the biggest problems in the industry is apathy right now." - Dan Didio Co-Publisher of I Wonder Why That Is Comics
You're assuming the BatCat wedding wasn't just always a carrot-and-stick situation. King's "happy endings" are bittersweet-at-best. I personally don't believe he ever had any intent on writing a marriage, as much as we all may have wanted it.
And even if he did, he ruined his one and only chance. So yeah...yay for superhero comics, I guess. Back to the same old grind.
WRT the Snyder cut I was mostly trying to put myself into the shoes of those that hate King's Batman and see the other side rather than just arguing what I love is wonderful and what I hate is terrible, even though there's no accounting for taste in art and I don't really believe there ought to be. It was a ham-fisted attempt to be empathetic.
I'm with you, re: no great live-action Batman since Adam West. Even though the O'Neil/Adams Batman is historically "my" comic book Batman, nothing but nothing compares to every single everything about Batman '66. I make avant-garde theatre for a living but that show is the greatest artistic influence on me of any art in any medium and it was perfect.
The Nolan Batman movies were very good and Christian Bale is a great actor but he wasn't much of a Batman because those films were unconcerned with giving us a great Batman. And while Michael Keaton was unoffensive I don't get the love for the Burton movies at all.
I've waited my whole life for a great Batman in a great Batman movie and I'm still waiting. Heath Ledger as The Joker is another story. I thought he was transcendent.