Jolt Country

Carry a sidearm?

I seen the part when Baal or Bane or whoever he is totally take out Batman in the last movie. I said to myself: There's a gazillion firearms out there that could have made short work of the big guy with the Darth Vader voice changer. Why is Batman not using the tech? He has missiles and rockets and crap on his funky Harley, what's the difference if he packs heat?

Anyway, would have saved him a beat-down.


THE
BAT ROD
AARDVARK

He can't get a permit.

Because guns are boring. And of course...

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Well, Batman's parents were killed by guns, so he doesn't like them very much. And what RealNC said.

Back in the very early days of the comic, Bob Kane was on the fence about his new character, Batman, carrying a gun. But because there were other (The Shadow) characters that also used guns he decided against it. Not a bad idea for the time.

I guess Batman can be as hypocritical as he wants to be when it comes to firearms. I'm surprised that he hasn't gotten shot at more though, bulletproof body suit or not.


THE
POCKMARKED
AARDVARK

This is a hilarious question for me because I just watched this week's episode of Beware the Batman and there was a scene where two goons were spraypainting on a freeway. And Batman's answer to the problem was to send the Batmobile remotely to fire about 10 missiles at them. I was like WTF??????????

I don't know how deep you want me to go, LOL, but I'm going deep...

Like was said, his parents were killed by a gun, so he has a hatred for them. The whole point of becoming Batman was to try to stop what happened to his parents from ever happening to anybody else. Shooting people would be repeating it.

That's not to say he never tried it. There have been several stories about Batman picking up a gun. Most famously in Year Two it was revealed that Joe Chill had dropped his gun after killing the Waynes and Bruce picked it up and hid it. He ended up deciding fighting crime without guns was impossible and started using that gun until something happened that showed him he was right not to use it.

But Batman's one rule is that he never kills anybody no matter what. So if he had a gun but refused to kill anybody, it'd be ridiculous because he'd have to be some kind of Annie Oakley trickshot just shooting criminal's belt buckle and making their pants fall down or some stupid shit.

Yeah, people like to say Batman started off using guns in the early days until Bob Kane changed it. But it's greatly exaggerated. First rule of Batman: never believe anything credited to Bob Kane. Bob Kane was a fucking lying kook who changed his stories on a near daily basis. Batman didn't "use guns" when he started. He only used guns twice, one was to fire a silver bullet at a vampire. And the second time he fired in the sky to scare off some muggers. A new editor was hired and, because comics were under such scrutiny at the time for destroying society, he ordered that Batman not use a gun ever again because "heroes don't use guns" but mostly to "keep the feds off my back!!!" Batman's origin was then written after this editorial mandate, mostly by an un-credited Bill Finger, to show why he hates guns.

But in the movies and stuff, I don't get it either. In Batman '89 they had the Batmobile pull up to Ace Chemicals, two machine guns popped out and he unloaded them into the door. Even as a kid I was flabbergasted. It was complete stupidity to believe that the guy who refuses to kill and refuses to use guns would even install guns on the Batmobile much less fire them indiscriminately into a warehouse full of workers. Then at the end he flies the Batwing down the street firing rockets and guns all over the place. It was beyond stupid.

The new movies do some stuff too, but nothing as blatant as the 89 movie. In 30+ years of reading Batman I could count the number of times his vehicles had guns or missiles on them on one hand. The most famous being The Dark Knight Returns' Bat Tank. But they made it clear through dialogue that even then it only fired rubber bullets.

As spot on as the Dark Knight movie trilogy was, there were a few things that irked me. Having guns on the vehicles was one. I just don't buy that Batman would allow his vehicles to have those type of weapons. A - Because he refuses to use them, why have them? B - Because the vehicle could be stolen and he wouldn't want to have the thief running around with a billion dollar killing machine.

I think the only benefit of the doubt for the new movies is that all the vehicles he used were originally designed for military use. In the comics he builds everything himself or has somebody build it for him. The equipment in the movie was all just stuff he found and painted black. So he wasn't specifically responsible for putting that stuff on there. But that's grasping at straws.

As far as the Bane scene specifically. The whole undertone of the first half of that movie is that Bruce basically wants to die. He's a miserable, broken down old man who is desperate to be able to become Batman again and if he dies in the costume, all the better because he's seen how terrible his life is when he can't be Batman. So going into the Bane fight, he wouldn't take a gun because I don't think he gave a crap about winning. He was perfectly happy to go in there and die. It wasn't until after the fight that he found something new to fight and live for. And in the end Bane DID get shot so all's well that end's well. TA DA.

Then I think batman is a brick for not using guns. Or at least a taser-like weapon. Seriously at a disadvantage with today's modern firepower.

He has all kind of taser like contraptions.

He had an EMP gun in the last movie but a cop shot it and destroyed it before he got into any of the big fights.

No more Batman questions? Dammit. I finally had a topic I could contribute to!

lethargic wrote:No more Batman questions? Dammit. I finally had a topic I could contribute to!

Superman is more pimp anyway:

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How are Batman comics these days?

I have some questions.

1) Are they still doing "Detective Comics"? Is that still the one without Robin for the most part? Just Batman solving crimes?

2) What is Batman Incorporated? I am inclined to like that one, since they put my custom Polybius arcade game in it.

3) How was Batman affected by the recent "Reboot"?

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:How are Batman comics these days?

Very mediocre and a huge jumbled mess.

DC decided to reboot all their comic books to issue #1 a couple of years ago. But they didn't have the balls to actually do a reboot so they basically just fiddled with things. Everybody got de-aged, origins and costumes were changed with no rhyme or reason, it was all changed for the sole reason to change. Most of the changes were for the worst. I can think of maybe 2 or 3 characters who were changed for the better. Most are the same or worse.

Like the Tim Drake Robin was this genius kid who figured out Bruce Wayne was Batman and that was how he got the gig. In the new universe he is a kid who ran a blog about superheroes and then decided to become one. Now he's called Red Robin and he has a costume with bird feathers under his arm. Tim Drake was the best Robin and was beloved, now everybody loathes him.

Oh, and they changed Catwoman's origin to the origin from Batman Returns where she died and then cats licked her and she came back as a cat zombie lady. Everybody hated that in the movie so why not add it to the comic 20 years later??

In the new rebooted universe superheroes have only been around for five years. But they pretty much kept the entirety of Batman's continuity. So now we're supposed to believe that EVERYTHING in Batman's history, all those major events, all the big stories, they all happened in a span of five years. He's even had all 4 Robins in only a 5 year span. DC's big explanation for that was to tell readers to think of Robin as an internship. It's just really stupid. 2 of the Robins died, that's a really shitty internship.

It really is a shambles. Writers don't seem to know what is still supposed to be in continuity and what has been changed. They are totally making it up as they go along. I hate Marvel, but if Marvel did this they would've figured out every single detail and had a bible to let everybody know exactly what is going on. With DC it seems the editorial staff just decided to do this out of the blue and the writers were left scrambling to figure it out by the seat of their pants.

But they keep trying to do these big epic stories lately and they never work out. Before the reboot they did Batman RIP which was supposed to be the death of Bruce Wayne. Instead the last issue ended with Batman falling into a lake. He actually died a couple of weeks later in a line wide event called Final Crisis.

After the reboot they had "Death of the Family" which was named after "Death in the Family", the story where Robin died in the 80s. That was one of the biggest stories in Batman history so hooking this story to that one told everybody this was going to be huge and somebody big was going to die. In the end Joker fell into a lake, nobody died. Then the current Robin died a couple of weeks later in Batman Inc.

Quite the pattern these assholes weave.

Currently they're doing Batman: Zero Year which is a re-telling of his origin story. And because we really need that again, it's going to be 12 issues long. An entire year!!!!! Plus pointless cross overs with other Bat titles.

1) Are they still doing "Detective Comics"? Is that still the one without Robin for the most part? Just Batman solving crimes?

Yes. But instead of heading toward an amazing #1000 issue, it's now heading toward issue #25! Uggh.

The last couple of years before the reboot Detective was the Batwoman book. Post reboot it's just a generic Batman book with no real direction or anything that separates it from "Batman" except it has a different writer.

BTW, here are all the Bat titles DC currently puts out. See if this is enough...

Batman
Detective Comics
Batman and... (This was Batman and Robin but since Robin is dead he has a different partner every issue.)
Catwoman
Nightwing
Batwoman
Batman Inc.
Batwing (The black Batman)
Justice League
Batman: Arkham Unhinged (Was supposed to be the prequel comic to the Arkham City game, for some reason it never ended.)
Injustice: Gods Among Us (Another video game tie in)
Earth 2 (An alternative universe book that features Earth 2 Batman)
Legends of the Dark Knight
Batman: Black and White
Smallville - Season 11 (A continuation of the TV show where Batman now appears regularly.)
Red Hood and the Outlaws (Red Hood was the 2nd Robin)
Talon
Birds of Prey
Batman: The Dark Knight
Batgirl
Teen Titans (The Red Robin book)
Superman/Batman

I think that's all of them. And if you think that's a lot, next month they're doing villain month. Every book DC puts out will come out FOUR times next month. For instance, they're going to have Batman 24.1, Batman 24.2, Batman 24.3 and Batman 24.4 and each book will focus on a different villain. It's insanely expensive to read comics these days, that they think anybody can afford 4 times the normal comics in one month is asinine.

2) What is Batman Incorporated? I am inclined to like that one, since they put my custom Polybius arcade game in it.

Batman Inc is the creation of Grant Morrison who ruined Batman to the point that it made me give up comics. He's kinda like the David Lynch of comics. People either love him or hate him. The too cool for the room guys think he's great, the rest of us just think he's weird.

But a bigger problem is that he just isn't that good of a writer. David Lynch is actually talented. His books are barely follow-able because it's like he tries to write 3 books of content in every 1 book and things that are important to the plot get left out so nobody knows what the hell is happening. He also completely ignores continuity. He doesn't work with the other writers, he just does whatever he wants and if that completely contradicts something that is going on in the other titles, fuck em!

His big overall plan for Batman was to take his entire history from the 40s until now and act like it all happened to this one guy. So all those ridiculous stories in the 50s where he was zipping around in space or running around on giant telephones, he brought it all back into continuity. It's just ridiculous. This also serves to make everything he writes entirely un-friendly to new readers. I had no idea what a lot of the stuff he referenced was and I've read Batman my whole life. New readers would be completely lost. Why DC allowed him to do this while Batman interest was sky high due to the Nolan movies, I'll never understand.

Batman Inc just ended, it has one issue left, but the story is over. It was pretty dumb. The entire concept was ridiculous to begin with because it's about Bruce Wayne creating this global Batman initiative where he put a Batman sanctioned vigilante in every country around the world.

Firstly, it's already a stretch that nobody can figure out that Bruce Wayne is Batman. He's the only guy who could afford it, he has a company that makes everything Batman uses, his parent's murder was front page news, he's built like The Ultimate Warrior and nobody can put two and two together? But now you have Bruce Wayne coming out publically and saying he's funding Batman Inc and nobody goes HEY!!!

Secondly, it got even dumber because all the heroes in Batman Inc were these weird little unknown characters from ancient stories written decades ago nobody remembers. It never made sense why Batman would trust these people instead of bringing in people he works with on a constant basis from the Bat-family or Justice League, etc.

The book WAS pretty good at times despite the dumbness of it. But it's not something anybody could just jump on and read because it's the culmination of all of Morrison's Batwork and that's 7 years of stuff. You don't read that, you won't get this.

And just to confuse everybody further, when Batman Inc picked back up after the reboot they said Batman Inc was going to continue being the only book existing in the previous universe. The first issue said this is a "Pre New-52 Book." (New 52 is what they call everything after the reboot.) So that solved a lot of problems. Morrison could ignore continuity and be as weird as he wanted because it wasn't going to screw with the other batbooks or anything. But then when he killed Robin (the 4th, Damian Wayne, Bruce's son) they had it happen in the New 52. So now everybody is completely confused as to if this book is Old 52 or New 52 or what. NOTHING else from Batman Inc is referenced in any other book except Damian's death. It's just a mess.

(Damian's death was another terrible move. Damian was an amazing character and he was only around a few years. Killing that character was dumb and a LOT of fans are still mad and sad about it. It's not like in the 80s when fans voted for Robin to die. This made a lot of people cry and actually admit to it.)

The funny thing about the stuff Morrison did is that as I read it I kept saying to people "I can't wait to see the amount of work DC will have to do to undo all the damage Morrison has done to Batman." Then a few months later they announce the reboot and I was like WOW, that's even more than I expected!

3) How was Batman affected by the recent "Reboot"?

I should've read ahead.

VERY POORLY!!! I think I covered that. haha

I got to the point in 2010 that comics were getting too expensive. I was reading everything DC put out. I decided I would only read Batman stuff. But there are so many Batbooks that I didn't save that much money. So then I cut out the Batfamily books and just read core Batman stuff.

After Bruce Wayne's death, Batman was completely rejuvenated and was GREAT again. Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin was a fantastic read. Best Batman had been in 5-10 years. I was sooooo into it.

But then they brought Bruce Wayne back from the dead and started Batman Inc. Everything went to shit and I quit reading completely and started spending my money on video games I never play instead.

Along with the reboot they initiated day one digital releases. I said great, that'll make pirating easier. So I started downloading them. That lasted 3 weeks until I gave up again because, despite it being free now, it wasn't fun. The universe that I collected, was connected to and invested in was dead.

Then once all the collected editions came out I grabbed them from the library. That got me back in so a few months ago I started torrenting comics again. Today I have given up on most of it yet again and am only reading like 4 or 5 books a month and I only do that to stay in the know. It's rarely enjoyable. The only great book they have right now is Superman/Batman and that is only on it's 3rd issue.

Before Morrison and the reboot, quality never mattered. I was like my Grandma watching Days of Our Lives. She doesn't watch that show because it's good. There's no good episodes or bad episodes. It's just her habit. She just has to see what's going to happen next. Bad episode? Bah. There's another tomorrow. That's how I was with comics. Sure, there were ones that really stood out, but for the most part I never read them critically in any way. I only read them because I had to see what happened next. Good, bad, who cares it's Batman, what happens??? When Morrison took over it was the first time I was deterred by quality and hated reading Batman and then the reboot happened and everything I knew was thrown upside down. So now I read EVERYTHING critically. If something is good I'll read it, if it sucks I won't because I don't really care what happens anymore.

This has been Batman TMI by lethargicj.

Oh, and they changed Catwoman's origin to the origin from Batman Returns where she died and then cats licked her and she came back as a cat zombie lady. Everybody hated that in the movie so why not add it to the comic 20 years later??

Jesus Christ.

Look, all anyone wants from Catwoman is this: she wears a skin tight cat suit. She laps up milk, which is a metaphor for a hot load. Batman can't hit girls (I am sure he has hit girls) so it's like she wears a Kryptonite ring. They have sex with each other and every once in a while the reader gets reminded that there are genuine psychos that Batman fights and she is not one of them.

Cat zombie. God. GOD.

Every book DC puts out will come out FOUR times next month. For instance, they're going to have Batman 24.1, Batman 24.2, Batman 24.3 and Batman 24.4 and each book will focus on a different villain. It's insanely expensive to read comics these days, that they think anybody can afford 4 times the normal comics in one month is asinine.

I am going to set fire to my comic book collection now.

There is actually a real reason I can't stand the re-numbering. I was trying to get the Keith Giffen / Kevin Maguire "Defenders" comic. (I love anything those two do.) Mile High Comics sent me the Defenders #5 from the 1970s. I fucking hate renumbering. Daredevil is the last comic ... was the last comic I was getting and they have gone back and forth with the numbering on that a billion times. I fucking hate it.

(I eventually gave up Daredevil because Brubaker's run was completely aimless. A blind guy bangs models and fights street-level thugs. He beats up people he can't beat in court. You occassionally pair him with a conservative hero like the Punisher or Moon Knight. How do you fuck that up??! They fucked that up.)

I got to the point in 2010 that comics were getting too expensive. I was reading everything DC put out. I decided I would only read Batman stuff. But there are so many Batbooks that I didn't save that much money. So then I cut out the Batfamily books and just read core Batman stuff.

I meant to ask you - is it possible to get a "digital subscription" to Daredevil or something? I wouldn't mind reading comics on my tablet. And I sure as fuck do not want to fuck around with getting them from TPB as I tried that once and it would be a million times easier to legitimately get them.

Thank you for everything you wrote about Batman. I want to love him but DC won't let me. You do know a lot about Batman and you, unlike Pinback, are a net positive to this forum.

How awful is the DC reboot?

Lobo then:



Lobo now:

Between Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, etc. there is literally a big enough archive of comics that it'd take the rest of my life to read everything before the first major reboot of any of their major franchises.

So screw it - its fun keeping "update to" with the newest writers, but I don't want to deal with them making Lobo look like Tenchi Muyo.

A comic question, only slightly off topic.

Is it the artwork or the franchise that keeps you reading comics and graphic novels?

Last one I read was the.....Oh, the yellow smiley face with the blood splotch on it...Dammit! I'm drawing a blank here. They just made a movie based on it too. See what happens when I post to the drunk base too many times!

The Guardians, maybe? sounds wrong.

Anyway, I only got it cause I liked the artwork and I got sucked into the plot and story as a byproudct.
Before that I borrowed Frankenstein, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson. That one I skipped most of the story but I really dug the artwork.

THE
VISUALLY STIMULATED
AARDVARK

Hadda look it up! Watchmen!

For me its more the writing / story mixed with decent artwork (that can be weird or different, but at least looks polished and as if the artist understands perspective), thus why I've been reading more The Walking Dead (to an extent), Witch Doctor, Image Comics and indue than Marvel or DC.

Plus its kinda weird how the movies for any franchise are referencing (in large part) older story arcs (X-Men Days of Future Past / the Phoenix Saga, Frank Miller's Batman, etc) than anything currently ongoing.

It feels as if the comic industry hasn't had to reinvent itself in 50 years.

It's all about the writing. Even if the artwork is good, it's good because it serves the story.

Plus its kinda weird how the movies for any franchise are referencing (in large part) older story arcs (X-Men Days of Future Past / the Phoenix Saga, Frank Miller's Batman, etc) than anything currently ongoing.

The funny thing is that the only movies/show that I know of that did go along with current storylines are some of the most decisive projects out there.

Superman Returns was all about Superman finding out he had a son. At almost the exact same time Superman was given a son in the comics. In a story that was written by Richard Donner.

The comics did a year long storyline where Superman managed to save the bottled city of Kandor and unleashed 1000s of Kryptonians on Earth. Smallville used the exact same plot for the season of the show while that was happening.