Frank Miller writes Batman authentically

[Tinker]

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This is kind of awesome to me. This shows exactly what Batman is, an entitled sadist who takes it upon himself to abuse the poorest people in the city in a furry costume. I like this vision of Batman. Rather than the notion of a paternalistic salvific hero.

Batman as a sick deranged crazy person is a much better look for Batman.

[lzzrdgrrl]

hmmn...... seems a similar trajectory followed by . Anybody remember ?.........

Well-written monologue in that inset, though.........

[Ibrahim]

Miller is a living joke. A bona fide casualty of Objectivism and armchair-toughguy-syndrome. David Mamet is another example.
But according to comics nerds (I'm not qualified on that subject) he's produced some (some) great work, and I don't think its necessary that an artist ("artist") be a cool guy/gal on a personal level. I kinda liked Sin City and 300, but I'm not Persian.


But the idea that Batman as a character would be a kind of Nietzschean maniac makes sense to me. I recall reading an essay by a philosophy professor (from the late 50's, Jewish prof from NYC? Name escapes me) about how the idea of a "superhero" is fundamentally fascist and narcissistic.

[Hans Bulvai]

hmmm....

Batman more than any other comic book superhero is one of the few that is not 'super'. Green Arrow also comes to mind, and come to think of it, he too was a rich spoiled brat.
His powers come from his rage that is hidden behind a facade of childish good looks, deep pockets, and an empire built by his father.
The image of his parents being murdered never escapes him.

He is fucked up as is. That's what makes him Batman.
I say leave him alone.

I understand how the idea of a superhero can be explained as fascist, but so what??

[Ibrahim]

[Demon of Undoing]

Ah, you guys hold the position of the government from " The Incredibles".

Batman is not the proper role of the superhero, at least not Batman as he has become. Originally, he was just a super- cop. Now, he's a Dark Knight. The farther away he gets from Commissioner Gordon, the less defensible he becomes. Batman is individual force unrestrained by convention, but still very much bound by laws. Don't know about now, but Batman used to go out of his way not to kill. If he is out there as a law unto himself, then it's trying to do good through evil means, and that is not possible. He has no obligation or motivation beyond what is common to man, and many have suffered without recourse to becoming their own law. Batman is not specially compelled to be something else, he chose to act apeshit in response to a comparatively garden variety trauma. He could have done something only he could do, like become super doctor and cure underlying brain issues that lead to violent psychopathologies.

Now, Superman. There is a super hero. Here is a being that did not choose who he is, where he is, or what makes him exceptional. His greatness is not in deciding he has to do something to right wrongs; just doing nothing is the wrong. His heroism is incumbent upon him; by virtue of who he is, he has to be heroic or become the worst sort of villain ( watching a bus load of kids going off a broken bridge instead of flying them out of there). Batman, at best, saves us from something only slightly abnormal, ie violent criminals. Superman is called to fix elements of the human condition. Superman is a bodhisatva, a messiah that suffers with us ( com- passion).

Batman is a guy that cracked. Superman is all the Jesus 20th century America could handle.

[Ibrahim]

[Hans Bulvai]

I don't know you guys.
I am having a hard time thinking of Batman as a cop...
He was never bound by law, criminlas are scared shitless of him and throughout his career, they would rather get in a battle with cops than Batman.
I am looking back through some of my very old comics and although hints are there of him being some sort of a cop, many times he showed no mercy to those he fought. And while it is true he went out of his way not to kill, he sometimes did not get in its way either when a criminal was going to meet death. See the example below. The lady falling in the river is a hired assasin trying to kill a whistleblower. Batman finally subdues her but causes damage to the bridge. They are hanging for dear life but he makes no attempt to save her when she falls. The target is then saying :She is done. We got rid of her. To which Batman replies: This is the destiny of all those who are agressors. But then Superman saves her and tells Batman, while you might be right, all life is valuable and we must do whatever it takes to save it. Thelady talking to the villain tells him that although Superman is very merciful, Batman often behaves the same way from what they have been observing. They are taking notes to devise a plan to destroy the pair's friendship using the different views Superman and Batman have regarding criminals' right to life.

Having said that, aren't cops really vigilantes anyway?
Besides, Batman saw his parents being murdered by a criminal. He has no sympathy for them.

As to Superman being a fascist, take a look

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[Ibrahim]

Batman is a vigilante of sorts, but he cooperates with the police and he doesn't kill people. Contrast with the Punisher, who just shoots people in the head as he sees fit while ducking the law. I think DoU was talking about the potential evolution from one to the other. Miller, I think, sees Batman further towards the extreme vigilante that earlier writers of the character (not that I've read them).


The use of "fascist" here refers more to philosophical positions of the use of force and the "superior" man imposing his will on others with force, not in the political context of jackboots and parades. This is actually a theme that I think plays out in pop culture of all kinds. Comic books here, but video games and movies quite often. Or for example Lord of the Rings, which was popular to dissect a few years ago when them movies were coming out.

[Tinker]

Batman is and has always been a terrorist. The entire reason he dresses as a bat is to scare the shit out of people.

[Mr. Perfect]

I was a Frank Miller fan from the Daredevil days... ah, so long ago. So very, very long ago.

Hating FM is so Sin City 1990s. That ship sailed a long time ago. Frank started sucking right at Sin City (admittedly Marv has grown on me, although I really credit the guy who played him, in the movie. The rest of the movie sucked, however). Martha Washington was unreadable. I'm not sure what his politics has to do with it. The original fan base started leaving at Sin City. It was really a departure at that point.

There are a lot of parallels between FM and U2. Really quite amazing stuff in the beginning, but at some point they realized they were not "cool", and just had to become cool and well... things changed. Some fresh stuff came from that, but never the same. Where is fontinau when you need him. Miss that guy.

Dark Knight Returns is some of the best fiction produced by anyone post WWII. I can pull it down occasionally and still get chills, but these things tend to come and go. Ships in the night.

It is hard to deconstruct this stuff now. It either works or it doesn't, hard to break it down past that. Deconstructing Batman, dear lord nothing new has come from that in decades.

Comic books are over, sorry, so are most other entertainment products. Culture has gone past them. Hard to pinpoint when the last meaningful entertainment product was made. Perhaps Nirvana, which ironically destroyed the possibility of meaning in any entertainment product that followed. Everything is a fake and a giggle afterward, don't look at it too seriously.

[Tinker]

Entertainment properties at the end of the day are 'stories'. I don't think that stories will ever stop being relevant to the human experience. Because people are always born who don't know all the stories yet, so old stories are new and fresh each generation.

[Demon of Undoing]

Humanity lives through its stories. They will never go away. It's what sets our norms, what inspires us, what we fear, all of it. There will just be new campfires around which to tell them.

[Ibrahim]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Atmosphere]

There are still good stories if you know where to find them. The problem is that the good stuff isn't mass enough. If you have a large cohort of storytellers who don't understand life, they're not going to be able to construct a believable fantasy.

Maybe the A and B students go into business, while the C and D students go into culture, education, and politics.

As for Frank Miller, I get what he’s doing with his latest works - trying to bring back more testosterone and hardness into the collective consciousness - but he’s gone off so far into his own style it’s a bit hard to follow. I did appreciate watching him put Occupiers into a frenzy the other week, however.

[Mr. Perfect]

Among the problems FM has is that he now tries so hard to be aesthetically hip that it seems to kill everything else going on, and his storytelling is actually really minimalistic and tries to too hard to be catchphrasey and edgy in a way that just doesn't work too good.

The old stories he was good at don't work anymore because the old bad guys who could really hurt us are all gone, the bad guys that we have left only have the option of hopefully having us defeat ourselves. They are somewhat successful at it.

[Tinker]

[Tinker]

[Mr. Perfect]

Depends on how you define quality. Production values? Perhaps, but content, vacuous.

[Tinker]

[Hans Bulvai]

[Mr. Perfect]

Good point HB. CGI has been mostly a yawn with some exceptions. The old techniques were much more exciting.

Take Transformers. My kids netflixed the old cartoons recently and they were wildly entertaining in comparison to the movies, the last two in particular.

Something has changed.

I will say, Michael Bay is a visual presenter without compare. I would watch those movies and think "nobody in the world can make a two story robot look that real. Nobody." However he sucks as a story teller and his aesthetic vision made less of an impact than the lowly cartoons. When one thinks of a Transformer character you still think of the cartoon.

[Tinker]

You think Michael Bay, I think Boardwalk Empire.

[Ibrahim]