Controversial Batfamily Opinions

[Blue22]

I actually kinda like the idea of Flashpoint Thomas Wayne sticking around as one of those "good intention'd villains"

[Jim Kelly]

I accept that producing a lot of Batman-related product is a necessary evil for DC to stay solvent. But I think it really stops them from trying out new brands--and they've become too dependent on the Batman label (which is never a good thing in business, because if you've built your whole enterprise on selling one thing and that one thing goes out of demand--you're screwed).

I gave up on the Batman family comics when there were all these titles every month that you had to read because they all claimed to be important and if you didn't read them you were lost. So now if I read a Batman comic (or more likely a TPB), I'll read the stuff that isn't important--because then I don't have to know a ton of stuff about all the characters.

I would much rather DC produced individual Batman spin-off comics that exist in their own unverses, just so I don't have that problem. And they really need to develop new and different characters, to remain relevant.

[Restingvoice]

Outside of the regulars like Dick, Jason, Damian, Barbara and some others like Cassandra Cain, the quality starts to rapidly drop off. Some that once were interesting (Tim Drake) are now long overdue to be retired because they have very little to offer. By the time you get to the likes of Duke Thomas and Harper Row, there's barely anything of interest there.



If Gotham Girl or Duke Thomas disappeared tomorrow, I guarantee you that sales would be barely affected. That goes for many other Bat-Family members.

The sales would barely be affected because they're already in another book. Batman's book. So if they're gone, most Batman buyers won't stop buying since Duke and Claire aren't why they pick a Batman book.

It does affect sales if they have their own book. I don't know how many fans Duke has, but the series he starred in has been canceled twice, though both times it was on borrowed time. We Are Robin was only going to last until Bruce's cured of his amnesia, and The Signal was a limited miniseries, though I guess the fact that Duke never got his full series show that there's not enough interest to buy a book starring him.

DC then do what makes sense with characters that can't sustain a book. Fold them as a supporting cast in a different book. Duke in Outsiders, Azrael in Detective Comics and now Odyssey, Batwoman will appear later in Gotham Monsters or whatever the title... isn't this enough?

[dietrich]

Ha lols.
Seems to me the only bat currently doing **** ALL is Bruce Wayne. At least Ric is driving a cab

l'm sorry I couldn't resist

[SiegePerilous02]

Batman needs a Bat-Family in his life, it is a very meaningful element to his narrative.

you get the exact same result for him with 3-4 members as you do with the current amount. Anything more than a focused, intimate core (and it mostly works with Dick, Babs and maybe one other Robin at most) and it gets superfluous. it's all about flooding the market with Bat-crap than anything else, because otherwise these characters have nowhere else to go to get noticed. it's why most Bat-centric media never gets that far, if they even go past having one Robin.

[Frontier]

Batman needs a Bat-Family in his life, it is a very meaningful element to his narrative.

you get the exact same result for him with 3-4 members as you do with the current amount. Anything more than a focused, intimate core (and it mostly works with Dick, Babs and maybe one other Robin at most) and it gets superfluous. it's all about flooding the market with Bat-crap than anything else, because otherwise these characters have nowhere else to go to get noticed. it's why most Bat-centric media never gets that far, if they even go past having one Robin.

But Batman has different relationship with all the other Batfamily members so it's not like there isn't good dynamics or interactions that writers can mine, they just don't care to.

Part of the problem is DC walking back some of the progress they made with characters and just the market being so unsustainable to have to condense characters as much as they have.

[Godlike13]

He does?
...

[Pohzee]

What does Duke add to Batman's narrative that is new? What does Harper add to Batman's character that is new?

[Korath]

What does Duke add to Batman's narrative that is new? What does Harper add to Batman's character that is new?

Gnomon, the metahumans, grassroot social movement, a very different perspective on things (especially the relation between the Joker and Batman), the tie into more immortals than just Ra's, the actual days of Gotham and how all -from citizens to criminals- have adapted to the Batman striking at night.

From the top of my head for Duke.

Harper had the more grunge, queer and poor elements (compared to Kate, who is a very wealthy queer person), a kind of funny, gritty and crafty character. As Bluebird, I agree that she was badly presented then, but it doesn't mean that she shouldn't be used more. Her dropping the vigilante act to actually help victims would also be interesting to see more.

[Pohzee]

Batman transcends genre. He can be in crime, supernatural, action, and sci-fi stories. He doesn't need Duke Thomas to be in his supporting cast to take him anywhere. He's on the Justice League. He teams up with superheroes all the time. Tying one to his ankle doesn't make this novel. And every Bat-Character has interacted with and have an opinion on the Joker.

If Duke were his own independent hero, he could still occasionally team up with Batman just like Deadman does. Duke isn't a Bat-Character to help Batman, he's a Bat-Character to help Duke.

And those things you listed about Harper are good points about the diversity that she brings (which is a good thing.) But none of it shows what she brings to Batman as a character, not a franchise. She would have been a lot more interesting if she never put on a mask.

I also think Tim, Steph, and Jason are pointless in their current states, but that's a harder sell because at one point they did have a place.

[Restingvoice]

Again, the reason we're thinking they have to add anything to Batman is because they're Batman's supporting cast who doesn't have their own books and the reason they don't have their own books because they fail to launch, each for different reasons. All make sense.

However, the reason they also don't add much to Batman as a supporting cast in a Batman book is that the writers aren't using them. Duke in King's Batman was just there because he's too busy trying to pair Batman with Catwoman. He teased Duke's relationship with Claire but doesn't develop them. There should be a way to integrate them more during the whole arc but he didn't, and now Gotham Girl's a villain and Duke's in The Outsiders, as in, he has a place and a different writer, so there's even less reason for King to care about him.

So we're back again to the fact that Duke is not a supporting cast in a Batman book, but part of an ensemble of an Outsiders book, so why does he need to contribute something to Batman, when he already has his own place, albeit as a part of an ensemble?

To summarize, the reason we feel the Batfam need to add something to Batman is that we view them as a Batman supporting cast, but if they have their own books, they don't need to add anything to Batman because they're main characters of their own books. At that point, they're not supporting cast anymore.

[Pohzee]

Why should the writers have to accommodate new characters in favor of Batman? This is EXACTLY the problem with them. They exist for their own sake, not Batman's. Dick!Robin didn't need fleshed out upon his introduction. He was there to compliment Batman. He was a supporting character. Now ever character is the star of their own show. Except it isn't their show, it's Batman's and he's been here 75 years without them.

Duke would be just as good or even better as an independent character who occasionally teamed up with Batman. Like Deadman.

[Korath]

Why should the writers have to accommodate new characters in favor of Batman? This is EXACTLY the problem with them. They exist for their own sake, not Batman's. Dick!Robin didn't need fleshed out upon his introduction. He was there to compliment Batman. He was a supporting character. Now ever character is the star of their own show. Except it isn't their show, it's Batman's and he's been here 75 years without them.

Duke would be just as good or even better as an independent character who occasionally teamed up with Batman. Like Deadman.

For starter, Batman doesn't deserve to have characters here only to prop him. Just like every other one out there, he needs to stand by his own merit (and seems to do that rather well). It isn't Batman show. It hasn"t been for a very long time, and he doesn't get special treatment to prevent new characters, and thus new story-telling potential, to appear just because he's older.

Furthermore, I don't believe that Batman is fitting for all kind of stories, just like Superman or Wonder Woman aren't. Stories like Metal or Last Knight on Earth works because he's part of a larger world, where he is just oen cog and was thus able to use elements of other mythos, in a story which involves those mythos.

But by himself, Batman can't be the main character in a grassroot social justice movement for Gotham. How could he when his public and heroic persona are both so removed from the lives of the common citizens ? He was never part of the worlds of the poors of Gotham. Never but for one moment, after two gunshots. Samewise, he isn't a metahuman. You can't put him at the forefront of a story about an immortal meta and his lineage without him usurping the descendants of said immortal.

And I'm using Duke here, but it's also true for Jason. Batman CAN'T be an Outlaw. He can't be the one befriending Artemis and Bizarro and forming a sort of outwardly broken but in truth really functional and charming farmily with them. Or he can't be that young teenager divided between two legacies which are unreconciliable like Damian. Or he can't be that young biy who lost his parents to crime but managed to preserve and rekindle a gentle and charming nature because a mentor who had suffered the same thing helped him when it was needed, like Dick.

But all those characters almost never get the chance to truly stretch their wings and take off, because of several campaigns against them, and a general rejection by fans, who want "Batman" but not "Batman" but won't trust a book about non-Bat characters (the centric ones at that) because "It'll have low sales thus will be stopped really soon", creating a constant vicious circle where incredible potentials are squandered.

And so, we end with Deadman. A character who, expect for perhaps one story every five years, won't appear anywhere, because he has been billed as so niche and devoid of other potential that he's just there for the stories when the deads are to speak, and that nothing more plot convenient can be contrived by the writer.

[Restingvoice]

Yes, people who buy Batman book for Batman, not for Duke, or Claire, or Harper. When they're acting as a supporting cast in Batman book, they don't matter that much compared to the titular character.

Which is why I'm confused. Why people keep being bothered by their existence? If they don't matter that much, what's the problem? They're supporting cast, they act as a supporting cast, sometimes they're important sometimes they're not... so does Gordon and Alfred. What's the difference? Why are they a problem?

[SiegePerilous02]

But Batman has different relationship with all the other Batfamily members so it's not like there isn't good dynamics or interactions that writers can mine, they just don't care to.

Part of the problem is DC walking back some of the progress they made with characters and just the market being so unsustainable to have to condense characters as much as they have.

I really don't know that he does. Not different enough in the current set up to really have many of them stand out from each other, at least, especially the further down we go to the newer characters. All the reboots and retcons definitely don't help, I think the likes of Tim and Cass were better off before all that and when the cast was smaller. Cass has had her dynamic with Bruce erased and now Babs is back as Batgirl, and Tim was better off when he was the only Robin and Dick was the only former Robin present. His decline started as soon as Damian was introduced and Jason came back as Red Hood, so he has a new Robin as competition but two former Robins to be compared to. And that's just all the Robins and Batgirls competing against each other before we get into the Azraels, the Batwomen, and the Huntresses.

It all orbits around Batman, who is largely an independent character by himself and doesn't need many of these other individual pieces to work. They need him more than the reverse. Especially the likes of present Tim and Steph, Luke, Harper and Duke who don't really enrichen his character on this already crowded stage. Like is DCAU Batman any less of a definitive version of the character, if not THE definitive version, for having a much smaller Bat-Family?