Thursday, October 06, 2005

Free Comments Day V - "...Then I hit him with the Hypersonics"

It's been a while, but it's back. This is a strange “Free Comments Day” because the post is being written and put up before the comment (which will probably end up as a link to here!), but I had so many thoughts jump into my head upon reading “the object of my attention” that I’ve had to react immediately and at length. Yep – you’ve guessed, it was in reaction to something at The Absorbascon.

One of my favourite bloggers, Scipio, posted this.

In his response to one of the comments, he writes that he is “just trying to put (his) finger on why Batman is more popular than Superman, because the simplistic "superpowerless versus superpowered" doesn't explain it.”

So, someone wants to know why Batman is more popular than Superman, eh? As the hoi poloi are never wrong, surely this is indicative of the Bat’s superiority over the err… Super? Of course it is, and I’m going to tell the world why.

1. Batman has engrained himself into the popular psyche more then Superman: This is almost certainly thanks to the 1960s TV show. Since then the Batman movies, Animated, Batman Begins, even Dark Knight Returns have all helped to cement his position as the number one pop-culture icon in the world (a slightly biased statement!). In competition, Superman has had the films, Lois and Clark and his own Animated (which very few British norms I know have even heard of, let alone seen). The less said about the absolute, meritless turd that is S****ville, the better!

2. Won't somebody please think of the children: I can’t speak about America, where everyone is cool like in that documentary about life over there I saw called The O.C., but in Britain it tends to be pathetic nerds who read comics. Luckily, all tends to work out for the best, and the geek shall inherit the earth.

OK, offence to all aside, comics and science-fiction attract a readership from children who are on the whole brighter than others. When I was a kid my heroes were Odysseus, Doctor Who, Batman and MacGuyver. (I can just hear Homer shout “NEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRD!” from across the pond). What links these guys? – they all use their brains to solve problems. Batman has trained his mind to be able to do anything. And no piece of information was a waste, because he never knew when it would come in useful. When I was a lad, Batman wasn’t a paranoid whack-job, alienating friends and letting his spy satellites be taken over by other paranoid whack-jobs. He solved crimes in 22 pages. He was the World’s Greatest Detective, and he made me sit up and go “wow” whenever he reasoned something brilliant.

The counter-argument to this would be that he’s no slouch in the athletic department himself. But Batman’s athleticism is something self-taught and thus identifiable. He practises martial arts, a disciplined and scientific dispensation of violence, rather than Superman, who smacks people really hard.

3. Batman’s origin is the best in comics: On the way back from a movie Bruce’s parents are shot dead during a mugging and he decides to do something about it. Brilliant, simple and accessible. These are things you hear about on the news every day. It builds an illusion in the young mind that it really could have happened. The above two points are the crux of “superpowerless versus superpowered”.

4. Villains Galore: The campness of the 60’s popularised not only the Bat but his Rogue’s Gallery. If the same thing had happened to the Flash, we’d all be talking about Captain Boomerang, the Weather Wizard and the Top. Any comic fan worth his salt knows that Superman has a pretty lame Rogues Gallery. The only reason norms know Lex Luthor is because he’s the only villain consistently featured in all TV/Film interpretations of the Superman legend.

5. Matures with age: As you grow older, you realise the world is not as Black and White (or Superman and Bad Guys) as you thought when younger, and your appreciation of the grey world of Batman – one of the few mythic archetypes to have co-opted the tools of evil for the side of good – grows.

Grant Morrison once said that "Superman should be a huge, positive role model, an almost Christ-like force." I agree. If he only appeared in JLA, like the Martian Manhunter, that would be ideal. However, this treatment does not provide enough stories to sell three individual titles a month.

Not only is Batman cooler as a kid, Batman continues to be relevant as you grow older.

6. Batman is an ass-hole: It would upset the Dark Knight Detective himself if I didn’t look at the evidence and Occam-shave my way to a sensible conclusion, but currently the Caped Crusader is a tosser. When Batman’s fall began in War Games I was upset at first. But I soon realised that even the very best make mistakes. And that’s realistic. Batman’s mistakes can occur because his body may fail him, or his mind may not be quick enough, or his emotions (pride) can cloud his judgement. Superman’s body won’t fail him – he could only be killed by things that are unbelievably powerful (see next point). Superman’s mind shouldn’t fail him. He’s rarely in situations where strategy form the biggest part of his arsenal, and even when he is they are never so fiendishly complex as to be inescapable. If Superman displays any emotional weaknesses, he just appears to be a whiny brat, who’s got everything but still finds a way to complain.

7. Faster than a Speeding Bullet?:
Not anymore. Nowadays, Superman is “Faster than a launching rocket, more powerful than an atomic bomb, able to leap between worlds in a single bound” (Superman- the 10c Adventure). The more powerful he gets, the more difficult it becomes to write stories about him where the stakes are high-enough that you care. This “unquantifiable-ness” of Superman’s power (a definite Marvel trait that) makes one lose touch with him. On the other hand, one bullet or broken back (!) and the Bat’s gone (not withstanding Shondra Kinsolving’s magic touch).

8. Must be the reason why he's King of the Castle: Bats has acted as an inspiration to others who have sought to join the fight with him (Babs/Batgirl, Tim/Robin, Steph/Spoiler/Robin). Cass/Batgirl wants to succeed him and Nightwing was pissed off when he didn’t get that chance during Knightquest. Even Old Skool Jim Gordon saw the adventurer he never was in the Bat (how Silver Age!). By definition, few/none could be Superman.

While Batman’s combined abilities are beyond belief, he is an asymptote that one can aspire to. Superman is an incomprehensible infinity, so archetypal and paragon as to end up collapsing under his own weight.

Q.E.D.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think you defend Batman well, and for the most part at least, I'd like to be able to agree with you. However, having read "comics" (Bandes Dessinées / BD) only in French, and only seen Superman on the telly, I'd find it hard to comment on the veracity of your argument, and many of the references are lost on me.

However, you wanted a response ... so here's my tuppence-worth on fictional characters: for any fictional character to be truly convincing, he or she needs to develop and not just "forget" the incidents of earlier stories to "start again from scratch" with each new plot. An example of this might be permanent scarring, meant both literally and metaphorically. So, whilst killing Bats off with "one bullet or broken back" might not be such a great plan, for me to identify with him, he would need to "not ever quite recover" - either psychologically or physically - from some of his mistakes.

Now, I am not claiming that Batman doesn't fit this criterion, because quite frankly, I don't know. However, I have noticed that in the graphic fiction I have read, the characters often seem rather hollow. The worst is when their speech bubbles serve only to recount the scenario. Maybe my inability to see the potential complexity of the characters is due to my lack of skill as a reader, especially since I have a tendency to read the words and ignore the pictures (d'oh!) and hence miss the subtleties of expression, etc. However, so far, only JC - and only then in the albums that aren't about sex - has enough depth for me to really care, to feel any sense of affection for the awkward and often embarrassing twat that he is!

Rebecca

9:16 am  
Blogger rhein said...

"batman is an asshole." take that back, who ever said it!

2:32 pm  

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