What's Your Headcanon For Why Batman Turned Into A Jerk In The '00s?

[babyblob]

Don't forget the Mad Monk and I believe the original Clayface as well.

Clayface did not appear until Detective comics in June of 1940. Two months after Robin. And Robin was in his first story. I did forget about Mad Monk

[phonogram12]

Yeah, my first thought was Batman is okay with unchecked power, so long as it's his own. I've seen others say he hates authoritarianism, unless it's his own. But that's modern Batman, and it's hard to pinpoint changes, when they often shift over a time period. I think it's fairly easy to pick a beginning point of the change, usually (a wildly popular work), but when he crosses the finish line is another story.

TBF, he hates his own mistakes probably more than he hates his fellow superheroes mistakes...he's just much more forgiving of himself. XD

[SiegePerilous02]

One thing that I wish they would incorporate from 'Untold Legends' is, Dick being with Bruce when he met his Rogues for the first time. I think it adds depth to their relationship if Dick had been there from the start.

Agreed. Stuff like TLH/DV where most of the major players in Batman's rogues gallery save Ra's and Bane have already encountered him before Dick arrives is ridiculous.

[Frontier]

Agreed. Stuff like TLH/DV where most of the major players in Batman's rogues gallery save Ra's and Bane have already encountered him before Dick arrives is ridiculous.

I don't really see Dick as being all that needed for the first encounters though. It becomes all about them and Batman anyways.

Heck, things escalating ultimately better sets up the need for Batman to have a partner.

[babyblob]

I don't really see Dick as being all that needed for the first encounters though. It becomes all about them and Batman anyways.

Heck, things escalating ultimately better sets up the need for Batman to have a partner.

I like the Idea of Batman being a round a bit before Robin comes in. Like Batman is this urban legend that Dc likes to play him off as (Despite being in universe being on camera fighting with the Justice league and other heroes) And have Dick meet him and join up later. he is super thrilled at being given this chance to be a hero. Then growing super bitter at seeing how he was used and manipulated. Which I know is pretty much what they did. but I would like to see it be handled better.

[SiegePerilous02]

I don't really see Dick as being all that needed for the first encounters though. It becomes all about them and Batman anyways.

Heck, things escalating ultimately better sets up the need for Batman to have a partner.

isn't that kind of the problem? It's a leftover belief that Batman didn't need a Robin and writers were trying to distance the character from the perceived camp, so they took some of Dick's experience away to make it happen. But screw that noise, that's not how it was published.

[babyblob]

isn't that kind of the problem? It's a leftover belief that Batman didn't need a Robin and writers were trying to distance the character from the perceived camp, so they took some of Dick's experience away to make it happen. But screw that noise, that's not how it was published.

I alwyas thought that the role of Robin was to keep batman grounded and to help keep him from getting to lost in his war by making him retain some humanity. And for awhile that is what he did. I loved the stories with Batman and Robin from the old days. How Bruce really cared. I mean in the 70's didnt he move out of Wayne manor and close The \Batcave after Dick went to college? Moved to Wayne Tower.

but they really moved away from that. And he treated Robin/Nightwing worse and worse. All the other Robin's were treated like crap its funny how Bruce cared so much about Jason dying when he didnt seem to care about him when he was alive. and then they decided to make a Robin that was Batjerk clone. I just dont see the point of having a Robin any more to be honest.

[Frontier]

isn't that kind of the problem? It's a leftover belief that Batman didn't need a Robin and writers were trying to distance the character from the perceived camp, so they took some of Dick's experience away to make it happen. But screw that noise, that's not how it was published.

My point was that in their introduction it would be more about establishing their dynamic with Batman and how they contrast with him than just having Batman and Robin fight a villain of the week, which is what we expect from subsequent encounters and can be used as more character and career building for Dick after he becomes Robin.

I don't think the idea behind it was to signify that Batman didn't need a Robin and the idea was that Dick still had years of fighting them once he became Robin. Like, B:TAS had Dick in college for pretty much every major villain's debut episode but when the show started using him more he still fought those villains along with Batman.

I alwyas thought that the role of Robin was to keep batman grounded and to help keep him from getting to lost in his war by making him retain some humanity. And for awhile that is what he did. I loved the stories with Batman and Robin from the old days. How Bruce really cared. I mean in the 70's didnt he move out of Wayne manor and close The \Batcave after Dick went to college? Moved to Wayne Tower.

but they really moved away from that. And he treated Robin/Nightwing worse and worse. All the other Robin's were treated like crap its funny how Bruce cared so much about Jason dying when he didnt seem to care about him when he was alive. and then they decided to make a Robin that was Batjerk clone. I just dont see the point of having a Robin any more to be honest.

I mean, I think it was pretty clear how much Bruce cared about Jason before his death during Death in the Family. There was some contention at the beginning but the whole reason they even went on that mission was to find Jason's mother.

[SiegePerilous02]

I alwyas thought that the role of Robin was to keep batman grounded and to help keep him from getting to lost in his war by making him retain some humanity. And for awhile that is what he did. I loved the stories with Batman and Robin from the old days. How Bruce really cared. I mean in the 70's didnt he move out of Wayne manor and close The \Batcave after Dick went to college? Moved to Wayne Tower.

but they really moved away from that. And he treated Robin/Nightwing worse and worse. All the other Robin's were treated like crap its funny how Bruce cared so much about Jason dying when he didnt seem to care about him when he was alive. and then they decided to make a Robin that was Batjerk clone. I just dont see the point of having a Robin any more to be honest.

I think that was toyed with here and there in older comics, but not really a thing until Tim came around. I can't say I care for it. Robin's main role was to function as a Watson to Batman's Holmes and give him someone to bounce ideas off of, and to provide guidance for someone who went through a similar tragedy and also simply to have a friend. Robin being a needed morality chain to keep Batman from flying off the handle isn't a remotely good look for Batman. I think Bruce consciously reigns himself in to be a good influence for Dick, but it would still be a small part of their relationship and Bruce would would also independtly mature as he grows older (he is typically only in his early 20s when he starts).

Even when Dick became Nightwing originally, his friction with Bruce comes across as Dick not being a totally reliable narrator and he's as much to blame for the friction in their dynamic as Bruce is, and then they come to terms at Donna's wedding like adults. Instead post-COIE changed it to Bruce firing him and it escalated from there. I think despite the overall boost in popularity for the brand, as a character Batman took some of the hardest hits in the changes around COIE. He changes, and most definitely not for the better. In a realistic scenario, the Batman-Robin dynamic wouldn't be healthy but it's fantasy. Nowadays, even within the fantasy setting of the DCU it comes across poorly, and that's not remotely a good thing to me either.

My point was that in their introduction it would be more about establishing their dynamic with Batman and how they contrast with him than just having Batman and Robin fight a villain of the week, which is what we expect from subsequent encounters and can be used as more character and career building for Dick after he becomes Robin.

I don't think the idea behind it was to signify that Batman didn't need a Robin and the idea was that Dick still had years of fighting them once he became Robin. Like, B:TAS had Dick in college for pretty much every major villain's debut episode but when the show started using him more he still fought those villains along with Batman.

Much like the firing of Dick post-COIE and later crawling back to the Bat-offices when the Titans brand fell off, it comes off as a demotion that elevates Batman even further over Robin by giving him even that much more experience.

The argument that establishing the character dynamics between Batman and the villain doesn't entirely work, because it's not as if it has to be mutually exclusive. With the simple writing of the older comics, it's not like it would have happened even if Robin hadn't been there. And in stuff like BTAS, Poison Ivy's first encounter was pretty much a villain of the week, and her more character driven episode "House and Garden" had Robin in it.

[quietguy]

No. i still prefer him thin and serious, but I feel adding that he was the one that raised Bruce creates a lot of problems for both characters.

My avatar is a marvel character called Captain Ultra. He's used the tagline "The Hero that Can Do Anything better than you!" and is mostly used for humor.

Oh I see. Thank you for the information!

[Arsenal]

Bane might’ve temporarily broke the Bat but life finally broke Bruce.

There isn’t any one moment in particular that turned Bruce into the man he became. Instead it was the culmination of all of them and the lack of enough positive ones to balance it out. He might’ve adapted and overcame the challenge every time but he sacrificed a piece of himself every time to do it until all that was left was his worst tendencies amplified without his more well rounded ones there to keep them in check.

[Tzigone]

Don't forget the Mad Monk and I believe the original Clayface as well.

I believe Robin was in the first Clayface story. It's this one, right?

[Spencermalley935]

Definitely not alone! I prefer it too. Alfred meeting Bruce as an adult who is already Batman (or very close to it) is preferable to him being one of the worst legal guardians ever. No Alfred, put the kid into therapy instead of enabling this crime fighting thing. Phillip at least was clueless to the whole thing, and Bruce somehow ended up more well adjusted adult being raised by him than Alfred since in post-Crisis they sometimes backtracked Bruce's worst tendencies as always being there to a degree.

I don't mind the Alice Chillton thing either, as hokey of a coincidence it is.

So you're A-Okay with Uncle Phillip and Alice Chilton being the "worst legal guardians ever"? If anything, I think "being clueless" is infinitely worse than Alfred at least trying to help Bruce deal with his issues in some way. Alfred being the Wayne family butler from the start also better explains how he's so devoted to Bruce's well-being than if he were just some random guy who showed up at Wayne Manor and asked for a job.

In Scott Snyder's All-Star Batman series, Alfred actually did send Bruce to camp for troubled boys.

[Astralabius]

I think I could tolerate Bruce being an awful person a lot better if DC was at least honest about it and let him suffer the consequences for his actions, but instead things always seem to get retconned in his favor or they get ignored.
Or DC "adresses" Bruce's bad bahaviour, but it's always done through people like Alfred, Dick or Clark who end their criticism with several sentences about how great Bruce is.
No, the guy is an ass and a grown man, let him apologize for his actions. Don't tell me that's he's actually such a great guy.

[Tzigone]

So you're A-Okay with Uncle Phillip and Alice Chilton being the "worst legal guardians ever"?

Well, not the person you responded to, but I much prefer the healthier guy Bruce was back then when he was raised by them. But even if I didn't, I'd still prefer the mostly off-panel, barely-mentioned parental figures as the poor legal guardians over the ones we see all the time.

Alfred being the Wayne family butler from the start also better explains how he's so devoted to Bruce's well-being than if he were just some random guy who showed up at Wayne Manor and asked for a job.

I actually have a problem with how devoted Alfred is to Bruce. I've discussed this before. It's a very unhealthy dynamic, IMO. With Alfred's life as much consumed by caring for Bruce as Bruce's is with being Batman. He's treated others poorly and been willing to sacrifice the well-being even of Bruce's kids for what he thinks is best for Bruce. He doesn't much have an outside life anymore. Gets even messier and more problematic when he doesn't seem to have nearly so much caring for his own child.

Also, as a fan of old-school Dick Grayson and the dynamic with Bruce, Alfred being Bruce's guardian has resulted in Dick being displaced as the person closest to Bruce, who he trusted most, etc (as he was in the bronze age when Dick was a young man). I don't care for that. Besides that, though, and what's really irritating to me is that it's resulted in the idea of Bruce who took Dick in expecting Alfred to do the heavy-lifting and having to be nudged/coerced/ordered to be a parent, v. the original where Bruce willingly took on the role and had no problem being that parent.