This was boring compared to the crack-fest daytime soap that was King's Batman. Batman didn't even go topless. Not once. Smh
At least Bruce is human again and is able to throw Bataranges without help. So it'll do.
This was boring compared to the crack-fest daytime soap that was King's Batman. Batman didn't even go topless. Not once. Smh
At least Bruce is human again and is able to throw Bataranges without help. So it'll do.
Not great but good... Following the King run it almost feels great.
The idea of Bruce working to Gotham without the mask, modernizing the city, etc, didn't happen during the Court of Owls arc too? I even remember a scene with a big dinner with the rich people from the city, the mayor.
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
The way comics work is so warping to our understanding of characters like Ra's or Vandal Savage. Realistically, they shouldn't lose to Batman as much as they do, in as short a timespan as they do, but because of the sliding timescale and refusal to ever really age their characters, they end up being more and more incompetent. But the same can be said for the heroes. It's why I agree with Shamus Young that Batman is a bent story: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27382
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
I tend to think there are psychological explanations for why they lose baked into their DNA. For one thing, Ra's and Vandal both tend to put too much value on their experience. The price they've paid for their accumulated knowledge is flexibility, something which Batman has in abundance. There is also the possibility that deep down, they don't want to 'win,' each for their various reasons. Vandal thrives on the challenge. (There's a great JL:TAS two-parter where Ra's kills all the heroes and then helps Superman go back in time and undo his victory because the isolation has driven him mad--or perhaps sane, as it were). Ra's knows he's never going to see his life's work completed and only trusts Batman to finish what he began. On some level, he's always going to nurse the secret hope that Batman will come around, because as he sees it, that's his only true hope.
Batman's advantage over people like Vandal Savage and Ra's is his mortality. A thing about immortals is that they are kind of "stuck in time" at the moment they become immortal. Without any risk, the stakes are lower for them.
It could be worse. The Claudia character in "Interview with a Vampire" went insane due to her immortality, because she was cursed to be an eternal child.
Edward of Twilight fame became a vampire at age 17, at the cusp of adulthood but not quite there. That's the reason he was hanging around at the high school even though he was over 100 years old. Talk about a curse!
Savage and Ra's remind me of the Jacob Marley character in Scrooge. Cursed trying to effect the world around them but hampered due to their own state of being.
Last edited by Scott Taylor; 01-20-2020 at 12:40 PM.
Every day is a gift, not a given right.