Tagged: Batman

Dennis O’Neil: Rolling Batman

Batman Roller CoasterHold tight – white-knuckles tight, and… up up up upupupupup and… wheeeeeeeeeee! Down we go, and. Slowing, slowing, stopping. Step out now. A bit wobbly, maybe? Excited? Exhilarated? Hey, let’s go get some cotton candy and maybe later we’ll ride the roller coaster again, after we’ve recovered a little. Say, what was the name of that roller coaster, anyway? Well, I’ll be gosh-derned… It’s the Batman roller coaster!

Ah, summertime. And part of the joy of the warm season is a trip or two to the amusement park, and part of the amusement park adventure is riding the roller coaster. When I was a nipper, those coasters were beyond the admission gates of the Forest Park Highlands (though I never thought they were any higher than the city that surrounded them) or Chain of Rocks (which, oddly, was higher than the geography in which it was fixed, but I never saw any rows of rocks thereabouts. Life can be puzzling, especially if you’re a nipper.) I probably rode the coasters in those parks, unless my parents thought I was too young for them, which might have been the case. But Batman? No, never. Roller coasters were in parks and Batman was in comic books and – mark this in your diary – the twain did not meet.

Now, some 65 or so years later, when the world has changed, the conflation of Batman and coaster still seems a trifle peculiar. Coasters are about summer fun, juvenile hi-jinks, laughter and merriment. And Batman? A child watching his mother and father shot, fall to the cold pavement, die. A horror.

What twisted karma could pair childhood delight and childhood terror? You say you’re a Batman fan? Which Batman do you like, the one who lands his name to amusements or the stricken orphan?

While we’re in an inquisitive mood… Are you a Yankees fan? What exactly are you a fan of? The lineup this year isn’t what it was last year nor what it will be next year, and pretty much the same goes for the coaches and business guys and ticket takers.

You’re a Buddhist who believes in reincarnation? Okay, Buddhism holds that nothing is permanent, so what gets reincarnated?

You could ask similar questions about any professional sports team, and a number of superheroes, and maybe another religion or two. And if you did, you might consider finding a nice hobby, or getting out of the house. You might need a little… I don’t really know what you need, any more than I know the answers to the questions I asked a couple-three paragraphs ago. Maybe a little recreation – is that what you need? Hey, know what? I’ll bet there’s an amusement park in your area somewhere.

VFK: Greg Pak On Telling THE TRUTH

Things in the DC Universe are upside down with the world knowing who Clark Kent really is, Lois Lane behind that big reveal and even a new player in the Batman costume. “Truth” is a multi-title story overseen by Greg Pak who talks to VOICES OF KRYPTON on just how far these changes will go,

Voices From Krypton: Kevin Conroy On NOT Being BATMAN

  • News
  • August 6, 2015

Kevin Conroy may not being wearing a cape today but he is still crusading, this time as The Stinger on the Netflix original series, TURBO FAST. In this exclusive talk, Kevin explains to VOICES FROM KRYPTON how he was finally to do things here that he never could as Batman.

John Ostrander: Savaging Barbara Gordon

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Warners has announced that they are making an animated feature of Batman: The Killing Joke, the 1988 one-shot by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Central to the storyline is The Joker shooting Barbara Gordon at point blank range with a large caliber handgun, then savaging her (she is later seen with welts and bruises all over her face), ripping off her clothes, possibly raping her, and photographing her. Some consider it a classic. Others are asking how they can make an animated feature that’s true to the story and more are asking why they are doing it.

The “why,” I think, is pretty obvious – the book made money, evidently continues to do well on the backlist, and the powers that be are presuming it will sell well as an animated feature. They are probably not wrong.

I’ve read many comments on the idea online including female members of the comics community and all the comments I’ve read are disgusted with the idea of the comic as well as the announced animated feature.

At the time that Batman: The Killing Joke was released, I was co-writing Suicide Squad with my late wife, Kimberly Yale. Don’t get me wrong; I was and I remain a big fan of both Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Individually and together they have done stunning work. Moore is one of the giants of the comic book industry. He is, IMO, a better writer than I am and I don’t say that about many other writers (I have a very healthy ego and opinion of my own work, thank you very much). That doesn’t mean he can’t go wrong and I think that Batman: The Killing Joke went wrong.

In the controversial scene, there is the ring of a doorbell at the apartment of Commissioner Gordon. Barbara, all smiles and virtually going “tee hee,” goes to answer it. I should mention there is no chain on the door, no peephole to check who is in the corridor. There is evidently no policeman on guard duty in the hall. This is Gotham City, home of costumed psychopaths, and needs a vigilante dressed up as a bat to control the criminal population. James Gordon is the Commissioner of the Police and there are no safety measures where he lives?

Barbara opens the door. Barbara has been Batgirl and faced some of the costumed psychos inhabiting Gotham. She’s a grown woman who, in her own continuity, had been a congresswoman for at least one term. And yet she just flings the door wide open like a silly ninny.

There stands The Joker and he has a large caliber handgun. He shoots Barbara somewhere below the middle. From the angle, Kim and I thought it was the spine although others think he actually shot her in the uterus. He then rips off her clothes, beats her, takes pictures of her (while her father, off panel, is held motionless by The Joker’s henchmen), and possibly rapes her. Kim and I felt that was strongly implied but, to be fair, it was not directly shown.

I know women who have been assaulted. I know women who have been raped. That’s heinous enough but can you imagine what it would be like to have been shot, to have your spine broken, and then to be sexually assaulted? The pain, the horror – I can’t dwell on it too long.

Kim and I discussed it. To have been shot at the close range, to have your spine shot out, should have killed Barbara. If not, Kim thought severe sepsis would have set in and Barbara would not have survived. However, in the story, she does. That’s a given.

I should point out that the cover has a close-up of the Joker aiming a camera at the reader and saying, “Smile.” In that context, the only possible interpretation I can conceive is that the reader, the viewer, is Barbara as she lay on the floor, after she had been shot, presumably after she had been violated.

How does that feel?

The Bat office was done with Batgirl at that point. Barbara no longer fit into their plans. Kim and I asked if we could have her and we were told that. So we re-created her as Oracle. To us, it was important that the act have consequence. We didn’t want Barbara to magically recover. Given the violence she had endured, we felt she would be paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair. However, we felt she could still be a hero.

It was a given in Barbara’s continuity that she was also a computer wiz. I mean first class. So we gave her banks of computers and made her the info wizard of the DC Universe. It started in Suicide Squad with her advising Amanda Waller, although we didn’t reveal Oracle’s true identity at the beginning. We left clues and, eventually, we showed it was Barbara.

Kim and I felt that, if we did the job well, Oracle could become an important part of the DCU. It solved writing problems for other writers; how did their protagonist learn a necessary plot point? They went to Oracle. She went on to become a valued member of the Justice League and led the Birds of Prey in their own book.

The last story that Kim and I worked on together before she died was Oracle Year One, drawn by the wonderful Brian Stelfreeze. We showed that year as Barbara made the transition from broken hero to dynamic Oracle. She became a strong and much loved icon for the disabled community. In making her a hero again, Oracle allowed others to heal with her. The reader healed with her.

Eventually, DC returned Babs to Batgirl status. Her spine was healed. Gail Simone was offered the job and she took it; she knew they were going to restore Barbara whether she wrote the series or not. She could, and did, make the events of the Killing Joke and Oracle a part of Barbara’s backstory; it wasn’t just forgotten.

It has been suggested that someone else could become Oracle but, to my mind, that wouldn’t work. You can’t just put anyone else into that role. It was the fact that she had been Batgirl, that she was Jim Gordon’s daughter, that she had her own long history, that she suffered the events of The Killing Joke – however heinous – all contributed to who she was. I don’t think anyone else but Barbara could be Oracle for the character to have any meaning.

I don’t know how all that gets fitted into an animated feature. I’m also not sure what parental response will be. It’s Batman, it’s Joker, it’s a cartoon. Great for the kiddies, right? Except this sure won’t be Frozen. If they change what happens to Barbara, I’m not sure it will be The Killing Joke either. If it’s not, why bother?

Oh, right. It’ll make money.

 

 

The Point Radio: Michael And Sara Make IMPASTOR Magic

After his long run on SMALLVILLE, Michael Rosenbaum is back on series television with the new TV Land project, IMPASTOR. He, and adorable co-star Sara Rue, talk about the show and show off the amazing chemistry that makes it work. Plus we begin our look at JUSTICE LEAGUE GODS AND MONSTERS, DC’s daringly different new DVD.

More in a few days with more on JUSTICE LEAGUE GODS AND MONSTERS. Be sure and follow us on Twitter now here.

Dennis O’Neil: Caitlyn And The Real Us

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You! Yeah, you over there… you as sick of seeing pictures of Caitlyn Jenner as I am? I mean, they’re all over the place and the media are riding the story – paltry little story – like a merry-go-round unicorn.

What? You’re not sick of Jenner pix? Well, go dump your bumple – while I try to elide the above into something at least remotely appropriate for this column, which is supposed to be about comic books or pop culture or something. Here we go. I’ll assume for an as-yet undetermined amount of bandwidth that you have for the past month been on your bi-annual Zen retreat up there in those mountains, far from screens and speakers and media in general (which might explain why you’re not sick of Jenneriana) and so you don’t know that one-time Olympic medal winner Bruce Jenner has become an almost-transexual, posed for a magazine looking hotter than any 65-year-old, of any gender, ought to look, and in the process did a name-change: Bruce, look in the mirror and meet Caitlyn. Caitlyn apparently hasn’t had surgery – hence my labeling her “almost” – but in all other ways the transformation is a fact.

I commend her. Hers could not have been an easy decision to make. Let’s believe what she says – I have no reason to doubt her sincerity – and assume that all these years, from her winning Olympic glory in 1976 through semi-stardom in the Kardashian reality TV ventures after Bruce married Kardashian matriarch Kris, right up to her present notoriety glut, Jenner was hiding her real identity behind an assumed identity. “Bruce” was a mask; Caitlyn was the real person.

Claiming one’s truth is a noble act. But I can’t help wondering why it was done so publicly. The Vanity Fair cover, the television interviews, all the spangly show-biz… it’s almost as though she’s plastering a new mask over the old Bruce one. (Norma Jeane Mortenson, meet Marilyn Monroe.) And basking in the fleeting warmth of the spotlight? Again?

Some of this may seem familiar to comics fans. Ever heard, or even participated in, a debate over which is the real person Bruce Wayne or Batman? Clark Kent or Superman? Part of the appeal of the double identity trope, which isn’t limited to superheroes, is that it acknowledges and delineates basic human reality: we all present different faces to the world depending on the occasion. The you who has pizza with pals is different from the you who has dinner with grannie – and many of us, I suspect, feel that the individual society sees is not the real us. (And it probably isn’t.)

Part of me chooses to believe that Caitlyn is moving toward something valid that’s not just her ego finding another way to demand attention. (Is Batman an exhibitionist, despite his penchant for shadows?)

Now, your turn. Go and get a mask and put it on. Then find somebody who might want to look at it.

 

Ed Catto: The Batman Nobody Knows… Yours

batezpip008-w370-3882730 One of the marketing trends today is for consumers to take a brand and make it their own. An example is the phenomenon of customizing phones. I’m sure that just about everyone you know has selected a cellphone case so that their phone has really become their phone. And a few years ago, I had a role in a Kia Soul marketing campaign. The big idea was that you, as a car owner, could customize the Soul in whatever way worked best for you. And there’s more of this brand customization in the future. Centennials, the group that comes after Millennials, are even more passionate about personalizing brands.

Geek Culture’s passionate fans already have their own personalized visions of popular entertainment brands and characters. They are a finicky bunch, especially when it comes to change. Long gone are the days when they blindly accepted reboots or revisions to a character without a critical eye or, at the very least, a thorough internet analysis. Just think about the extreme level of scrutinization for the recent Star Wars trailer. And didn’t the Internet just about break when Ben Affleck was announced as the latest cinematic Batman or when Wonder Woman’s movie outfit was revealed?

Now, I’ve enjoyed a few Batman stories over the years. But I admit that when I do, I am also guilty of personalizing this entertainment mega-brand. And my version of the character is “The Batman Nobody Knows”.

But first, a quick digression. The marketing folks behind today’s comic series typically use anniversary issues – the “significantly” sequentially numbered comics – as mini-celebrations. Today, the 50th or 100th issue of a comic may include an important event or special story and that screams “Buy Me Now!” But that wasn’t the case back in 1973 when DC published Batman #250. Although we consider the creators “giants” today (Dick Giordano, Frank Robbins, Irv Novick) the cover and the stories within seemed to be pretty standard fare. There was no “call to action” cover blurb urging fans not to miss this “250th Anniversary Smash Issue”.

But you know what? There should have been. The third story in this comic is outstanding. “The Batman Nobody Knows”, written by Frank Robbins and penciled and inked by Dick Giordano, is a clever tale about the different interpretations of Batman. A bunch of kids gather around a summer campfire as each explains his or her own notion of what Batman is really like. And as you can guess, each kid’s version is wildly different from that of the others.

olan-soule-9178916My Batman, my tweaking of this brand, is a little different from yours, I’ll bet. Even though I was introduced to the character via the Adam West Batman ’66 TV show, whenever I read Batman’s dialog I naturally hear the voice of Olan Soule in my head.

Who’s that, you ask? You probably know Adam West and Christian Bale. You probably know Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and everybody knows George Clooney. And for Batman’s voice, perhaps you imagine the vocal talents of Kevin Conroy, Peter Weller, Troy Baker, Roger Craig Smith or Diedrich Bader. I’m pretty sure none of you think of the three Batman voices from the golden age of radio: Matt Crowley, Stacy Harris or Gary Merrill.

Olan Soule was a character actor who appeared in thousands of roles in old radio shows. He was the lead in Mr. First Nighter, a kind of Broadway/showbiz weekly comedy-drama. He also appeared in many TV shows – everything from The Twilight Zone to The Love Boat to ..the Adam West Batman ’66 show. Soule was also on the Silver Screen, in movies as diverse as Hitchcock’s North by Northwest to Disney’s The Apple Dumpling Gang. Trust me – you’ve seen him so many times.

filmation-batman-8895015Soule’s turn at Batman was, in retrospect, unique. His Batman wasn’t the brooding vengeful avenger. It wasn’t even really the campy, silly superhero. In the Filmation The Batman/Superman Hour cartoon, and later in Hanna Barbara’s Super Friends series, he brought a quiet, focused heroism to the role. And then he infused it with confidence, urgency and a sense of purpose. His Batman was cool under pressure and always seems to know that with a little hard work, everything would be all right in the end.

Every now and again, I’ll hear Olan Soule in some show. He’s instantly recognizable. A few Saturdays ago I was watching an episode of The Monkees with one eye. But when I heard one character’s lines, I perked right up and knew it was Olan Soule. He had a meek, bespectacled look, but his voice was full of timbre and gravitas. And that’s how I like to personalize one of my favorite heroes. To me, Batman is not a vengeful, driven-over-the-edge clenched teeth kind of guy. He’s not a goofy, parody of a hero, either. He’s just a driven, focused guy trying to make a difference and taking what comes with a smile.   That’s not so bad, right?

But, enough about me. How do you personalize your brand of Batman? And it’s okay if it’s just via your cellphone case.

Dennis O’Neil: Happy Endings

For a while, my favorite way of paying the bills was by writing Batman stories for DC Comics. But that was over. I’d accepted a job with Marvel, DC’s arch rival, and so the story I was working on would be my final visit to the Batcave. Well, no  problem.  I was a pro and a pro, I probably thought,  keeps emotions away from the workdesk.

As the splendid Alfred Bester said, “Among professionals the job is boss.”  But still…farewell to Batman? Forever? So I wrote a final panel with a final caption that could have ended the Batman saga, which had been going on for decades.  I knew that it wouldn’t, of course.  Editor Julius Schwartz would  employ another writer and Batman would continue with nary a beat missed. But I would know that my Batman, the only one that counted, would have ended his career with that closing caption.

I wonder how Arthur Conan Doyle felt when he sent Sherlock Holmes over Reichenbach Falls to what he apparently believed would be the great detective’s final exit.

Holmes didn’t stay dead and after some seven years at Marvel, neither did my own private Batman. I returned to DC and, power-mad ogre that I am, assumed editorship of the Batman franchise, which at the time consisted of two comic books. No hardcover novels, no megamovies, just two flimsy comic books. (Plus a number of non-bat related titles, but never mind them.)

And why, you might well inquire, if you are still with me, am I blathering on about such ancient (ancientish) history now?

Cast your mind back to last week’s televised Arrow, which you must have watched, the season’s last episode  and what could have been the finale for the whole series. Arrow, whose birth name is Oliver Queen, has just vanquished his supreme enemy and restored peace and tranquility to his city. He has assembled his cadre of  assistants (disciples?) and proclaimed them his successors. His task is done and they are more than capable of dealing with future tasks. We next see him cruising along an open highway in an open-top convertible, the lovely Felicity Smoak by his side, vanishing into what will surely be the happiest of happy endings.

Except that the series has been renewed and will rise again come fall. So what will Oliver (and let’s not forget the lissome Felicity) be up to in the chilly months while their cohorts kick ass and take villainous names? To just have them leave the series forever would be gutsy, but maybe not commercially prudent. Or maybe they can be more or less absent for a bit – we could look in on them occasionally – and eventually find a reason to return to the fray.  Or maybe they’ll never reach their happy-ever-after destination because of an unforeseen crisis that demands their attention.  (Are they carrying cell phones?)

Or maybe – here’s hoping! – those clever scribes in tv land will devise something breathtakingly original  that will leave me sprawled on  the couch, awed.

I’ve got a whole summer to hope that’s what happens.

 

Dennis O’Neil: It’s All Done With Mirrors

So the new Avengers movie only brought in $191,000,000 and change, domestic. Well, we knew it was a loser, didn’t we? Its predecessor did way better – broke the $200,000,000 mark without working up a sweat. Then along comes this loser with its giant robot – a giant robot? Really? What a two-finger job!

Okay, I haven’t actually seen the movie but I’ve certainly been aware of it. All those tv ads, all that hype… I imagine that when I do, I won’t be disappointed. It will be what it is, a professional entertainment done by people who know how to make movies and know how to tell superhero stories.

That hasn’t always been the case: I’ll arbitrarily date the first serious superhero flick from 1978 when the kindly corporation that was, then, my main source of income delivered unto the nation’s screens Superman, a film that was slightly marred by an unevenness of tone but which, unlike most of its forerunners, asked that audiences take it seriously. It wasn’t the Citizen Kane of costumed melodrama, but it was a solid dose of escapist entertainment.

When the darkish Batman debuted decade later and repeated Superman’s success, the superheroic colonization of summer blockbusters began in earnest. Now, the guys in the costumes own the region.

Don’t they? If you wanted to play pessimist, you could interpret the latest Avenger flick’s lavish but slightly disappointing box office performance as a harbinger of an impending end. Have we superheroed out?

At least one commentator thought that might be so and I confess that when I look at Yahoo’s news column and see several superhero stories that really aren’t very important, even as importance is measured in the land of popular entertainment, I wonder if the journalists haven’t anything else to occupy their computers. (The middle east? Racial tensions? Global warming?) It’s the old going-backstage-at-the-magic-show quandary: do I really want to see how all the tricks are done? Won’t that interfere with my enjoyment of them? And if everyone knows the Secrets, won’t that hasten the end of magic shows? And what if magic shows are the only kind of amusement available?

Of course, I can go backstage and not look at how the tricks are done. But do you really think I have that much character? Really?

Ah, the questions we ask ourselves on a beautiful spring afternoon…

Maybe because asking questions about the middle east, et al.is discomfiting.

Let’s think about something else, shall we? I wonder if the forthcoming Superman vs Batman will be any good. And what on Earth can the guys at Marvel possibly hope to do with Ant Man? And will there be a sequel to Daredevil?

Boy oh boy, there sure is a lot too think about!

 

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