The great thing about the Burton films, Nolan films, and Arkham games is how, once the public associated Batman with dark and grittiness, a certain fondness for Adam West Batman came back.
I'm not sure how many of you were a part of the cesspit known as the DC fandom in the late 80s to late 90s, but everyone hated the West series because it was, aside from the Superman movie, what people most associated comics with.
Now that you have your Daredevil, your Punisher, etc, and people know that comics, or at least capeshit, can be dark, it's like we're allowed to like Adam West again.
And you should. It's the Silver Age in concentrated form.
I like how it's almost gone full circle. Comicbook movies/shows can be silly again. The MCU (forced humor aside) and The Flash both have a "comicbook" feel at times without having to apologize too much.
West was my first Batman together with Superfriends Batman.
Grayson Diaz
>inb4 nice blog
See, it's funny. Most posts on comic forums in the late 90s were excepted to be a few paragraphs long. Now, anything over four sentences long is >nice blog.
>I'm not sure how many of you were a part of the cesspit known as the DC fandom in the late 80s to late 90s,
Tell us some stories.
William Murphy
Batman has almost become like Sherlock, part of the public conscious.
Batman '66, the Nolan films, the animated series, The Dark Knight Returns, Superfriends. All valid interpretations of the same character.
Even Superman, it feels, has remained mostly the same throughout the years.
Wyatt James
My first Batman experience. Saw the reruns on cable as a kid.
Isaiah Davis
no you want this feel? go with your funny animal comics realistic human comics have always been serious and real, since the very beginning. That's what they were intended to be. The only time they went goofy was when censoring sorts forced them to, and they decided to go only for the lowest possible audience and be cheap throwaway pulp pablum superhero comics are about violence, period.
Luke Flores
>Now, anything over four sentences long is >nice blog. People today have short attention spans.
Jose Nelson
I think there's room for silly Adam West-style Batman and dark Burton/Nolan/Arkham-style Batman. It just has to be done well. If you fuck up the silly Batman, you get Batman & Robin. If you fuck up the dark Batman, you get BvS.
Noah Rogers
...
Nathan Watson
I'm curious how Batman's whole origin was in public consciousness before the 89 movie. Before that, the only attempt at showing the Waynes being killed in stuff outside comics was a later superfriends episode. So if you're 35+ years old and not a comic reader, you probably remember a time where you didn't know Batman's origin. Now its in every other movie.
Charles Miller
BvS was the the best "dark" Batman, the Nolan trilogy is boring with bad action.
Asher Moore
None of the top of my head specifically. But guns! Darkness! Poor anatomy! X-treme!
The stuff we make fun of now? People ate that shit up. Though, Batman actually wasn't as bad as most. I guess because he was already pretty dark? Once the Adam West show ended, Batman pretty much almost immediately went back to dark in the 70s.
Superman. That was a rough patch. One of the worst identity crises I've seen of any franchise.
Isaiah Sanders
Batman and Robin was missing that wink nudge.
Adam West Batman felt like everyone was having fun with the audience. Batman and Robin was insulting.
Hudson Torres
Batman's origin was inconsistent before COIE.
Mason Phillips
Seeing BvS gave me some bad flashbacks to Jean-Paul Valley's turn at the cowl. But at least AzBats was intended right from the start to be an in-universe bad idea, in order to show the fanboys why a murderous Punisher-style Batman wouldn't work.
And the failure of BvS is a crying shame, because Affleck did the best he could with the crap script he was given. He deserves to be in a good superhero movie.
Jaxson Sanchez
If you go by the who-shot-the waynes, maybe. even then, it only got more inconsistent after COIE, where they didn't know whether to make it so Joe Chill was confirmed as the killer, or if Bruce ever found the killer.
Moreover, my point is that the basics of it; "Batman's parents where killed so he became batman", was never really depicted outside comics for decades.
Dominic Russell
>Superman. That was a rough patch. One of the worst identity crises I've seen of any franchise.
How John Byrne's Superman reboot was seem back them?
I remember seeing Batman origins in the Superfriends cartoon, one of the most memorable episodes.
Jonathan Garcia
Any clips online?
Owen Cox
>worked within the law >everyone loved him >his gotham was safe >none of his villains had huge bodycounts >his batmobile was insured
growing up isn't realizing that the joker is right. it's realizing that adam west was the most, and possibly only, effective version of batman
Blake Hall
Batman is better when he shows up in his rocket car in broad daylight or drops out of the sky via grappling hook and everyone treats it like a totally normal occurrence.
Jaxson Murphy
You're missing my point. I'm asking if Batman's oiigin was as ubiquitous in pop culture as, say, Superman's was, before the Burton movie came out. Superman's origin was been retold in just about every cartoon/movie/radio show he was in, but if you look at Batman media from before the 80's, it's relegated to just the comics.
John Stewart
That only wouldn't work with a rookie Batman
Brandon Gutierrez
Look up The Return of the Caped Crusaders
Levi Foster
>worked within the law
This was my favorite aspect.
Charles Nelson
>but everyone hated the West series
Not at all, it was well liked, what people hated was how it affected batman's image
Nicholas Sanders
>I'm asking if Batman's origin was as ubiquitous in pop culture as, say, Superman's was And the answer is that it wasn't, in part because, unlike Superman's, it was inconsistent.
Jonathan Adams
Born late 80s. Wasn't reading comics that early of course but I consumed every flavor of Batman. Didn't really dislike anything on principle based on tone.
It seems to me the tone contrast only became a big deal, as in console wars deal, due to Begins following B&R. Then it was less of dark vs light but more of serious vs campy.
Daredevil got weird, dude, and I don't know if it's even dark or what
Jackson Kelly
People have always had short attention spans and a nagging sensation that the world they live in could not have been built by people with short attention spans, so they assume people had longer attention spans in the past.
In fact, the world you live in was mostly built by attrition.
Landon Stewart
Thanks!
Ryder Ramirez
My pleasure!
Jason Reed
>Affleck did the best he could with the crap script he was given.
the script that he re-wrote with Academy Award-winning screenwriter Chris Terrio, who he personally halted production for until Terrio was brought in by WB, claiming a fake leg injury so that they couldn't start filming
the script that Affleck was still re-writing himself, during filming, while in costume
that's the script we're talking about right
the one that Chris Terrio has an equal billing for
the one that Ben Affleck personally demanded be written
Camden Lee
>West is popular again
We truly live in the meme generation
Christian Johnson
I saw the 60s Batman movie when I was in the edgy kid phase and even then it was such a fun movie to me. It actually made me want to read stuff more like that and helped me get out of that stupid phase pretty quick. Adam West saved what was left of my dignity.
Is that what OP was getting at? Sounded more like he was saying broader definitions of Batman are becoming more accepted.
Alexander Evans
Some people loved it, some people despised it. The fact that Byrne reworked his powers into "Has a force field and extends it to the things he carries" was unpopular with some folks. As was the lack of Superboy (that was HATED. Superboy was insanely popular, and that they'd written him out really kind of fucked with the (very popular) Legion of Super-Heroes.
The constant struggle to get rid of his identity, too, was something that Byrne cut out. He felt that Lois trying to uncover who Superman was wasted time and was overdone. But some people ate that shit up. It was a core part of the Superman mythos. Only the radio show and the TV show had, so far, rejected that. Superman's adoptive parents, once dead before he moved to Metropolis, now lived and acted as a moral and emotional crutch.
Basically, Byrne had given people a weaker, younger guy with some of Superman's powers, some worked differently, and junked the rest of the mythos. No more Kryptonian cousin, dog, monkey, no other survivors, no more Legion, he wasn't friends with Batman... Hell, he could actually be hurt and bleed!
Traditional fans hated it, felt that he was Superman in name only. Some people found it refreshing, something that cut away the chaff from the now-convoluted Superman Family mythos.
For me, I can't help but wonder what would've happened with Marv Wolfman's suggestion: Wolfman wanted to have the Golden Age Superman watch Earth-1's Superman die, realize that his Lois was dead, then strip off the make-up he used to appear old, reveal that he was still young, and take the 'younger' Superman's place in New Earth, a man of the 1940s in the world of tomorrow.
Ryder Cook
>and take the 'younger' Superman's place in New Earth,
so basically what they have done now
Jack Hall
Yeah, pretty much. Except with a more dramatic difference, going from being a member of the JSA to a JLA member. And the whole "Being the editor-in-chief of the Daily Star" to the "Reporter for the Daily Planet" gig.
Jaxson King
Good story, old chum
Bentley Gray
That's also what I loved about it as well. A lot of the elements of this Batman work together in harmony, rather than have the problem of modern Batman where the lighter elements are constantly conflicting with the darker parts. Seriously, Joker's a straight up demon clown that cuts off his own face while Batman still has his no kill rule and Robin?
In retrospect, 66 is ironically the most realistic incarnation of Batman.
Brandon Bell
>mfw we can never have a fun mischievous Joker again >each Joker has to be more le edgier than the last I just want a crazy clown guy that does crazy shit. He doesn't need to cut his face off or send used condoms to people.
