Re: Batman Earth One 2012 Cbr Download Comics
Mina Delahoussaye
To start Batman afresh, and provide a more accessible entry point for newcomers? That was the ostensible purpose of the New 52 soft reboot of the entire DC Comics line, its new first issues and streamlined continuity soon to be soft-rebooted even further with a month full of zero issues. Given how completely the New 52 scooped the Earth One graphic-novel line's mandate, I think one can be forgiven for suspecting that some of these publishing decisions were made in a hurry.
To provide superstar writer and executive Geoff Johns with an opportunity to write Batman his way? He's already got that in the New 52's flagship Justice League title. I can't imagine anyone gainsaying him if he wanted to straight-up retell Batman's origin within that shared-universe monthly-comic framework either, given that he's done exactly that for Superman, Green Lantern, and the Flash in the past.
To reach a wider, bookstore-oriented audience? That only works if you meet the audience halfway with a mainstream promotional push. Compared to the Superman-meets-Twilight high concept DC pitched to its pliant big-newspaper reporters for J. Michael Straczynski's Superman: Earth One, the PR blitz for the New 52 initiative which swamped Earth One, and the ongoing onslaught for Before Watchmen, this book came and went with barely a whisper.
To have Batman comics in a graphic novel format? There's no shortage of those already, and many of them are either actually very good or visually accomplished enough to pass for very good in a pinch. Indeed, Batman is one of the few comics characters whose books experience a significant sales bump from the success of his films precisely because of his strong book-format backlist, and how easy it is for film audiences to come across fine standalone volumes with a tonal resemblance to the movies.
To provide an "Ultimate Batman"-style return to the roots of what made the character work? Unlike the changes Marvel made to some of its core franchises in the early years of its Ultimate line -- aging Spider-Man and the X-Men back down to teenagers, making the Avengers the earth's mightiest heroes in no uncertain terms -- the changes Batman: Earth One makes to its characters mark no revival of their original appeal, nor do they offer interesting commentary in such a revival's stead. The supporting cast is particularly ill-served in this regard. Jim Gordon as milquetoast and corrupt instead of dogged and good-police; Alfred as a security consultant whose first day on the job saw his bosses the Waynes murdered instead of a butler who'd served them for years; Lucius Fox as a young peon instead of an older executive; Harvey Bullock as a thin, handsome Hollywood transplant instead of a fat and slovenly Gotham native; on and on it goes -- these are changes for change's sake, arbitrary and uncommunicative. Batman himself fares moderately better, insofar as making him a descendent of mad Amadaeus Arkham on his mother's side has a pleasantly mythic feel to it. But in other areas -- making him something of a bumbler the first few times we see him in action, dialing down the impact of his formative encounters with bats -- it suffers in direct comparison with the more dramatic presentation of these ideas in Year One and elsewhere. Johns has written many comics I've enjoyed in the past, particularly in the Green Lantern franchise, which he singlehandedly transformed into one of DC's biggest by identifying an appealing core element -- magical multicolored power rings -- and going yard on its potential; he had an effective run on Superman's Action Comics as well, based primarily on touring his rogues gallery and giving each bad guy a fun makeover. In that light I'm surprised to see him drop the ball in this area.
To be free to increase the violence level in Batman's early years? They certainly do that: The Penguin, never so called in this book, is reimagined as the thoroughly evil mayor of Gotham City who keeps its wealthy and powerful in line by periodically kidnapping their daughters and giving them to a hulking serial killer in his employ called the Birthday Boy, who like no serial killers I can think of is built like a WWE superstar and wears a bag mask and a party hat. The culmination of Gordon and Bullock's character arcs from patsy and egotist to clean-up-the-streets real cops respectively comes when they join forces to torture an informant with baseball bats. Bullock becomes an alcoholic after falling into a room filled with the corpses of little girls. Alfred shoots the Penguin to death with a shotgun. I don't feel that Batman's origin story benefits from these developments, to say the least. Indeed I think they present a message about the redemptive power of torture and extrajudicial killing with which I am increasingly uncomfortable in my heroic fiction.
To provide frequent Johns collaborator Gary Frank with a showcase? This one I'm willing to grant. I understand that his trademark high cheekbones, rictus grins, and bug eyes grate with some viewers (as will his fancasting of Tom Cruise in the title role), but I've long thought his characters look as keyed up and furious as you'd expect people in a superhero/supervillain universe to look all the time. There's a physical tension in their comportment that reads powerfully, even sensually in fight scenes. Frank is not a visual stylist, which ironically means the big splash pages and double-page spreads that dot the narrative are even more impactful -- these are not opportunities to show off some design flourish, they're just a chance to draw people getting their asses kicked on as large a scale as possible. But all of this would work just as well as a cool image gallery online somewhere. Wedded to this eminently superfluous comic, it's just not enough.
I agree with pretty much everything you said. The book has redeeming qualities, like the characters you mentioned that are done really well. The main problem with this book is Batman- which is not a good thing for a book with "Batman" in the title. Making batman more grounded is cool, but I had a hard time justifying making him incompetent to use a gadget or jump across a building. Johns is a good writer but he doesn't understand Batman (or Darkseid but that's another topic) and he really knows how to butcher them. Earth one batman is like those guys at the beginning of The Dark Knight pretending to be Batman and wearing hockey pads.
@redwingx: Batman struggling isn't the issue I have. If the protagonist isn't struggling throughout the story, we wouldn't believe he's in any real danger. My problem is that Bruce is extremely incompetent which is the polar opposite of the Bruce we know and love. I'm not asking him to be Grant Morrison's Bat-god that can take out the Hyperclan, I just want a capable protagonist.
@playswithsquirrels: Honestly, I recommend you do what I've been doing, and just avoid anything written by Johns involving Batman. He is really is awful at writing him, whether he does so on purpose or because he's just a bad Batman writer.
With that said, is his Gotham a realistic cesspool of American corruption we could see on the news in real life...Fuck no! The fact that Gotham was intended by Bob Kane and every big writer to be New York City for obvious reasons should have made his job easier. Instead we have the guy who spent two decades showing the good side of Detroit create a mega shithole of urban decay. With all the diversity of a kook run Fundamentalist Mormon stronghold. Either Johns has a problem with every other depiction of Gotham as too nice, or he needs something to make his house of cards hold up.
Which leads to his characterization of Bruce Wayne. A lot of ink has ben spilled on his character and motivations. People have earned their doctorates on the popular culture impact of this fictional character with comparable impact to Hamlet and Sherlock Holmes. This is not a return to the camp interpretations.
And as a person dealing with depression, realizing this halfway through the comic was a real downer. Pun fully intended. People who feel cornered turn to fantasy for an escape, and the tone of most DC titles outside of Batman titles has seemed increasingly hostile to hope for anyone not a straight white male. Unless you are a half naked woman, then just hook up with the most powerful person because muscles.
Alfred as a grizzled veteran is fine. But, he is still a one note veteran. Bruce's parents get killed, Alfred trains a mentally retarded child to be the soldier he cannot be. Because amputee. That is supposed to be realistic. It makes Alfred out to be either a grieving friend blinded by rage at the world at best, or a manipulator weaponizing the innocent to make a mark on something at obvious.
If you want realism though... pick up some old 1980s Batman comics from Dennis O'Neil. The same goes for good Green lantern stories. And if you want Aquaman to have character and leadership skills, read Peter David's run. Johns run on every big title looks more like he ripped off the Paul Dini formula and passed it off as his own.
Because Joker has the most editor mandated plot armor in all of comics. As long as the character is used, the entire concept of DC as a comic company people want to read seems like a bad joke. He undermines every single principle for internal coherence for a fictional world. No one can read The Killing Joke and DitF and not give up on ever feeling any empathy for any character in DC.
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