Kurt Busiek on why no one can write Batman well anymore

This really didn't become a major problem until Dixon's run in the 90s. I'd argue that most "best of" Batman comics are from the 80s before this became such an issue.

Blumpf. It's 80% of what he talks about.

Your whole argument falls apart if people here grew up during the period when Batman was already dour all the time, which is true for anyone under the age of 35. So basically you're full of shit.

>Everything new is good, even eating shit is good because it's new

Beyond Bruce is just another take on cranky old Batman, it's really not much different than TDKR. And, really, the entire DCAU is a long story about the slow, brutal crushing of all of Bruce's optimism, and its replacement with bitterness and nastiness. Compare Bruce in the early seasons of BTAS with Bruce in the last few seasons of JLU. His character has changed, but it's for the worse. And it all culminates in Old Man Wayne.

The fact that even the current run of Batman both utilizes the characterization Busiek critiques AND still is a critiqued run shows he might be right.

Beyond is the same as DKR Batman, cranky and old.

Post-Frank Miller Batman comics are better than pre-Frank Miller Batman comics so I don’t really see what there is to complain about

The top irony of his rant is that he's essentially talking about himself

>nuanced and clever in his early years
>becomes older and simpler
>nuance disappears, replaced by crankiness that alienates those that were close to him and his work

He's by and large right but that makes me wonder. See I like ASBAR but I can't entirely tell if it's Miller going high off his own supply and doing everything wrong Busiek is describing, turning out to be an unintentional parody of that, or if it's intended.

Attached: allstarbatman-2-zone-009.jpg (670x387, 73K)

>Post-Frank Miller Batman comics are better than pre-Frank Miller Batman comics

Debatable. Alan Grant and Doug Moench and sometimes Dixon might be better than the average pre-Miller Batman but I'd rather read 40's/early 50's Batman, O'Neil Batman, and Englehart Batman over Tom King's Batman.

But that's the point, weariness made him that way, he wasn't like that originally.

I don't read his Twitter so I don't see any problems in his comics.

Not really, he is still very well liked by people who aren't outrage addicts.

Death of the author. If you want it to be ironic, read it as irony. Which makes it very entertaining

Morrison even made a lot of the same critiques over a decade ago.

>this guy insulted my guy so I need to turn his argument back on himself

I never said pre Miller Batman was bad but you’d have to be fucking insane to suggest its better than what came after. You’re just cherry picking a few comics which barely amount to 300 issues to represent decades worth of material.

Young Batman loses his optimism and gives into his war being hopeless which precludes he gets angry and alienates everyone close to him.

Batman is a symbol that attracts others to his cause but his war/fight is not something he can win which causes him to lose all optimism and become the angry jaded asshole that we all have been reading for the last 30 years.

Miller is a genius and did some amazing work with the character its all the people before him that didn't get that the journey and process of becoming batman ruins a human being

all that's left is a man who can barely socialize with people

put him a batsuit and its a bigger problem

Attached: Batman (2016-) 040-015.jpg (1988x3056, 1.07M)

Honestly, King's Batman rather feels like a confused, insecure and lonely 14 year old teenager suffering from a bad case of acnes and anxiety, rather than an old and cranky man.

Attached: KEK.jpg (1988x3056, 654K)

Morrison tried to make a commentary on the cyclical nature of batman but in the end he regressed him and the writers after him subsequently ignored that development for reasons

That's all well and good, I couldn't read it if I didn't enjoy it with a healthy zest of irony, but I still wonder about the intent.
I'm leaning more towarsd intentional parody because Robin keeps pointing out how retarded Batman is.

Attached: 1288386-asbr08_011.jpg (1280x1932, 502K)

King 's Batman is a broken, middle aged guy who wants to help people but can't be effective because he's so broken and traumatized.

Because of his brokenness and trauma he alienates everyone he loves and is unwittingly making Gotham and the Bar family worse.

>Miller is a genius and did some amazing work with the character its all the people before him that didn't get that the journey and process of becoming batman ruins a human being
Explain how soldiers, cops, firefighters, and so on are able to live on. Any person in the force will tell you that is not about making the world a perfect place, but helping the individual person and living a good life like any other person with family and friends.

Post-Frank Miller is not the same as when this became a major problem. I'd argue that Even comics like Alan Grant still had a functionally normal Batman. It wasn't until post Knightfall that writers (Dixon) decided that Batman had to be grumpy all the time and only Dick could be happy.

>That’s not to say we never see that any more. But whenever we see a Batman who’s such a crank that he keeps alienating his closest friends and family, I wonder what happened to Bruce Wayne, the charming, affable face that Batman can adopt AT WILL.

>Even if Batman is being extra-biorhythmically cranky that day, why doesn’t he just use his Bruce skills to not alienate his friends? Bruce is charming, smart, convincing and capable of guiding others to see the conclusions Bruce wants them to see.

Is this fucking idiot fuckface seriously complaining about Batman's one humanizing flaw that keeps him from being a total Mary Sue?

Do you really read comics or are you a poser?

Don't cops have a pretty high suicide rate?

>King 's Batman is a broken, middle aged guy who wants to help people but can't be effective because he's so broken and traumatized.
King's Batman became a hero as a form of suicide and glorifies his slow ass form of suicide as a something profound, to the point he fell for a woman simple because he feels that she is doing the same with her life as him. He's also deeply insecure about not living his life properly and is using said as a cure-all for all his problems.
Does that feel as something a middle aged man would do? That's more something a depressed teenager would feel and do.

Attached: Batman 012 (2017) (2 covers) (Digital) (Zone-Empire).cbr-Batman (2016-) 012-011.jpg (3975x3056, 1.67M)

While I prefer non-cranky Batman, I don't think you can really have that anymore while keeping his history intact. In-universe, he's been through 5 to 10 years of constant suffering and struggling. He should be progressing into his cranky old self by now.

TAS Batman isn't even a tenth as competent as comics Batman, or even later depictions of Batman in the DCAU. Most versions Batman are so hypercompetent that he needs to be a crazy grumpy fuck to function as a character instead of just being a plot device. TAS Batman could just struggle normally because he was just a strong and smart human instead of the greatest genius who ever lived.

You'd have to be insane to argue that O'Neil and Englehart are better than Snyder and King? Give specific examples of what you mean.

firefighters are good people

cops are pieces of shit

Can you communicate concrete ideas using words or are you just here to stir up shit with vague assholery?

Maybe NOT make him a total Mary Sue and have him be well-adjusted?

>all that's left is a man who can barely socialize with people
Which is fucking Batshit because he's a fucking socialite. Stop writing Batman as an angry, bitter recluse. He doesn't have time for bullshit, but he can hold a conversation and be charming. He's a serious person and 100% crazy, but he's not hateful.

There's a reason he's founded more teams than anyone and is liked by a wide swath of people in the hero and villain community.

Not only that, but also 40%

No, but for some reason King 's run feels like Batman having a midlife crisis where his past traumas catch up to him.

Or maybe that's how I see it.

Attached: NO SEX.jpg (1853x521, 279K)

But then how are you going to have him meaningfully crossover with cosmic powerhouses and contribute?

>cape comics
>progress
At the end of every process, there's an end. Cape comics have no end, so that progress lead to 30 fucking years of status quo that should be the end of the damn story. That's hardly exclusive to Batman too.

This is only true if you read modern Batman. Pre-Miller Batman was very much a human being like in TAS

I can't see King's Batman as anything approaching adult. Only teenager think being depressed and suicidal is in any form a cool lifestyle, and form relationships based on if said person is also into depression and suicide. That's teenager behavior.

Bronze age Batman is best Batman.

Attached: batman boo.jpg (500x553, 130K)

I cannot fathom how the Big 2 haven't figured out they should just be slice of life with violence yet.

Morrison also wrote Batman getting raped by Talia because he didn't understand Son of the Demon and wrote Bruce not being that upset by it. His knowledge of the character isn't that great.

A writer could just write a light hearted run where Batman isn't constantly cranky and suffering.

I am unfamiliar with that reference.

Attached: source.gif (500x509, 1.81M)

>Batman confirmed for volcel

>This guy insulted the guy I hate so I need to deny the truth

>the writers after him subsequently ignored that development for reasons
I'm not insinuating this isn't a prevalent problem in capes as a whole, but in Morrison's case in particular is just ridiculous.
I won't pretend New X-Men didn't have a fair share of crappy ideas, but the whole X-Corp thing, Mutant towns and useless muties gave a whole new layer of shit to play with only for everything to revert to the same retarded events where nothing will ever be the same the second whedon dropped astonishing (by itself an almost embarassing return to status quo, even though I quite enjoy his run)

Yeah, he's not wrong. This pretty much sums up my issue with modern Batman.

I'm pondering whether I'd rather have that or the guy who keeps jumping in bed with every villainess around regardless of how many times that shit blows up in his face.

Agreed. I am actually enjoying Batman Universe by Bendis cause he is abke to crack some jokes

but wasn't Snyder Batman this as well? I was never big into Batman, but I spent a weekend at a buddy's house and he had the entire run, so, being a fan of Morrison, I decided to give it a go, and the "functional batfamily" is one of the parts I liked the best, even whenever Tim and Damian are reeeeing at each other. They feel like an actual family.

I never got the impression that King 's Batman thinks depression and suicide are cool.He knows that he's destroying himself and hurting people with his metaphorical suicide(being Batman) but can't help himself.

The scene where Batman buries his child self alive told me everything I needed to know about King's mental state and it's not good at all.

They kind of are.

>Death of the author

Doesn't really extend to whether something is parody or not. Death of the Author is more about what the work means than whether something is being shitty on purpose or by accident.

Then it would have to be a reboot or a non-canon run. There's no way Batman can stay optimistic after everything he's been through.

Honestly, i feel that writers write Batman sometimes as if he was Walter Korvacs. King for example write Batman as being so self-conscious, insecure, and depressed that he just doesn't feel like a handsome billionaire with a great body as he definitely is, but more as a disgusting hobo. King had Batman legit think that Selina wouldn't want anything to do with his ass. Selina, an ex-prostitute and known criminal on the run for mass murder. Dude is handsome and rich. What woman wouldn't jump on the chance?

Attached: brian michael king You Rock.jpg (921x301, 77K)

That script is from Arkham Asylum, which was a super unsubtle early critique of Batman's psyche which by that point had already begun to make the shift, and literally one of Bruce's nightmares. It's not exactly the same as writing "normal" Batman. For contrast look how Morrison wrote him during the Bat Epic. It's hard to argue he didn't have a sense of humor

Attached: troll.jpg (800x1292, 823K)

Didn't the brooding angry asshole Batman, who is also 100% calculating and distrustful of everyone while being totally undefeatable in hand to hand combat mostly come up in the mid 90s?

Attached: 221.png (384x470, 345K)

>he didn't understand Son of the Demon
It's not that he didn't understand it, it's that he didn't mean for that book to become canon. He only loosely adapted the general concept.

They're more soap operas with more violence.

>Only teenager think being depressed and suicidal is in any form a cool lifestyle

Yes but that criticism should be levied towards the author. Batman in these panels isn't talking about how cool it is that he is committing suicide by crime, he's talking about how his pain lessens when he's with someone. Obviously the monologue is meant to be cool on a meta level, and that's a fair criticism, but Batman in this story isn't aggrandizing his lifestyle as much as lamenting it.

>whether something is being shitty on purpose or by accident.
That changes the meaning of the work though. If Miller thought he was writing the coolest shit it doesn't mean the same as if Miller thought he was mocking writers who think stuff like that is the coolest shit.

Yes, blame Chuck Dixon.

Snyder's Batman felt more like the alienation was a result of circumstances, while King's is more about Batman himself being flawed.

Honestly he should stay street level. He's just too popular to do that.

I like Batman’s humanity. I don’t like Batman being Batgod or something bullshit like that.

Tom King Batman run.

Honestly, a light hearted non canon run would benefit a lot of DC's franchises right now or a reboot to a more lighter version of the DC universe.

Well yes, but it's the meaning, not the quality that is up for interpretation. I think it DOES matter whether he was writing an intentional comedy or not. Because if it was meant to be good then it is a failure and if it was mean to be bad it is a success.

But full disclosure I don't really subscribe to Death of the Author anyway.

tl.dr: Tom King Batman sucks.

leavin the viglantism aside, the majority of these people can live on, because they had stable lives and were educated by their families properly.

Bruce lost his parents at young age and despite having alfred at his side, he simply became insane, its imposible to remove murders from the world, and Batman will never accept that.

I don't think Batman thinks he can stop all murders. He's just driven by his trauma to stop every POSSIBLE murder and blames himself for every one that he MIGHT have been able to stop that he does not.

I wish Batman being a no-fun nutjob involved his 90s "creature of the night" design more.
When he's cranky asshole but fights crime like budget Iron Man, that's the worst of both worlds.

Attached: batman-493.png (400x621, 602K)

Tom King himself said that his whole basis for Batman is own past experiences, because when he was a teenager he couldn't fit in with the cool kids or get the cute girls so he got so depressed he thought about killing himself, but before he could actually do the deed he thought better of it and decided to "waste his life" doing something positive, thus joining CIA.

So for him Batman too was a depressed boy and a cutter that before deciding to kill himself, decided to "waste his life" by becoming Batman. Batman is Bruce's way of killing himself in a manner that is useful for others.
The problem is that in the arc Batman is constantly glorifying suicide as a style of life to be followed. For example Catwoman had been convicted as a mass murderer, but Batman simple couldn't accept that she had actually killed anyone. Not because he had any hard proof, but simple because he felt that Catwoman glorified suicide as much as him. So in his mind Catwoman would never kill someone, because death is a choice you make for yourself, not someone you impose on another. Then you've pages and pages of Batman romanticizing his relationship with Catwoman as them being two dead people sharing their deaths, because he believes himself as being dead ever since donning the cowl and feeling that she's like him. Someone who "killed herself" and as being dead whenever donning the cowl. Thus the whole BAT CAT BAT CAT BAT CAT shit-fest.

It's pure teenager melodrama. It's someone you could have seen on someone's Myspace profile a few years ago.

Attached: Batman 012 (2017) (2 covers) (Digital) (Zone-Empire).cbr-Batman (2016-) 012-010.jpg (3975x3056, 2.56M)

>There's no way Batman can stay optimistic after everything he's been through.
I feel like he has to be or you lose the soul of the character. Think about it. In almost every fucking elseworld where a bunch of superheroes go evil, Batman's leading the hopeless resistance. You can't do that without some level of optimism, some belief that you're making at least a little bit of difference or at the very least that good's still worth doing.

They're wildly different characters, but Batman is a lot like Spider-man as the embodiment of hope in their respective franchises.

youtube.com/watch?v=YOooJW5SSDA

You mean like you're doing now?

To be honest I was going only off of the page you posted. It does sound bad.

I dunno mang, but it made him do the worst astro city story ever. Fuck the resistoristance.

Attached: 72D9BFCA-0E31-4F1D-8AAA-96E61E56975F.jpg (1332x2048, 758K)

DESU They need to integrate the Adam West style Batman more often. The Lego Batman movie was a good start.

Attached: rexfeatures_5884729u.jpg (1000x563, 187K)

>Tom King Batman is lunarbaboon

I fucking hate twitter as a medium.

>*The Brave and The Bold cartoon was a good start
ftfy. Lego Batman is more of a parody of post-Miller Batman (notably Chistian Baleman) than he is a hommage to West.

It is this shit throughout the entire arc. Batman is constantly making poetry about him being dead and Catwoman being dead and them dying together whenever they're fucking and how death is a choice and blablabla. Fuck, you even have Catwoman begging Batman for kisses to alleviate her constant existential pain.

This feels like some depressed teenager fanfic. Bruce doesn't feel like a seasoned 30 and something man. Catwoman doesn't feel as a liberated 30 and something woman. They feel like too gothic teenagers larping as two misunderstood depressed souls.

Attached: Batman v02 - I Am Suicide (2017) (Digital) (Zone-Empire).cbr-Batman (2016-) v02 - I Am Suicide-097.j (1988x3056, 1.06M)

No one can right Batman anymore because no one is interested in writing Bruce Wayne

Attached: Bruce Wayne.jpg (632x480, 40K)

Bruce Wayne is just the mask. Problem is writers forget that Batman can fucking wear it.

nigga have you talked to some veterans?
Hell even King is constantly suffering from PTSD to the point that it bleeds into his own writing

being Batman is like being a soldier 24/7 every day for the rest of your life

It's only grating because everyone and their mum is putting the populists on blast on Twitter. And of course, as soon as you open a political discussion you immediately hear the baying of hipster-nazis. Blowing fog-horn dog whistles with their pent up flatulence. So it's disappointing when someone you're following cracks open that sewer and then dives right in. Not their fault it smells bad, but they didn't need to trudge it all over my lawn. You know what I'm saying?

>Hell even King is constantly suffering from PTSD to the point that it bleeds into his own writing
King is a fucking attention whore. His twitter post about his dog walk proves it.

Can we replace Batman with Ambush Bug? That would be funnier at least.

>Bruce Wayne is just the mask
See this is the dumb shit I'm talking about here. Bruce Wayne isn't all fake! Sure, he plays a lot of it up, but Bruce Wayne is the optimistic side of the character who does plenty of good without the mask thanks to charity efforts. It's this stupid ass mentality you posted that gets us Maskless Batman

Attached: WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT.jpg (1024x765, 42K)

>They actually call each other "bat" and "cat"

I had no idea what you meant by "BAT CAT BAT CAT BAT CAT" but now I sadly understand .

>"The Pain"
I cede every section of this argument to you user, I don't know what I was thinking

>Batman is Bruce's way of killing himself in a manner that is useful for others
That's not healthy. That's not healthy at all.

Yeah, but Batman is always very grim and serious in those stories.
My point is that you can't have a classic jovial, witty Batman AND keep his current history. It's having your cake and eating it too.

Imagine Adam West Bats reminiscing about the time Gotham was destroyed by an earthquake and abandoned by the government. Or the time his back was broken. Or the times his children and allies died or were presumed dead. Or the time his childhood friend turned out to be a psycho killer. Or anything involving Harvey Dent. Or anything involving that period between Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis.

Were you trying to play devil's advocate without having read King's Batman?

Attached: 1561757219645.jpg (333x500, 89K)

>That whole page
See this is something I would have wrote at age 14 on an egdy day, not as an adult.

Pre-Miller/post-O'Neil was the most consistent era for Batman BY FAR. Post-Miller was hit or miss for YEARS and then turned to garbage in the 2010s.

Yes I was.

Attached: mistake.png (319x297, 83K)

Batman is a grim and serious character. In good stories, he still knows there's a fucking time and a place and he can fucking vent. Serious doesn't mean rigid to the point of inhumanity. Grim doesn't mean incapable of enjoying the little things, and beyond that and especially victories.

Spider-Man is grim as fuck when you get down to it. He just tries not to fucking show it. Batman, in good stories, can fucking put it away and let himself be happy.

Dixon Batman could smile and he wasn't hypercompetent. Batgod came from Morrison's JLA run and then Waid took Batgod and turned him into a batjerk with Tower of Babel.

Attached: batman is a fan of the police.png (786x1188, 1.97M)

>Explain how soldiers, cops, firefighters, and so on are able to live on.
Those careers are often short. Lots of broken men, physically and psychologically.

>tfw I read Daredevil instead because he has the stuff I like about Batman, without the things I dislike

Attached: red batman.png (500x485, 370K)

>Blowing fog-horn dog whistles with their pent up flatulence.

Who is this, Chuck Wendig? That was horrible. Please don't ever write anything and die in obscurity.

>out of bantz after one reply

Being over the hill is kinda like being a teenager. It's all about recognizing the end of a stage of life, lost opportunities, regrets, your body doing some weird shit you aren't 100% on board with.

Fucking this. It’s the same reason I enjoy TBaTB so much.

Attached: 5B9B5074-FC9C-4D9C-B7AF-A057C53E0CF5.jpg (1600x900, 125K)

I don't think you're supposed to think it's healthy.

He kind of changed into cranky Batman after the animation change and onwards.

Not him but that's not what banter is. What are you, Canadian?

Fuck throw them all into one team. Hell might as well double down on the stupid and sell the idea that there’s a BRIGHT Multiverse out there somewhere.

See, this is something i don't get it. I understand Bruce being miserable as a young man when he's full of rage and depression because he's lost and feels incapable, but becoming Batman should be the happiest moment of Bruce's life and not a tragedy. That's the moment where everything clicks and Bruce can finally see a way out after decades of confusion and struggle. That's the moment where Bruce finally regains control of his life. Being Batman should pure power-trip for Bruce. It's the moment where he takes the fight back to the likes of Joe Chill.
And sure that's the moment where Bruce is pure self-actualized vengeance and probably at his most brutal, but still that's also the moment i feel Bruce should be at his happiest. Like a psychopath in his own sex dungeon.
Then you've the Bat-Family slowly being formed where Bruce is surrounded by people that see the world as him and are after the same things, so again i can't see Bruce being this lonely and depressed man after the appearance of Robin.

The problem is that most writers try to write Batman as a normal guy and if you're a normal man who want normal goals out of life, of course being a violent vigilante feels like a tragedy. You should want to party and get girls, maybe build a family, have a job, and so on. Not hurt your hands beating drug-addicts. But Bruce isn't a normal guy. Bruce doesn't want the same shit as everyone else. Being Batman for Bruce is what fixes him, not what destroys him. Destroyed he was before as a helpless and confused young man that didn't know what to do with his rage and sorrow.

That's what i think, anyway.

Attached: Bat laugh.jpg (1000x666, 374K)

Holy fuck this generation is absolutely idiotic. How can the tard replying to him not understand something so simple as the jaded, hopeless Batman personality not fitting a young idealistic Batman?

How can you even ask to have it explained to you?

That's the problem with modern Batman. Writers try to write Batman as a problem, not a solution. It's like as if Bruce needs to be saved from being Batman. Look at King's current run. King believes that Bruce can only be Batman if he remain miserable, because Batman is essentially a suicidal act. If Bruce was ever happy he wouldn't be Batman anymore. Because King views Batman as a problematic thing. Batman is the problem. When in actuality Batman is supposed to be a positive thing. Batman should be Bruce's salvation, not his damnation.

Fuck, sometimes they go as far as implying that the villains are the true victims and that Batman is the real reason Gotham is a shit-hole.

Attached: interesting.jpg (382x391, 74K)

>That's the moment where Bruce finally regains control of his life. Being Batman should pure power-trip for Bruce. It's the moment where he takes the fight back to the likes of Joe Chill.

You know, you can say a lot of bad things about Snyder’s Justice League run at the moment. But he follows this guideline so well it’s impossible for me to reconcile his Batman as the same character as King’s Batman.

>Then you've the Bat-Family slowly being formed where Bruce is surrounded by people that see the world as him and are after the same things, so again i can't see Bruce being this lonely and depressed man after the appearance of Robin.

To be honest the Batfamily is in such a sorry state right now (Damien in charge of a mindrape club with his ex on mindrape duty, Nightwing with amnesia, Jason maybe Leviathan etc) that Jarro is unironically Bruce’s best and most wholesome relationship other than Clark and Diana themselves right now, and possibly for the last 10 years.

All Star Based and Redpilled is my favorite Batman

>Batman is the real reason Gotham is a shit-hole
I think you can pin that one on Black Orchid and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth playing around with the Gotham-as-fever-nightmare idea and worse writers trying to make it an ongoing thing.

I like cranky Batman but nice Bruce Wayne

This. DCAU really cracked the formula.

I think you're reading Twitter wrong. Busiek was replying to him; not the other way around.

Finish Creature of the Night already, Kurt.

Is it true that 9/11 made Miller go crazy?

No. 9/11 made him crazier.

>Ruins the flash and booster gold
>Proceeds to ruin batman a month or two later

Can tom king do anything right?

Man the actual narration is cringe as fuck but the actual composition of this page is fucking awesome. What a shame.

He's shit now, but I'm not going to go full Yea Forums and deny that any of his stories were good. Vision, Omega Men, and Grayson were all great.

>That’s not to say we never see that any more. But whenever we see a Batman who’s such a crank that he keeps alienating his closest friends and family, I wonder what happened to Bruce Wayne, the charming, affable face that Batman can adopt AT WILL.
>Those are useful skills...…and when Batman gets presented as angry Batman who can’t interact well even with people he knows well, to the point that it’s counterproductive, I don’t think it makes him look boss, I think it makes him look stupid
This so much. This is actually something a lot of people underappreciate about new shitty Animated DC movies. Well, they aren't as good as they used to be, but almost all movies set in pseudo-New 52 continuity they have Batman... SMILE and worse yet CRACK JOKES and god forbid HAVE A GENUINE BACK AND FORTH WITH THE SUPER SEVEN. Like recently in Reign of Supermen Hal said he had a clear shot on Superboy which everyone of Super Seven found annoying and Batman just joked to take it. People want Batman to be superman so much that they forget he's still a person, he's not always peak human condition, he's not focused, it's because he's flawed his most human stories shine.

I know what i'm going to say it is going to be controversial but i don't like the modern Batcat romance precisely because writers always feel the need to portray Batman as being in the wrong somehow so they can elevate Catwoman as character to justify the romance as being necessary. They often portray Bruce as being utterly miserable due to the Batman gig so they can have Catwoman's pussy be his salvation, thus making both Catwoman and the romance a necessity. Or even Bruce being hypocritical for judging Catwoman harshly for her criminal behavior, because "he's totes a criminal too because vigilantism is totally breaking the law and stuffs". Batman always comes off as the needy and problematic one in the relationship. The one needing to be rescued and fixed.

It's fucking tiring.

I like wry batman and bimbo bruce wayne

>BRO WHAT IF DICK HAD AMNESIA AND CALLED HIMSELF RICK

Fuck off king, go brag about killing some unarmed middle easterners.

Being Batman isn't a choice for him, it's not him being free and in control, it's him being a slave to his past trauma. If you write him being obliviously happy about that, well you get ASBAR, which is fun but hardly suitable as a mainline superhero.
Batfamily is him allowing himself to be human, to be Bruce Wayne, it's not just a reinforcement of his aimless quest.
Being Batman is a crutch, it allows him to actually go on with life, but it's not healthy mentally, let alone physically. What about when he's too old to keep on doing Batman shit? What then?

No, I don’t find it controversial at all. I’ve always seen Batcat as incredibly, impossibly forced on Bruce’s end. Like this man has enough willpower to endure Darkseid’s attention but he can’t not fuck criminal puss? Get real.

I liked Hal’s Darkseid War entry myself. It’s weirdly poignant for that wet fart of an event as a whole even though it lets Hal break the powerscale so hard you’d think he was stronger than Darkseid before giving up his power if you didn’t know by Constantine and Earth 2: World’s End that Darkseid had already destroyed a universe.

>Well, they aren't as good as they used to be, but almost all movies set in pseudo-New 52 continuity they have Batman... SMILE and worse yet CRACK JOKES and god forbid HAVE A GENUINE BACK AND FORTH WITH THE SUPER SEVEN. Like recently in Reign of Supermen Hal said he had a clear shot on Superboy which everyone of Super Seven found annoying and Batman just joked to take it.
Nigga, DCAMU Batman fucking sucks and i say this as a Batman fan. He's the worst example of what modern Batman is. He's apathetic and monotone. The voice actor they hired for him is terrible. It's like the guy is constantly tired. There's no emotion being put into the voice. You've Batman there in the sidelines doing nothing, until the moment the writers feel they need to justify him being there so they show him upstaging one of the Justice League members or a villain with a totally uneaned GOTCHA moment. Like Batman stealing Hal's rings with a cockish look. Or escaping a demonic possession with pure force of his will. Or scaring a demon with a mere "boo". Or even simple being late in he Doomsday fight so as to not outright lose like everyone else.

He's pure Batwank mixed with the shitty apathetic portrayal of the current depressed Batman.

I don't twitter, but if that is how their layout makes it seem to people that do then they're the ones with a design problem.

Yeah, I did say they are shitty, but credit where credit is due, Batman smiles in them, it's one point they have over most current comics

>BRO WHAT IF DICK HAD AMNESIA AND CALLED HIMSELF RICK
Wrong story, genius

If by consistent, you mean consistently mediocre.

>Being Batman isn't a choice for him, it's not him being free and in control, it's him being a slave to his past trauma.
Nigga, you don't escape trauma, you cope with it. Being Batman is Bruce regaining power and with power comes control. It's like a rape victim finally being able to put down a much bigger men thanks to her Muay Thai lessons.

This attempt of portraying Batman as a crutch or problem is what has been fucking with the character in the las decades. You never see people saying Clark being Superman is a crutch. You never see people saying Ollie being Green Arrow is a crutch. You never see not even Selina being Catwoman is a crutch. It's only ever Batman that is in the wrong for being Batman. Shit is bananas.

Attached: Tom King GL.jpg (2084x1598, 495K)

You mean save Booster Gold, right?

Why does Tom King write every character as suicidal? What even was the story behind this page?

For some reason only Bruce is ever portrayed as being crazy for being a hero in a setting full of grown men and women that fight crime in colorful costumes.

All of the rest of them have superpowers or are dumb kids or have the mind of dumb kids (Green Arrow).

I want to see Earth 5 again

>Can tom king do anything right?
Kite Man is the only good thing about King's run that's worth salvaging

It's just an objectively pretty piss-poor way of coping.
I enjoy normal guy Batman but let's be real, there's no way a guy who copes with his parents' death by beating up people while dressed as a spooky animal would be even halfway healthy mentally, and that's reflected in behavior. It's fine to prefer him being a happy Batman, but trying to make that reasonable is the same shit as justifying Spider-Man sticking to walls, it just leads to a lot of retardation that just doesn't compute.
>You never see people saying Clark being Superman is a crutch.
Because he's not Superman entirely as a means to deal with a childhood trauma. No, Krypton isn't the be-all-end-all of his motivations. He's also not a physically normal human who dresses up as an animal.
>You never see not even Selina being Catwoman is a crutch.
You should. She's a fucking thrill-seeking maniac.
I'm woefully unfamiliar with Green Arrow so I won't argue there.

Also Superman has his own issues, his heroics are sometimes portrayed as an obligation that burdens him, and he even buys into Lex's "you're a crutch to humanity" spiel once in a while.

He's not wrong. Capeshit has had this problem since the 80s where deconstructions and elseworlds started popping up like DKR and Watchmen and it created a generation of fans turned creators that thought that's how the characters should be all the time.

>the same shit as justifying Spider-Man sticking to walls
Magic imbued in him by the spider gods lets his brain emits a subatomic particle unique to spider totems that gives him telepathically control electrons in shit he touches allowing him to create powerful electrostatic forces. I mean obviously.

Also he had a complete mental break that one time after killing that elseworld Zod and friends.

I blame the fall of CCA. Thank God writers like Tomasi and Cates are making superheroes fun again.

>I never really subscribed to the idea that Bruce was insane or unhealthy. As I've said before, Bruce Wayne's physical and psychological training regimes (including advanced meditation techniques) would tend to encourage a fairly balanced and healthy personality. Bruce Wayne would have gone mad if he HADN'T dressed as a bat and found a startling way to channel the grief, guilt and helplessness he felt after the death of his parents. Without Batman, Bruce would be truly screwed-up but with Batman he becomes mythic, more than human and genuinely useful to his community. I believe he began to slay his demons the moment he became a demon.

Because apart from Dick, the Heroes of DCU choice become Heroes in pretty standard circunstances. Batman is fueled by vengeance.

Is that why Dick is so white bread?

I want this Batman again

Attached: RCO018_1469428649.jpg (963x1417, 285K)

How are Flash, Wondy, Superman, GL vengeful?

>with Batman he becomes mythic, more than human
That's called delusion.

user's English is shit or he's drunk, but he said the opposite of that. He said that Bruce and Dick are the only ones fueled by vengeance.

That's meaningless and you know it. What if Clark was portrayed as someone who is only ever a hero because it feeds his ego and because he's secretly a glory-hound, and that his existence is actually detrimental to the whole world. Would you like that?

This reminds me of Christopher Nolan, who's a big scifi nut, but never really liked Superman. because too him he always felt that the character was extremely irresponsible and egotistical for outing himself as an alien to the world only so he could rescue cats from trees, because that act in itself have an extreme impact to the world since know everyone knows aliens existe and are among us. For him Superman should only ever out himself in case of a dire circumstance like an alien invasion, otherwise he should keep living in anonymity like a normal human.and even then he feels that the blatant display of superpowers to be too much and Superman showing off for nothing. Thus the whole retardation with Pa Kent in MoS.

These are the kind of rabit holes you run to when deconstructing a character.

GL is vengeful against 13% of the population who commit 80% of crime.
Wondy is vengeful against 50% of the population who commit 99% of crime.

They all beat peoples' heads, for fucks sake. Some because they feel they're obliged to because of superpowers and something because of some tragedy. They're all the same shit. Stop trying to singleout Batman.

>Bruce is crazy for being a hero
>but not Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Babs, Steph, Cass, Kate... Selina...
For fuck's sake.

Attached: 1541032157509 (2).png (583x216, 234K)

>What if Clark was portrayed as someone who is only ever a hero because it feeds his ego and because he's secretly a glory-hound, and that his existence is actually detrimental to the whole world. Would you like that?
That's an absolutely retarded hypothetical that's not at all equivalent to what we're talking about. But it's also been exactly what a couple of fairly popular Superman expies have been.

I agree with you on Nolan's take but again, that's not really a proper equivalency.

As I said, happy Batman is absolutely fine (I like it), justifying it in story as Batman being a psychologically healthy way to deal with trauma isn't, it's just nonsense. Happy Batman does better the less you reference his traumatic origin.

Said nobody. Jason especially, for fuck's sake user, be serious.

Batman is a calling, bro, Bruce felt small, weak, and helpless after this parents death. He blamed himself for what happened. He hated himself for not being able to stop or change what had happened. His whole life he had a sense of guilt and powerlessness eat him away. His whole quest was about finding the means to acquire power and regain control. Even his desire to fight criminals is nothing but an attempt to feel powerful and in control. He was totally lost and confused before. Being Batman is like God descending from the heavens and telling him what his purpose in life is. It's like a calling for a higher cause. It's man finding his destiny. It's an elevating experience.

Being Batman is a healthy thing for Bruce. He shouldn't be miserable for being Batman, he should be happy. Finally he has a purpose in life thanks to it.

So when is he ending Creature of the Night?

It's literally, literally living his whole life guided only by that childhood trauma. And doing it by being a fairly ineffective vigilante. Him feeling in control is a complete delusion when he literally does all he does as a reaction to a childhood event. And yes people who say they see the virgin Mary telling them to do this or that are insane too.

It's not fucking healthy no matter how you slice it. Again, you can portray him as happy and not reference the whole trauma thing, or you can portray him as happy and reference it which makes him look like the unhealthiest superhero. Being happy doesn't mean you're mentally healthy.

>And yes people who say they see the virgin Mary telling them to do this or that are insane too.
Fuck off.

Are you fucking with me?

Currently solicited for October. The optimist in me says it's too late to cancel at this point

Attached: cotn.png (929x412, 76K)

>Again, you can portray him as happy and not reference the whole trauma thing, or you can portray him as happy and reference it which makes him look like the unhealthiest superhero
Pre-TDKR Bruce Wayne was perfectly healthy and still Batman. He created jobs, contributed to charity and got involved in politics while the Batman was this very specific tool in his toolkit he used to deal with very specific problems (like systemic corruption or an alien invasion.) Saying you can't have a mentally healthy Batman is ignorant of the character's origin.
>Being happy doesn't mean you're mentally healthy
And the reverse is also true. The moment you say "Batman must be crazy" you've fallen into the TDKR trap. That was the deconstruction and only one take on a character that had existed for forty years already. A take that wasn't implemented until after O'Neill's run ended a decade later, a decade of stories being told post TDKR that featured a mentally healthy Batman.

Wow, welcome to 2006 with this amazing fresh take Kurt, watch out for that young turk Grant Morrison or he'll swipe it out from under ya!

Attached: 353367.jpg (460x460, 25K)

>What if Clark was portrayed as someone who is only ever a hero because it feeds his ego and because he's secretly a glory-hound, and that his existence is actually detrimental to the whole world. Would you like that?
He'd just be Goku then.

And pre-TDKR they didn't constantly reference his being Batman as a means to mend his trauma. He more or less gets over that (because back then you could have heroes whose origins aren't fucking all-encompassing and their only motivation) and keeps being Batman regardless. It's like you refuse to read what I write when I say it's an either/or situation.
>The moment you say "Batman must be crazy"
I didn't, you just have to not consider he does this shit because he's still trying to get over being a powerless little boy. He must have gotten over that at some point for Batman to be a healthy thing to be, otherwise again, it's just delusion of control.

Fuck's sake it's not about deconstruction, it's about what we factually know as being an unhealthy way to deal with trauma: getting into a different mental illness (delusion) as a coping mechanism.
Nowhere did I imply you couldn't write mentally healthy Batman stories, because yes factually and obviously those do exist, you're fucking arguing against windmills.

Yep.
Miller at his peak was a god, he knew not to make Batman edgy when he was younger. Year One Bruce has a great balance of humor, darkness and vulnerability.

What is even going on in this image.

no, that's MillAr, not MillEr.

Why doesn't Kurt Busiek shut the fuck up and finish writing his own unfinished Batman comic?

I find Kurt Busiek insufferable 90% of the time but he's right on the money here. Miller's take was dumbed down and stripped of its context in mainstream Batman media and it makes no sense that Bruce could both be a master of deception and be a social retard at the same time.

Really? I thought making his catchphrase "Kiteman, hell yeah" part of his tragic origin was on the the stupidest things I've ever read.

Wholesome

I said "salvage"

If I wrote Batman series I’d make it about Bruce slowly opening up to Dick and finally being able to love again after the death of his parents. He’s this gentle daddy to Dick. Then Dick gets killed in tragedy too which shoves Bruce back into the darkness. Years later he meets a new cute young man who has experienced bad things in his life as well.

youtube.com/watch?v=emgeMj13cxg

He's absolutely right. Unfortunately any time someone tries to fix this characterization, like Morrison, a dozen others show up to revert him back to being an antisocial misanthrope.
Until casuals and the general audiences get sick of the usual grim and gritty take (which doesn't seem to be any time soon), DC won't make a heavy push to undo the damage.

What is there to salvage? That single page of him saying hell yeah before we find out he says it because that's what his son said while flying kites before he was killed by the Riddler?

Based. Which sucks because I absolutely love Morrisons Batman

Nah you're thinking of Mark Millar. It's Frank Miller we're talking about.

that's exactly the point of my post.

I lived long enough to see myself become a brainlet.

King's Batman is the guy in the erectile dysfunction commercial before he gets the medicine.

Twitter has a lot to answer for.

this

Everybody harps that Bruce is crazy, what about Ollie, Ted, El Diablo and the entire All Star Squadron?

Come on, Ollie isn't crazy he is just an asshole.

He also was in full "sexy playboy womanizer" mode whenever he was Bruce Wayne. That's something that's been completely removed from modern Batman comics. Now he has NO life outside of being Batman.

Tomasi batman smiles a lot

He makes good points. It's a shame people look at Morrison's run and think "lel everything is canon I will reference everything being canon I am such a genius like Morrison lel", ignoring why Morrison introduced that concept in the first place...
But Morrison's greatest addition to the mythos was one of the fundamental truths about Batman: "I was never alone".

who else /funbat/ here?

Attached: 71lMbq5uoUL._AC_SL1500_.jpg (668x1000, 182K)

The playboy shit recently appeared in Detective comics as well as Batman and the outsiders

I wish they just resetted Batman every decade or so. Then we would have Batman and Robin fighting crime without all of the dumb ever-growing bat family.

Guy who defends Schumacher's Batman reporting in

Attached: FILE172.gif (500x372, 391K)

Adolf "Donny D(rumpf)" Hitler

The problem is that DC (and Marvel as well mind you) no longer have any male writers who are masculine. They are all the same liberal, white guilt, emasculated, male feminists types who go on and on about how white men are all terrible, how "toxic masculinity" is totally a thing which needs to be abolished or how the world would be so much better if women and minorities where in charge of everything.
Not a single one of them knows what it's like to be a traditional man who does hard work, not a single one of them does any sports or has ever been in a fight. Their first reaction to different opinions or criticism is blocking you on twitter and then crying about "harassment" for a few days.
So they all end up writing the same way, Instead of male heroes that are actually cool and good at their job we get heroes who are miserable all the time. Instead of stories where the hero saves the day we get stories which reflect the writers own insecurity where the hero just fails and cries while the strong independent, feminist female hero saves the day.
You know it's pretty telling that for all the hundreds of Comics Marvel and DC release each year not a single one still features a traditional masculine hero being competent and saving a woman. Instead it's the same story over and over again "white men bad" "women good"

Apologize.

Attached: •-Bronze-Age-Batman-580x491.jpg (580x491, 46K)

>not muh
Shut the fuck up kurt

Imagine being this sperg, lmao

great point, very well thought out

It's because batman is fucking retarded. That's it.

You don’t even have a point, you’re just desperately trying to victimise yourself lmaoooo

I think he is 100% right. Miller's dark knight was everything taken to the ultimate extreme, Batman was an cranky, vengeful, disillusioned and bitter old man, but still with depth and history to it, but people only saw the brooding crankyness and wanted to emulate that. Its the same with movies and Nolan's dark knight.

Batman literally JUST saved a whole amusement park of people and also saved a bunch of people from a plane as Bruce Wayne in Detective comics

You’re both lying and retarded

Does Frank Miller ruin everything he touches with his stupid grimdark sensibilities and fetish for hookers and ninjas?

Batman isn't Bruce coping with his trauma, its Bruce refusing to cope with it. Its an escape for him that lets him believe that the death of his family wasn't the senseless, meaningless tragedy that it was. Its him personally lashing out against the world that tore him apart for no reason. Some of the best Batman scenes are the ones that accentuate that.
youtube.com/watch?v=TjAFbEP0wK4
Its why i dislike when stories try to change the Wayne's murder into an assassination or some other plot, when it really should just be them being confronted by a desperate man in the wrong place in the wrong time.
>You never see people saying Ollie being Green Arrow is a crutch. You never see not even Selina being Catwoman is a crutch. It's only ever Batman that is in the wrong for being Batman.
You can make an argument for Selina, but those characters are also fundamentally different from Batman. Batman also isn't wrong for being Batman, he is doing good after all, its just unhealthy, because, unlike those other characters you mentioned, Bruce takes his crime fighting to an unhealthy degree, like an obsession. He still does good, but could probably do a lot more if he instead started training others, investing more money into the police, started openly working with the authorities etc., but his obsession forces him to personally go out and do it himself.

It's because of Donald Trump, the King of Israel and Jews, that no one can write a good Batman story anymore.

>He still does good, but could probably do a lot more if he instead started training others, investing more money into the police, started openly working with the authorities etc.
THAT'S WHAT BATMAN DOES! BATMAN DOES ALL OF THAT!
And being Batman is Bruce coping with trauma in a way that's healthy for him. I hate Mark of the Phantasm, despite it being a great story because it keeps pushing the narrative that Bruce should aim to get a woman, settle down and form a traditional family, like any common man, and anything other than doing that is a tragedy.

This, if anyone wants some good light hearted and competent Batman without Batcats Dectective Comics is a good contrast to Kingbats

Why are you mentioning Hawkman and the All Star Squadron?

The whole point of the post is that Miller isn't the problem, it's the people who read Miller's work and try to emulate it on only the shallowest of levels. It's the same as the Watchmen problem.

>but could probably do a lot more if he instead started training others
You mean the small army of other Bat characters?

> investing more money into the police, started openly working with the authorities etc

Ah yes, the notoriously good Gotham police. It's made clear time and time again that all of the institutions in Gotham are absurdly corrupt. Just giving them money is a terrible idea.

Detective Comics right now is good that it's more light hearted, but it's very far from Tomasi's best work and kind of just boring.

Batman Forever is a good movie. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.

Attached: tumblr_mc0advDbbp1rg5uhao1_1280.jpg (734x1087, 144K)

>THAT'S WHAT BATMAN DOES! BATMAN DOES ALL OF THAT!
well he doesn't openly work with the authorities, or not as much as he could, BUT HE SHOULD BE DOING ALL OF THAT FULL TIME. A huge chunk of his and money and the majority of his time is still spent on himself as Batman. My point is that there is absolutely no reason for Bruce to be Batman himself.
>And being Batman is Bruce coping with trauma in a way that's healthy for him.
what the fuck its not healthy for him, it forces him into a dual identity that almost kills him every night and forces 90% of his time into dressing up as a vengeful Bat persona that takes his anger out on criminals, to the point where often he considers Bruce the mask, and Batman his real self. A healthy cope for his trauma would be THERAPY and helping the city indirectly. Like i said there is no reason for Bruce to be Batman himself.
>I hate Mark of the Phantasm, despite it being a great story because it keeps pushing the narrative that Bruce should aim to get a woman, settle down and form a traditional family, like any common man, and anything other than doing that is a tragedy.
What? Its doesn't push anything, its message is that with Andrea Bruce can't have his cake and eat it too and that he must choose between the life of an "ordinary" man or the life of Batman. The tragedy is that he can't find a middle ground, and that his trauma calls into question on wether or not he can even make such a choice.
Also you say this like marrying someone and settling down is a bad thing.

It's almost like Grant tries to fix this with Dickbats, fans actually accepted it, then DC went NOOOO BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR MONEYYYYY THEY MIGHT WANT BRICE BACK!!! while actually meaning "fuck you I want Bruce and Barry and Hal muh childhood"

Forever is the worst of the original 4. It's not nearly as genuinely good as the Burton films, and doesn't lean all the way into camp like B&R.

also batman smiling while trolling internet forums.

>My point is that there is absolutely no reason for Bruce to be Batman himself.
How many instances of Batman personally stopping some psycho asshole from poisoning Gotham's water supply do you need to see to realize you're wrong? Do you really think just giving more money to a corrupt police force would fix those?

Are we talking about his writing or how he makes you feel?

>Like i said there is no reason for Bruce to be Batman himself
He helps others which in turn helps himself. It gives purpose to his life. He feels useful doing it.
>Also you say this like marrying someone and settling down is a bad thing
I'm not saying that at all, i just hate it when it's portrayed as a choice between marrying and being happy, and being a hero and being eternally miserable. Same as King's current run. It doesn't need to be a choice. It doesn't have to be one or the other. There's nothing stopping Bruce from being a hero and having a family. HE ALREADY HAS A FAMILY!
BATMAN LEGO was the most mature story done with Batman in the last decade precisely because of this. Bruce begins the movie miserable and obsessed with romance thinking that if he got a woman he'd finally get to be happy like his parents were, but the movie constantly mocks that idea with Batgirl showing that the idea of romance as a cure-all for Bruce is a ridiculous and frankly juvenile fantasy, and instead what he really needs is a genuine family of friends. Mind-like people that he can share his life with. Thus enter the Bat-Family, where he can be a father, a brother, a mentor, and a friend all at the same time. Something much more complete than simple a lover.
I wish the comics could follow that vein. Bruce doesn't need a woman to fix him up. He's not an adolescent or some 20 something loser who's insecure about his looks or status. He's a handsome, rich, and capable man. If anything he has been drowning in pussy since he was a teenager. Women shouldn't be an issue, even with the whole Batman thing. What he wants is to be a hero, to be useful, to affect some change in the world. You know, something that any adult that doesn't suffer from a lack of sex actually seek out of life. Both men and women. To make it out in the world and be someone. Sex anyone can have. Romance anyone can enjoy. It shouldn't be essential to one's life unless you're someone who lacks it.

Attached: Bat-Harem.jpg (1024x1555, 477K)

But seriously, this brings us back to the topic at hand which is that both writers and readers ignore the fact that Bruce Wayne isn't your average loser who have no friends, can't get a girl, and is eternally insecure and anxious about those things in life. That's the main problem here. Writers and readers both self-insert themselves into Bruce and because of that Bruce tends to be written as if he was like the writers and readers are: some loser with nothing going in their life. BUT BRUCE MOTHERFUCKING WAYNE ISN'T YOUR AVERAGE LOSER. He's the goddamn heir to a goddamn conglomerate. He's the most important and popular celebrity of his city. He's handsome and impossibly rich. If anything he had to fight off during all his life people that came to him wanting to be his friends or lovers out. Everything he does, everywhere he goes there'd be people there to gawk at him and try to pamper him. He shouldn't be wanting friends or lovers, because he got them in spades. If anything, at worst he should feel a need to prioritize genuine friendship. Not really love, because what women wouldn't fall hard for him? But friendship, which is much harder. Romance should be the last thing on his mind, because frankly his entire life should be a mess of having to try to navigate all the women and the drama they make in their attempt to have him.

But instead you've writers writing Batman as some insecure and needy loser who seems to have never talked to a girl and that gets all flustered and desperate whenever a woman gives him some attention, and who always start to stutter and shit whenever trying to respond a sexual advance. You know, like King's Bruce Wayne. Because can't stop projecting his sorry ass into the character.

Attached: Batman 015 (2017) (2 covers) (Digital) (Zone-Empire).cbr-Batman (2016-) 015-013.jpg (1988x3056, 1.47M)

They tried during One Year Later and it didnt stick.

>The scene where Batman buries his child self alive told me everything I needed to know about King's mental state and it's not good at all.
Wasn't that Tomasi tho?

Attached: RCO014_1551268657.jpg (1041x1600, 409K)

Lmao, I bet you don't even know who Busiek is

Attached: RCO015_1551268657.jpg (1041x1600, 218K)

PREP
TIME

Best Batman is Brave and the Bold

Which is fucked up, because Dini's take on them in comics was actually more positive. Heart of Hush for its faults, made them feel like people who loved each other despite the bullshit, unlike King.

Orange man.

>When a comic book writer you used to respect cheerleads for Antifa.

For all the shit people give DK2 I love how Miller wrote Batman like a dude who got over his mid-life crisis and was just having a blast.

Blue Batman is best Batman

>Or anything involving Harvey Dent.

But they did do that, it was the last Batman portrayal West did before he died.

So what’s the deal with Superman, has Busiek said anything about the man of steel?
That from Ambush Bug? And who’s the fat girl?

People seem to forget that Batman is the true identity and Bruce Wayne is the persona. Some people are good at putting on the mask when they have to but when there's no need for charades, there's no need to feel you need to talk and act a certain way

I forgot Adam West died :(

Batman is literally a manchild. Him being cranky and frustrated are the mosy accurate description of him.

>Batman is literally a manchild.
No, user, YOU are the manchild, you have to accept that.

He's only been written like a manchild after the thing Busiek describes became a problem. You're getting cause and effect switched.

Where is the lie?
He is 100% correct.
Go read this week's Batman. I know Yea Forums says that King is a hack, but he had him drop the "It would be a good death." line at the end, and blame him all you want, he isn't the only one who has been writing Bruce over the last 20 years with the intent of carving in the trajectory to get him to DRK Bruce, and it is cheap, isn't entertaining, and sucks. It isn't Miller's fault. It isn't King's fault. Morrison even went so far as to try to use his resurrection as an opportunity to do a hard reset of the character more along the lines of what Busiek is describing and was able to in Batman Inc. for awhile until he wasn't. IT IS THE FAULT OF THE MOTHERFUCKERS WHOSE JOB IT IS TO PRESERVE THE CHARACTERS, and say what you will, but that is part of what editors are supposed to do, and they haven't for decades at this point.
I grew up loving Batman, and can't stand him anymore to the point that I would Bruce being dead because of how much he stagnates those around him and doesn't enrich anything.

Waid's run was a well received return to a more cavalier and fun cartoon book after years of grim tragedy. Once again Frank Miller's long shadow spawned a million hacks. Like Bendis.

I agree that good Bruce Wayne stories have fallen out of favor and need to come back. People take Bruce being the mask far too literal and miss the Wayne part being an outlet for his more jovial side

I really like what the DCAU did as they had Batman grow from BTAS to Beyond. Bruce grew cold and bitter but it was becoming a mentor to Terry that caused him to grow again as a person. One of the greatest thing about the mentor/teacher relationship is that it can allow both to grow.

>no, YOU
Go to bed, child.

Batman original conception is literally him being edgelord running around killing people and saying idiotic things. He was always a manchild.

>Batman is a lot like Spider-man as the embodiment of hope in their respective franchises
I wouldn't say "hope" per se, that's more Superman and Captain America... it's more that Batman and Spider-Man represent perseverance through adversity. They both lost people close to them, and they dealt with that as best they could.

Attached: spider_man_lifting.jpg (836x814, 311K)

Happy Bruce.

Attached: Batman and Robin3.jpg (1041x1600, 524K)

>dealt with that as best they could
The best Bruce could have done is helping his city by becoming mayor of Gotham and clearing corruption instead of running around in bat costume. He could have still trained himself in how to protect himself and others without necessary being a vigilant.

>The best Clark could have done is helping his city by becoming mayor of Metropolis and clearing corruption instead of running around in a costume his mother made for him when he was a kid. He could have still used his powers in how to protect himself and others without necessary being a gaudy super-powered vigilant
See how stupid you're being?

You mean in the run where Batman went crazy and pushed all of his family AGAIN. Tomasi is also responsible for grimdark Batman.

Family? Dick, Jason, Tim, and Babs aren't Bruce's kids. They have no blood relation to him. Only Damian is his family.

That's sarcasm, by the way. I'm making fun of Tomasi's writing.

Clark has superpower. Protecting his city in the way his doing is far more helpful because he doesn't have the influence or the money like Bruce. It's the same with Peter.

To be fair, even Mask of the Phantasm made it clear that GCPD are
There have been a few Elseworlds where Bruce tried to do just that, and they rarely end well. Plus there's criminals like Joker and Two-Face, who you can't just clean up with good municipal planning.

So just because he has super-powers he isn't crazy, like Bruce is for doing pretty much the same thing? You know what you remind me of? This page.

Attached: 1547118700573.jpg (1007x582, 282K)

*that the GCPD are more than willing to just follow whoever has more influence at City Hall

Talk about stupid comparison.

>Only Damian is his family.
And Kate. Bruce lets Kate get away with things he'd break Jason's teeth over.

Politics and politicians are the last thing I'd want trying to clean up my city. There's no individual on this earth more corrupt than the politician and politics always ends up in corruption

>Dick, Jason, Tim, and Babs aren't Bruce's kids
Barbara, maybe not. But the boys? You do realise that Bruce has adopted them all, right?

>that's more Superman and Captain America
The only character that cracks and goes evil more often than Superman is Wonder Woman.

That's only in edgy Elseworlds and NetherRealm fighting games

There are also stories about how Bruce becoming Batman brought more evil to Gotham. Comic writers will always twist logic to make sense of their stories.

The dude was being sarcastic. He even said so.

Again, that's just edgy 90s Elseworlds

Why is it a stupid comparison? They're both super-heroes. They both dress in colorful and attention-grabbing costumes and bash villains' heads with their fists. They both save the world over and over again through incredible fits. So where is the big difference?

Sure, Superman has super-powers, but Batman with his endless money and bullshit training is capable of doing as much bullshit fits as Superman can with his superpowers. Which makes them essentially the same.

But for some reason only Bruce is the crazy one for being a super-hero and instead should lead a more "normal" life. Like becoming a mayor or something. Well, maybe Clark is crazy too. He could have used his super-powers to be become an athlete superstar instead of wearing his kid's pajamas to fly around. Maybe he should become a mayor or president candidate with all his super-intellect. Or maybe he should just fuck off and go back to his planet somehow. We need these character to be "normal" and "mediocre", after all. Everything else is too crazy and out-there.

Attached: Sadman.jpg (800x533, 68K)

The brave and the bold will always be the best

Attached: 71lMbq5uoUL.jpg (668x1000, 226K)

>
Jason, Tim, and Babs aren't Bruce's kids.

>Again, that's just edgy 90s Elseworlds
That's current mainline comics, user.

Attached: file.png (926x1440, 2.41M)

>Only Damian is his family.
He is.

shit taste

>Literally Batman bad
That lady was clearly shown to be in the wrong. It doesn't erase all the good he's done and all the people he's saved.

You can be a super-hero without being a vigilante. Superman and Spider-Man have powers which is the best way for them to help their cities while Bruce has money and influence which is the best way for him to help his city instead of running like an idiot in bat costume. This is why people say he is manchild and crazy because his concept make not much sense.

Stephanie Brownfag still hate Tomasi ?

Batwoman is his cousin on his mom's side.

No one say it does.

But when your present bring bigger evil, are the good you have done make up for it?

>present
*presence

Batman isn't a vigilante, he's an honorary deputized member of the Gotham PD. All his activities are tacitly approved by the government.

I like Tomasi's 'Tec run Stephfag can eat shit.

>Cranky young Batman was pretty popular, though,
Did people really not like Dickbats "Nice young Batman" schtick that much? I still maintain that Dickbats is the best Bats.

Whenever I read a page from King Batman all I can picture is Bruce in the corner of the batcave with his cowl on writing in a diary. Maybe that's why he comes off like a teenager. King monologues read like really bad attempts at diary or poetry entries

and yet he always get's potrayed as inferior when he has to interact with a woman.
Plus while DC has gone out of their way to censor sexual depictions of female characters they have no problem constantly drawing Bruce topless to show of his muscles.
Just the typical emasculation of men

Superman has super-intellect, which Superman fans won't let anyone forget, and he has a fortress filled with alien tech and other wondrous things. He could easily take over the planet without ever having to lift a finger. Take the black Superman Grant Morrison created that was essentially Barack Obama. Dude was the US' president and whenever he was super-heroing around the world he'd let his super-robot delegate in his place. So Superman could have as much influence and power, if not more than Batman. It's just that writer hardly pursue that revenue because after all he's a superhero and cape comics is all about heroics.

The only real difference between Superman and Batman is that one is an alien with super-powers and the other is a human without super-powers. But even then that isn't a real difference because in the end they do the same things and accomplish the same things for the sole virtue of being superheroes.

The real problem is that you can suspend disbelief for one and not be bogged down by "reality", while you can't do the same for another.

Tomasi's Detective: Classic best describes this issues, its got everything one wants from a Batman story.
Tom king is shit.

Leviathan will be Batman .

...Tomasi’s a gifted, under utilized and under appreciated writer. DC doesn’t appreciate his talent anywhere near enough.

I’d love to see him tackle so many titles so part of me hopes this run on Detective is his last major Batman run as he’s written so much of Batman already. I’d love to see him do a bit more Superman, Or for him to take The JSA, The Titans or Shazam

Spoliers.

She was just an autist who made Gotham bright as hell for a little while, Batman does a fuck ton of good, both as Batman and Bruce Wayne, so yes, Batman simply does way more good than bad.

>Shazam
that’d have been another amazing title for him

No, Damian is his only "relation". You don't need to be biologically related to be a " family"

>" family"
tumblr.

>Damian is his only "relation".
Wrong.

Not black enough

Attached: calel_Custom.jpg (740x667, 164K)

Nobody Cares .

Nah Windy only cracks every other time Supes does. She's not popular enough to get stories about her going crazy on her own

>Leviathan will be Batman .
The Dark Knight's seeing things differently these days.

>and yet he always get's potrayed as inferior when he has to interact with a woman.
That's literally not true, he saved a fucking woman on the plane. Kill yourself

Attached: RCO017_1565775038.jpg (1041x1600, 374K)

Relation means immediate relative, not once removed cousin

Not to mention, he literally beats arkham knight WHILE BLINDED

Attached: RCO015_1560334101.jpg (1600x1230, 686K)

Tomasi's Bruce >> best Bats.

here.

Nothing tumble about it. I have people I'll consider family until the die I day even though we don't share blood. The concept of family being biological relations only is only a recent thing

i really enjoyed this issue. Seeing him as Bruce Wayne really is a refreshing change and the banter between him and Alfred at the start was great as always. It's just nice reading a Batman that has humour and is truly a hero. Only focussing on his darkness and his misery makes some writers forget that Batman at his core should be a good guy.

Why even bother? You know he's just shitposting and won't change his mind, he'll be in another thread posting the same thing later.

How is showing off muscles emasculation? Isn't it an appreciation of the masculine male form?

Same way showing a woman's tits is sexist I guess

I've always felt Ego is a fantastic representation of how Batman's internal struggle should be represented.
It has elements of despair, rage, satisfaction, and it examines it all in a critical but well meaning manner.
In short Batman is the tool Bruce tempered from his fear (of death in particular?) so that he could go on living and help others.
Highly recommend a purchase of this collection, it has a short story that is honestly a better scarecrow story, though it stars a one off villain named Madam X, than anything else written lately.
Rest of the stories are equally crafted, Cooke's passing was a loss for the comic world though he did live a long life.

Attached: Ego.jpg (1000x1536, 240K)

Complaints of sexism doesn't mean it's making a female less feminine by showing tits which is what the female equivalent of emasculation means

Batman is a good guy, he's fighting crima, corruption and all that jazz. He simply isn't a boy scout, this is a man who preys on the fears and superstitions of criminals after all. He's not supposed to invoke a sense of hope, he's supposed to invoke a sense of vengance.

The people of Gotham love Batman because he's the instrument of vengeance of the common citizen stuck in a crime ridden shithole

love that Bruce is just as cocky as Bats when he is working.

he did risk his own safety to save all those people on the plane.

ITT bitter old men

We're just in a fucking lame era where Batman isn't allowed to be cool anymore. It's all about being damaged in the most unsubtle and hamhanded ways. Shit like BRUCE IS THE MASK or BATMAN NEEDS THE JOKER is the kind of weak ass shit writers use to deconstruct Batman and pretend they're doing something novel with the character. But Batman used to be allowed to just be fucking cool. He dedicated his parents wealth and his life to fighting crime because nobody else could or would. And hes good at it. Every story didn't need to be some grand meta narrative about Bruce's self-destructive psyche. Batman's just fucking lame now because rather than a total badass action hero who knows what he's doing he's written as an unstable manchild that needs to be put down.

>We're just in a fucking lame era where Batman isn't allowed to be cool anymore
Not just Batman, it's more or less any white male character. DC and Marvel just want to be WOKE so much that they are even ok with destroying their old golden gooses if this means female and minority heroes can look better in comparison

The heroes don't show of their muscles to celebrate their strength and physical fitness they do it to be vied sex objects for gays and women. They are being treated like objects instead of heroes.
I mean what's the point of being drawn with huge muscles if some skinny looking girl is always going to defeat you in a fight anyway thanks to DC's feminist agenda of always having female characters being portrayed as better then male once?
Besides you can show of your muscles and still wear clothes but nope DC always has to draw men topless these days.

uh

That was badass man!

Attached: RCO013_1475773468.jpg (1040x1600, 660K)

Jovial is a bit of a overstatement. He was able to compliment with other characters because he was serious, not cranky. Even when he was a grouchy old man, he bounced off well with Terry's snark, he even got to crack some jokes at his expense.

Try and imagine "schwarbage" coming out of King's Batman

"Kurt Busiek Resists"...what a fucking faggot

God stop trying to paint yourself as a victim, you're as bad as fucking SJWs

>I mean what's the point of being drawn with huge muscles if some skinny looking girl is always going to defeat you in a fight anyway thanks to DC's feminist agenda of always having female characters being portrayed as better then male once?
Then kill yourself

>they do it to be vied sex objects for gays and women
Gays and women don't like shirtless men though, women in particular, they like suited men

Imagine being this wrong lmao, even for bats it's wrong

The point is that the DCU is filled with folks that put on costumes & fight crime, the bulk of the Golden Age are 'mystery men' but nobody ever calls them insane.

>Why are you mentioning Hawkman
Fucking casual

Attached: ElDiabloII.jpg (1058x794, 217K)

I think it's a capeshit problem in general right now but even moreso at DC because their characters were always less grounded. But there's this realism and deconstruction push that is robbing characters not their mythic element. Superheroes are the modern day gods of folklore and fairytale. They're meant to awe and inspire and it's okay when they don't make sense as a realistic depiction of a human because they're the best of us. The death of the Waynes inspiring Bruce to take up the cowl doesn't need to be a depiction of mental illness. It can just be his calling without being a negative thing because Batman is larger than life. It may have been an unhealthy thing for the average man but Bruce isn't the average man and he can carry that weight.

You know what's messed up about this whole deal? Nobody ever said that Zorro is insane for doing what he did. Everyone thought of him as noble for it.

This is not Tom King.

Yeah but Busiek also forever ruined the X-Men because he was mad that Jean died and thought Silver Age X-Men was better than Claremont's.

This. Bruce Wayne is what his father would have wanted him to be. A bit silly but good hearted friendly man, unafraid to be generous and mingle with the common people

But it's only King writing that late 00s War Games Batman.

Tomasi doesn't write him like that, Snyder doesn't write him like that, Tynion doesn't write him like that, Hill doesn't write him like that.

the WTC was literally on his Backyard, and he saw all of it.

i think even his room and most of his stuff was even on the way of the debris cloud

>Nigga, you don't escape trauma, you cope with it.
Spoken like a true victim cuck. People can overcome trauma and become stronger than they were for it.

>Batman original conception is literally him being edgelord running around killing people and saying idiotic things.
"any detective who uses a gun is an edgelord"

Just stop, you don't even know what that means.

A mayor doesn't have nearly as much power as you seem to think they do. They're not just king of a city.

>Infinite crisis
>Rebirth
>New 52
>Whatever else shit I missed
What do you want user?

New 52 is the only one of those that reduced the Batfam, and even then it lasted like a couple years.

Fags that try to bring logic and realism to superheroes are the kinds of people ruining the genre. Armchair analysts who say shit like "Bruce could have done more good with his money than channeling it into Batman!" are the buzzkills that lead to Tom King's Batman rather than something like Morrison's. Comics should be about accepting the basic premise of the character and building on it. But nowadays it seems like everyone just wants to tear down.

It's true. And forever a stain on his record.

I realized that Tom King despise superheroes by seeing how much he would emphasize the mantra "Bros Before Heroes" in Heroes in Crisis. King believe that superheroes or heroes in general are infantile and worthy of mockery, and that the important thing is to get a woman - which he sees as the cure-all of all problems - and settle down. He's the type of guy that worship mediocrity over trying to be exceptional.

And this guy is the one writing cape comics for DC.

It's almost like the main Batman comic is simply gonna be the most talked about one.

>the Aquaman episodes
>the Music Meister

Attached: 1531321100109.gif (320x288, 15K)

he's right you know.

you realize the userbase isnt full of 50 year olds? good batman was dead before most of us turned 10

t.nigger
too bad you aren't white and can't see how lovable cops are.

Fuck off, shill.

There are plenty of whites who hate cops as well. Police are tools of the state who exist to infringe on my rights

Aww c'mon...SOMEBODY would have eventually brought her back.

Thing is most of those men don't. Have you ever spoken to a veteran, a cop, or a fire fighter? They don't move on, they function until the weight becomes too much to bear and then they break. I've spoken to vets, the shit they've had to see and do is always with them, they don't move on from it, they tolerate it to varying degrees and that tolerance usually involves alcohol

t. antifa.

He is, but he doesn't address the other problem with the legacy of DKR: "Batman Always Wins"/prep-time. Too many lesser writers used DKR as precedent to make Batman already prepared for absolutely everything, and utterly invincible.

Damn, you got him. I guess the cops really are perfect

Someone was going to. Marvel wanted to launch X-Factor with the O5 X-Men as the cast, they were looking for a way to bring Jean back that also made her not guilty of genocide. Busiek came up with an idea for how they could do it, and dumb X-fags think he just contacted Marvel and single-handedly convinced them to bring Jean back.

Batman after Final Crisis was the best state his universe was ever in
even after bringing him back and Batman Inc, shit was still good

was there ever an in-universe explanation why Batman Inc dissolved? I mean it was still technically around in New 52 even if it was only mentioned in Batwing and the end of Morrison's. run

It's been a while, but didn't the whole thing with Spyral and Leviathan kind of fuck everything up?

I'm sure he's still paying a stipend for Gaucho and the Japanese dude, it's only a matter of time before one of the writers under the GM umbrella like Orlando or Way reference it.

Take a gander to /k/ once in a while. I'm far from leftist but that doesn't mean I love pigs

DKR Batman wasn't preptime Batman. The only time he used prep was against Superman and even then he didn't win.

thanks for the (you)

Just doing some Batreading and this exchange brought my mind back to this thread. A great example of the Bathumor that is so often missing these days.

Attached: IMG_20190823_220012~2.jpg (1884x1512, 746K)

t. bootlicker.

Comics do this all the fucking time. Admittedly sometimes creators who pooh pooh movements they started say, "But I was kidding!" in retrospect, but tons of awful trends are a good idea being redone over and over without the context that made it a good idea.

I mean one reason for Bruce to be Batman is no one wants to read a comic about Richie Rich going to parties and running fundraisers.

Like is Sherlock Holmes a bad guy for not working directly for Scotland Yard?

cringe quiping

Cops are an IQ test.

Above-average IQ: Cops work for you.

Average IQ: Cops leave you alone.

Below-Average IQ: Cops bring you to heel like the impulsive animal you are for the good of society.

Retard: The cops shoot you.

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read.

It's true.

Exercise

Actually, that totally is something a middle age man would do. Not excusing King's run though.

busiek is the most based comics creator on twitter

A middle aged man would have killed himself a long time ago if he was that into the depression and suicide talk.

And it's true.

So, what, you think cops just give out IQ tests to the people they kill for no reason? Or is this just a /pol/ "all black people are dumb" thing?

A corporation gets the local cops to bust some heads during a strike. Do the employees have a lower IQ than the owners? Cops break down the wrong door during a drug raid and shoot an innocent civilian. Did the civilian have too low an IQ?
You are a bootlicker and you live your life on your knees.

If you get killed by the police its your own fault. Next time don't spaz out when they tell you to freeze dumbshit.

>Do the employees have a lower IQ than the owners?
Yes.

But it's that one part of the story that became so influential.

Lick them boots. Worship them rich folks. Be a disease.

I am a rich folk.

Then you are already a disease.

I think it often comes from internal narrations that often make someone grumpier looking. To confirm he was actually that mad, and not just part of the Batman persona.

I always see All-Star as a form of comics that aren't often expressed.

Basically: Comics can be super serious and down to Earth or SUper ridiculous and fantastical.

Likewise: Comics can be light-hearted and wholesome or Dark and Edgy.

We often see Dark and Serious, and Light and Silly, and even Light and Serious, but we very rarely see Dark & Ridiculous/Fantastical

All-Star is Dark and Ridiculous/Fantastical

Oh no. How will I ever sleep at night knowing that I am financially secure and that the cops will never bother me?

Everything in life is an IQ test. If you're struggling its your own fault for being stupid.

>We're just in a fucking lame era where Batman isn't allowed to be cool anymore.
Are you kidding? Every single normie you can think of has been propagating the “BECAUSE IM BATMAN!” and “BECAUSE HE’S BATMAN” shit.

>Justice League Doom where Batman almost gets his team killed and betrays his friend’s trust?
“Batman is so cool. He’s right in every way. He can beat anybody”

It’s not that he’s not allowed to be cool. It’s that people who consume Batman media these days think that him being an antisocial psychopath is cool.

And when people have their hands in the air, are standing still, and still get shot?

I suspect that you'll sleep just fine. Cancer never tries to be anything but cancer.

^^^^^^^ fuckin THIS

i got raped by my aunt as a kid but guess what? i got over it, after i beat the fuck out of her and stole her identity

now i'm well off and physically more powerful to boot

Somebody should tell that to Tom King then.

His last few issues of Astro City were incredibly clickbaity and did not fit the feel of the world at all. The one where the tumblrite blows off her beta boyfriend to hunt a monster made out of a flash mob of protestors (I was to God none of this was real) was intolerable. And then the coda at the end is her sadsack numale boyfriend comes crawling back despite her not changing or reaching out to him in any way.

Thomasi's latest issue of Detective is all Bruce Wayne and it's a blast to read. You should pick it up.

Batman is mentally ill.

Attached: 3163123-batmanyearone_04.jpg (550x864, 125K)

Exactly. Bruce is the heart of Batman.

That’s like how a lot of Superman writers think Superman is just Clark Kent, despite the fact that Superman is who he became and embraced.