Too Much Batman.

[ladymirth]

Urgh. Now I remember why I never got into Superhero comics.  

1) It's like Days of Our Lives, only more bizarre and it never ends. 
2) The writers have something deep and fundamental against heroes remaining happy. 
3) All that Earth 2, Earth 1, Infinite Crisis of Earths shit. How does anyone keep them all straight? 
4) All the brightly colored spandex. Even Superman can't live that down. 
5) Moral ambiguity and the fact that every single psycho has some kind of sob story for why they turned out the way they did. I never thought I'd see the day when I would relish the idea of somebody who just liked being evil for the fun of it. 
6) Nobody can fucking stay married or dead. Again, like Days of Our Lives. 

Also, Batman is a lot more fucked up in the comics than even Chris Nolan could begin to comprehend. I'm not sure I like him very much. He's too aloof and intimidating and emotionally retarded. 

For me, the only good stories are the ones  that know when to end. 

I think I'll stick to Nolanverse from now on, thanks. Comics are all well and good, but they should be consumed occasionally and in small doses. 

I might feel differently in the morning, though. Right now, it's 1.30 am, I have a headache and I feel  rather traumatized after reading about the plot of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

*gets Zantanna to mind-wipe all memory of DC comic storylines from mind* 

Comments

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

As for Batman... they've done a lot with him. And different writers have different takes. There were a few years where every summer he would become paranoid and untrusting and push everyone away and become a big jerk. Learn his lesson at the end of the storyline... and then do it again next summer. It was really stupid. (And that's not the worst of what they did in the annual Gotham Crossover Event Of The Year.) They've learned, though, and they're doing better. And, again... the darkness is a result of the 80s (the "grim & gritty" period, which gave birth to The Punisher and Wolverine and such). If you dig back before that, you'll see a happier, saner Batman. Problem is that he's also more of a cartoon, a cardboard cutout. It's nice to see him with some depth and personality. And, like I said... they're learning. Making his personality better and more balanced. Just a question of who's writing...

And, I'll rec Astro City one more time. It's lovingly written, and stories have ends and people have depth and character and dead generally means dead and time moves normally (so, unless it's a flashback, an issue published in 2001 takes place in 2001 and everyone has aged 6 years since 1995). One of the original goals of the series was to spearhead the "reconstruction" of superheroes. Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns had started a "deconstruction," where everyone pointed out the silly and nonsensical nature of the Silver Age and all the things that didn't work. Took apart the heroes and put in all this darkness and nuance and shades of gray. With Astro City, Kurt (who isn't a fan of the deconstruction) said that it was time to put things back together. To build from what had been learned and to do things better. So, you might want to give that a shot.

As for Batman Beyond... it was a good show (even if it had a shade too much anime influence), but yeah, the movie got very disturbing. Don't judge the whole thing based on that.

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

My predicament right now is that I'm in the relatively new Nolanverse Batman fandom. Which more or less ignores every movie, cartoon or comic that went before. I don't suppose that a lot of the older fans are very happy with that. We must be as annoying as those Harry Potter fanfic writers who love the movies but have never read a single book.

Still, fandom is just a giant sandbox, and the great thing about comics is that canon is such a flexible thing. Batman gets revamped all the time.

I've mentioned I want to write a Batman story for NaNowriMo. I think what I shall do is, create my own verse within Nolanverse and write all my Batman stories within that continuity. That way, I won't have to keep referring to all the headache inducing comic storylines.

Does that sound vaguely heretical to you?

Will give Astro City a try, btw, but it will have to wait. My computer is experiencing some hard drive problems and needs to be formatted.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Not heretical at all. Not to me, anyway. Find what you like and go with it. That's kind of the point of entertainment no?

There are so many different versions just of Batman. I was introduced to him via Adam West, but that's not really Batman, IMO. I met the real Batman through Michael Keaton. Which a lot of fans were unhappy with. But that's their perogative. (And, looking back... machine guns? On the Batmobile? And the Batwing equipped with more guns? And rockets?)

So... no. Not annoying. I mean, there are ways to be annoying about it. To nitpick, to try to impose your tastes on others... I'm sure you've encountered plenty of stuff out there in the wider sea of fandom. But you're not doing any of that. You're finding the version that you like and going with it. Which, IMHO, is exactly what you should do. (Though it is nice to give the others at least a fair chance. But I think you're doing that, too, for the most part.)

Sorry to hear about your HDD. That sounds painful. Good luck getting it fixed.