Re: Batman #687????

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:05:14 -0800 (PST), "blackjet76@xxxxxxx"
<blackjet76@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 20, 4:00 pm, plausible prose man <Georgefha...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 20, 12:24 pm, "YKW (ad hoc)" <Decis...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:





Eminence <grey.emine...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote innews:95dtp4l6mun6eg2ba4ghgg096822qhkd3r@xxxxxxx:

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:14:18 -0800 (PST), "blackje...@xxxxxxx"
<blackje...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

No, the movies don't usually reflect the comics...but the comics
do usually reflect the movies...at least the popular ones...

Or Batman, in the late '60s', when the various Bat titles seemed to
be permanently possessed by Adam West and Burt Ward.  Or this very
day, if you look at the Joker -- it will be many a long year until
the Clown Prince of Crime quits looking like Heath Ledger.

By the start of the Adam West Batman series Carmine Infantino had
already given Batman and Robin the "new look." This happened in 1964.
The television didn't debut until 1966. It wasn't the tv show
influencing the comic. It was the comic influencing the tv show.

 The TV show certainly influenced the comic more than the comic
influenced the TV show. The yellow circle (there's a cute name for a
bat-family counter-black glove group, if anyone's paying attention)
aside, some changes that went from TV to comics were the resurrection
of Alfred at the producer's insistence, the change from "Mr. Zero" to
"Mr. Freeze," and of course, Barbara Gordon as Batgirl II.

But as "Batmania" swept the nation, Batman's own title became more
influenced by the campiness of the tv show, and his role in JLA became
more prominent.

Eminence _______________ Usenet: Global Village of the Damned

Read the bulk of the DC line in 1963-65, before the BATMAN TV series
began. Aside from the war books, nearly the entire line was engulfed in
silliness.

 Silliness, maybe, but hardly ever camp; there was nothing self
conscious or tongue in cheek about any of it.

Barry Allen's transformations, the Titans' "hip" plots,

 I have the idea Bob Haney or whoever really thought teenagers talked
like that.

Superman's increasingly implausible "imaginary stories", and so forth.

 Eh, you know, comics were mostly bought and read by fairly
undemanding kids who hadn't been brought up with a lot of winky,
noddy, ironic genre savy fiction like the Simpsons or those Nicktoon,
which is obviously not the case now. So they might've been whimsical,
but they were pretty straight facedly whimsical about it.

It
was actually =during= the TV series that DC began making an effort to get
away from the camp,

  DC was never really campy, and even as late as 1986 Mike Barr was
writing stories that wouldn't have been out of place in the Kane/
Sprang/Mouldoff era.

putting first Robbins and Novick then, famously,
O'Neil and Adams to work on again making the Dark Knight a dark knight.

The comics really only took on a darker tone after the TV show began
to wane in popularity, and again, the influence of the TV show would
not be completely gone until at least BTAS.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I just don't see how having Bruce Wayne be Batman in the comics will
help or hurt the box office for the next Batman movie or impact later
sales of the comic. New fans aren't going to be upset that its not the
same person under the cowl. People don't buy Batman comics or go to
the Batman movie because of Bruce Wayne, they go because of Batman!!
Personally, picking up Batman comics in the 80's for the first time
and discovering that Robin was not Dick Grayson like he was on the tv
show reruns but was in fact Tim Drake, and that there ahd been another
Robin named Jason Todd before him, made things so much more
interesting as I had to track down back issues and find out what had
happened. I thought having Dick grow up to be Nightwing was a really
cool idea too. So having some minor differences from the comic and the
movie can actually be beneficial. I know in our minds, comic fans and
fanboys, that its a HUGE deal that Bruce is no longer Batman. It would
be an even bigger deal if Dick Grayson stayed Batman forever. But that
just among our kind. To the average person out there its just a minor
detail. They don't have any emotional investment in the character, why
should they care whose behind the cowl? They may know who Bruce Wayne
is but that's the extent of it.

I think you underestimate the importance of the Bruce Wayne half of
the equation for Batman...the playboy billionaire is every bit as
important to Batman as the mild mannered reporter is to
Superman...they never stray too far from those for very long...and,
unlike other heroes, Bruce Wayne is well known outside of
comics...they don't just know WHO he is...they know WHAT he is...and I
guarantee, come time for the next Batman movie (featuring BRUCE WAYNE
every bit as much, if not more, than his alter ego), DC is going to
trot him back out if only to cover all their bases just in case there
is some kind of backlash...hell, he wasn't even dead a month before
they gave themselves an easy way to bring him back...add that to their
fixation these days with the big events and there is sure to be some
big storyline focusing on his return...and I'll bet the timing will
line up pretty well with the movie release...just as they started
promoting Batman RIP and Bruce Wayne's possible exit just in time for
batmania to reach its peak with the Dark Knight.

.

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