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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    Morrison was right to lean more into the superhero aspect/adventurer aspects of Batman in his run. There may be a quote out there from him about it, but I think he said you can only do so much of Batman punching thugs and street criminals before it starts to make him look incredibly bad due to his wealth. That's why for the majority of his run, he fights OTT super crime, a cabal of sinister wealthy assholes and even corrupt cops far more than he does street crime (if any at all). It's even pointed out how the Joker doesn't give a crap about money and has flushed more money down the toiler than the Black Glove combined, and from what I recall the only bit of torture Batman engages in is against Charlie Caligula, and thankfully only when he's off his rocker (not "in character").
    To be honest, I can't really see a Morrison comic where the hero focuses more on street crime or the nitty gritty stuff, so I would have never expected that from him. If I recall Dini was doing more smaller scale, crime based, stories in his 'Tec run alongside Morrison's run so you had a decent balance of Batman stories.

    I tend to think most general audiences don't really overthink Batman fighting and beating the tar out of normal criminals. I mean, it's 90% of what playing an Arkham game is about.

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post

    I tend to think most general audiences don't really overthink Batman fighting and beating the tar out of normal criminals.
    I do. It's one of the reasons I personally can't stand Batman.

    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    I mean, it's 90% of what playing an Arkham game is about.
    I don't play those games but for those that do, the "Arkham" games exist in a separate continuity from the comics. While that version of Batman is still stinking rich at least he isn't blowing billions developing VR tech to kill Wonder Woman, or spending more money than most countries military budgets to build a robo-suit to fight Flash (plus all the other zillions of expenditures as both Batman and Bruce Wayne). That makes the "Arkham" games at least somewhat excusable.

  3. #33
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    I think Batman fighting regular thugs and street criminals only works when those street criminals are working for organized crime. In that context, the street criminals are just the muscle of whichever rich gangster Batman is fighting, so it doesn't come off like he a rich dude hitting poor people but more like a genuine crusader.

    Outside of that, I agree with Morrison that it doesn't work.

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    Even after the Planet of the Apes movies?
    Especially after those. Gorilla villains make no sense because gorillas are peaceful, gentle creatures. The more recent Planet of the Apes movies realised this, that's why the main villain was a chimpanzee. That makes far more sense because chimpanzees are incredibly vicious creatures.

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by hareluyafan1 View Post
    I do. It's one of the reasons I personally can't stand Batman.
    Which is fair, but I don't feel it's a sentiment shared by the majority.
    I don't play those games but for those that do, the "Arkham" games exist in a separate continuity from the comics. While that version of Batman is still stinking rich at least he isn't blowing billions developing VR tech to kill Wonder Woman, or spending more money than most countries military budgets to build a robo-suit to fight Flash (plus all the other zillions of expenditures as both Batman and Bruce Wayne). That makes the "Arkham" games at least somewhat excusable.
    I don't really see how the two are connected. This isn't about Batman's trust issues or obsession with contingency plans, it's about how he handles fighting crime.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitou D. Kid View Post
    I think Batman fighting regular thugs and street criminals only works when those street criminals are working for organized crime. In that context, the street criminals are just the muscle of whichever rich gangster Batman is fighting, so it doesn't come off like he a rich dude hitting poor people but more like a genuine crusader.

    Outside of that, I agree with Morrison that it doesn't work.
    Does it make a difference though? If Batman witness someone committing a crime, it doesn't really make sense for him to not stop it regardless of their involvement in organized crime. It's the entire reason Superheroes go out on patrol beyond stumbling into an occasional disaster or Supervillain.

    He's not like Oliver Queen in season 1 of Arrow where he only goes after people on a list.

    And, honestly, if Batman is as culpable in that then we really shouldn't see any Superheroes with godlike powers involved in fighting normal crime.
    Quote Originally Posted by hareluyafan1 View Post
    Especially after those. Gorilla villains make no sense because gorillas are peaceful, gentle creatures. The more recent Planet of the Apes movies realised this, that's why the main villain was a chimpanzee. That makes far more sense because chimpanzees are incredibly vicious creatures.
    But Grodd is supposed to be an outlier in Gorilla City.

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by PCN24454 View Post
    It's mostly a difference in audience. The concept of gorilla villains doesn't have the same resonance that they do with Golden/Silver Age fans.
    I don't know about that. The recent Planet of the Apes trilogy was well received. While talking gorillas certainly aren't the craze they were before, I don't see any indication that modern audiences have a problem with a society of sentient gorillas as a genre concept.

  7. #37
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    I mean, they've been handling Grodd pretty well on The Flash TV show for the past several years the show has been on the air.

  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dboi2001 View Post
    No but at the same time Joker is 20x worse than all those guys combined and constantly escape the police so I'm not sure what I would think. The same logic applies to all superheroes. Would you be fine with a kid in tights webbing up criminals too?
    Since Spider-Man is firmly in the sci-fi/fantasy world, I don't have a problem with it, anymore than I do with a Harry Potter running around shooting magic everywhere. Again, if Batman is played as straight up fantasy, I don't think there's a problem. If Joker is so far removed from anything resembling reality, then whatever Batman does is also untethered to any reasonable concerns we'd have about his methods, as there's no conceivable version of America in which a guy like Joker wouldn't have been straight up killed by a cop, Seal Team 6, or anyone with a gun.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dboi2001 View Post
    We have seen multiple times that the henchmen are often just as sadistic and cruel as the people they work for and are rarely your sympathetic average Joe who is trying to make ends me. We do occasionally and we see Batman give some sympathies to them but the majority are straight up bad people. You also get medical treatment in prison that is usually subsidized.

    Much of Wayne's money is funneled through various companies. In recent years they've played up the importance of Lucius Fox as the guy who gets Batman his toys

    Which writers? Christopher Nolan maybe. Zack Snyder and Goyer both certainly played up the horror aspect of Batman in BvS. In Batman Year One the GCPD and the media are both against Batman. Typically Batman origins start off with him being a public menace like in Arkham Origins but eventually Gordon realizes that they need Batman to reel in the crazies in Gotham and begin a partnership with him. But I can't think of many writer who put Batman in a necessarily realistic setting besides Elseworld stories like TDKR.
    Denny O'Neil, who shepherded the Batman books for more than a decade, was very much an advocate for taking a realistic approach to the character and you can draw a straight line from that take on Batman to what Christopher Nolan did. I could be wrong, but it seems like Matt Reeves' The Batman will be taking a similar tack. Zack Snyder's Batman, on the other hand, was so heightened and stylized that I don't really have any issues with his version. Same deal with Burton and Schumacher's equally outrageous interpretations.

    Pitting Batman against corrupt cops is a necessary component to making the character work today, just as it was for Frank Miller's revamp in the late '80s. If they lean into that and the superhero elements of the character, I don't see it being a problem moving forward in any time period.

    However, if anyone wants to take a realistic approach to Batman in a modern setting, they've got to grapple with the deeply troubling notion of a billionaire running around the city violating citizens' civil rights with the full approval of the police department.

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    Which is fair, but I don't feel it's a sentiment shared by the majority.
    True.

    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    I don't really see how the two are connected. This isn't about Batman's trust issues or obsession with contingency plans, it's about how he handles fighting crime.
    No offense but I think you misunderstood. I was talking about how in some stories (i.e. "Tower of Babel") Batman spends absurd amounts of money on ways to hurt people (be they friend or foe), far more so than he spends on philanthropic efforts, and how that isn't shown to quite the same extent in the Arkham games.

    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    But Grodd is supposed to be an outlier in Gorilla City.
    Fair point.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by hareluyafan1 View Post
    No offense but I think you misunderstood. I was talking about how in some stories (i.e. "Tower of Babel") Batman spends absurd amounts of money on ways to hurt people (be they friend or foe), far more so than he spends on philanthropic efforts, and how that isn't shown to quite the same extent in the Arkham games.
    I don't think he sees it as putting money into hurting people. It's ultimately to stop a threat that might hurt someone.

    Like, a Batarang hurts people but he didn't make it just to hurt people.

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by kjn View Post
    When it comes to Wonder Woman and feminism, I think placing her in the past (like the 2017 movie did) will result in neutering any feminist message that the character can and should bring. It will turn any feminist critique of that society into something that we can feel superior about, rather than making us think. (And no, I don't think Morrison did anything interesting or even worthwhile regarding feminism in Earth One; he used the modern theories of feminism in order to mock Marston rather than evolve Wonder Woman's feminism.)
    I don't think Morrison is really trying to say something new or interesting about feminism in his WW Earth One books, but rather trying to grapple with Marston's ideas, which virtually every creator since the 1940s has been trying to avoid like the plague in favor of more palatable notions of female empowerment. While I don't think Morrison's WW stories have been completely successful, I give him credit for at least trying to engage with the original conception of the character, rather than the more mainstream, and hollow, version that most people are familiar with.

    Granted, I think he was more successful in his attempts to realign Superman to his original social crusader roots, even if that version didn't last very long either.

  12. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bored at 3:00AM View Post
    I don't think Morrison is really trying to say something new or interesting about feminism in his WW Earth One books, but rather trying to grapple with Marston's ideas, which virtually every creator since the 1940s has been trying to avoid like the plague in favor of more palatable notions of female empowerment. While I don't think Morrison's WW stories have been completely successful, I give him credit for at least trying to engage with the original conception of the character, rather than the more mainstream, and hollow, version that most people are familiar with.

    Granted, I think he was more successful in his attempts to realign Superman to his original social crusader roots, even if that version didn't last very long either.
    I think it helps that he seems to be a bigger fan of Superman, and struggles to understand Wonder Woman more. Not every writer can fit every character. Morrison does great by like 99% of DC's characters (especially the older ones) but he's gonna miss once and a while. I wouldn't call Wonder Woman a complete miss, but it's more of a fascinating attempt/failure than his distilled perfection that is his Superman stuff.

    I'd still take his Diana over most of the takes we've gotten in the mainstream comics in recent years barring Rucka. At least she's fun. Volume 2 was better than volume 1, and he gains points for nailing Etta Candy and having the best ever version of Dr. Psycho.

  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    I don't think he sees it as putting money into hurting people. It's ultimately to stop a threat that might hurt someone.

    Like, a Batarang hurts people but he didn't make it just to hurt people.
    Oh I'm sure that's not how he sees it. But by that token how many tyrants and despots see themselves as such? Regardless of how he justifies it in his own head it's still a ton of money that could have been put to more humanitarian uses, while alternative, more practical solutions could have been found for those potential threats.

    For example, why spend all that money developing a VR simulation that is so convincing it can give Wonder Woman a heart attack when she can be taken down with knockout gas?

  14. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by hareluyafan1 View Post
    Oh I'm sure that's not how he sees it. But by that token how many tyrants and despots see themselves as such? Regardless of how he justifies it in his own head it's still a ton of money that could have been put to more humanitarian uses, while alternative, more practical solutions could have been found for those potential threats.

    For example, why spend all that money developing a VR simulation that is so convincing it can give Wonder Woman a heart attack when she can be taken down with knockout gas?
    I mean, if we believe Bruce Wayne's checkbook, he spends about as ludicrous amount on his war on crime as he does on humanitarian projects.

    I've never read Tower of Babel but I recall in Justice League: Doom the contingencies were altered to be far more lethal than they were intended to be.
    Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
    I'd still take his Diana over most of the takes we've gotten in the mainstream comics in recent years barring Rucka. At least she's fun. Volume 2 was better than volume 1, and he gains points for nailing Etta Candy and having the best ever version of Dr. Psycho.
    I think you're forgetting about the Harley Quinn cartoon .

  15. #45
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    Well the obviously would be world war 2 characters, SRGT Rock, J.E.B. Stuart, Unknown Soldiers, Blackhawks ect, and characters before that Doc Savage, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

    Sci Fi and fantasy characters are best to sty in their own era Warlord, ect

    Finally in terms of super heroes, The Legion of Super Heroes is definetly suited for the future, it doesn' t work when they're brought to the present.

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