Holy Bat-iversaries! It's Batman Day!

September 26, 2014 marked the 75th anniversary of the first appearance of Batman in DETECTIVE COMICS #27. I knew the year was the anniversary, but I didn’t pay much attention to the actual date. So when I saw the solicits that 9/26/15 was BATMAN DAY, I tried overly hard to figure out out. “Okay, I get ‘May the Fourth” as STAR WARS DAY, and ‘March the Fifth’ as National Jim Beam Day (am I really the only one who celebrates that?), but what was the archaic, numerological meaning that marked these numbers as BATMAN DAY. Boy, was I let down when there wasn’t some clever number-play going on, and it was simply an anniversary date -- the 76th one at that.

Still, they say every dog has its day, so why not at least one bat? The Critical Blast geeks decided to sit around the cave and discuss the whys, wherefores, and woes of being a Bat-Fan.

R.J. Carter: It was 1971. The much acclaimed BATMAN television series was already in syndication, its heyday having passed. But each day prior to (and thru) Kindergarten, I would be glued daily at 3:30pm to the black-and-white set in our living room, squatted on the floor, watching those Dick Sprang-esque pseudo-animated heroes and villains get POWed and BIFFed and WHAM-Oed during the opening credits. I was to young to get that it was a comedy, so I took it completely seriously. And when I wasn’t watching the show, I was roleplaying the Dark Knight, conscripting my dwindling number of friends into my adventures.

The man was always prepared, always had an answer, and always beat the bad guys -- and he did it without super powers. All I had to do was study hard, earn a million dollars, and find a house on top of a cave. My life’s goal had been set.

Jeff Ritter: “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BATMAN!” Join in if you know the words! And who doesn’t even when it’s not syndicated anywhere or the DVDs aren’t readily available? I think most people would agree that to this day, cheesy as it often got, nobody has ever truly surpassed Frank Gorshin or Burgess Meredith as The Riddler and Penguin, respectively. Maybe that’s because today’s Hollywood is obsessed with being dark. Penguin was grotesque in Tim Burton’s version but then that’s always been Burton’s calling card. Riddler was, well, Jim Carrey in a Joel Schumacher movie that is sadly better than GREEN LANTERN, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, or any Superman film since the late Christopher Reeve first pulled his red undies over his blue tights. To me, Gorshin and Meredith will always be the definitive actors of those roles. Completely random thought: Batfleck should have a scene somewhere where either he or Alfred puts on the TV, and we catch a glimpse of an old black and white show called, “The Grey Ghost” starring Adam West, or at least his voice. They could shoot the whole episode to include on the Blu-ray! Think outside the box, for once, Hollywood!

S.J. Mitchell: It’s hard to deny Batman’s place in history as an icon in pop-culture. Having transcended the comic book genre through cartoons, tv shows and movies he has invaded all aspects of entertainment media. His symbol and dark, brooding nature makes him very marketable among a certain demographic. The success of the Bruce Timm led BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, skyrocketed his popularity with the kids of that generation. Those kids have become today’s adults, with an affinity for the hero they grew up loving. Their ravenous financial support encourages DC to offer more Batman, wherever dollars can be spent. This creates an over-saturated market.

Batman’s inclusion in the Justice League has a mortal man mixed up with the affairs of heroes with ‘god’-like powers. DC has done all they can to keep Batman relevant during those adventures and by doing so they turned an imperfect hero, into one that is perfect. Explaining his ability to survive these events as simply because, ‘he’s Batman’. Over time, writers seemed to ignore that he was the ‘world’s greatest detective’ and tried to turn him into the world’s greatest crime-fighting superhero.

JR: SJ, You talk about being a pop-culture icon, that’s almost an understatement! I believe that if you went into the most remote jungle you could find and showed the natives just the iconography of the top superheroes--Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Captain America and The Punisher, who all have easy to recognize symbols--I’d bet they would all go from their mostly undecipherable tribal dialect to, “Oh hey, that’s Batman!”

Mike: While I did watch Batman ‘66 as a kid, I first became a Batman reader around Knightfall.  I was just getting into DC comics with Death of a Superman.  I was at a flea market and saw they were selling the first 8 issues of Knightfall for a buck each (this was the same week issue 9 came out).  I got my dad to buy them for me, and I was immediately hooked.  And then like 1 month later, my jaw hit the floor when Bane broke the Bat. HOLY CRAP!! That was the most incredible thing I had ever seen in a comic at that point.

I collected Batman and Tec from then on for a long time, including buying a ton of back issues. In fact, until I finally stopped in 2010, I had complete runs of both going back for 30 years.  Batman and I grew apart for a while.  Actually, I only recently started buying Batman again, and that was because of Batman Eternal.  

By the way, I totally blame Grant Morrison for a lot of the things SJ talked about.  It seemed like every arc of Justice League was solved because of perfect Batman.  And then Morrison turned him into a time traveller when he “died,” having served as Batman at several points in history.  Morrison has a huge fetish about making Batman into some kind of godlike being.  

SJ: Mike, unfortunately Morrison wasn't and isn't the only one with a 'Bat-God' fascination. Frank Miller comes to mind with the 'Dark Knight' books that changed the way Batman is written today. More recently Geoff Johns has Batman floating around in the Mobius Chair as a 'New God'. They've really ruined what made the character great, by inching him closer to becoming what many fanboys already perceive him to be.

JR: Grant Morrison is pretty easy for me to blame for almost everything. My favorites include BATMAN: THE CULT, written by Jim Starlin with art by Bernie Wrightson, BATMAN: SON OF THE DEMON, written by Mike W. Barr with art by Jerry Bingham, the often overlooked Frank Miller-penned gem BATMAN: YEAR ONE with artist David Mazzuccelli, BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE written by Alan Moore with art by Brian Bolland, and of course ARKHAM ASYLUM: A SERIOUS HOUSE ON SERIOUS EARTH by artist Dave McKean and writer Grant...Morrison. Well damn. Guess the ol’ Scot can’t be all bad, eh?  

R.J.: SJ, that’s one of the reasons why I really liked the graphic novel BATMAN: EARTH ONE. It gave us a Batman that was fallible. Even in Frank Miller’s YEAR ONE, it was usually Bruce Wayne who made mistakes -- but when he was Batman, he could suddenly do everything.

But damn it all if I don’t want to know the answers to the questions Batman’s been asking that Mobius Chair that he isn’t sharing with the rest of us.

Grey: Grant didn’t create Bat-God, he just made it more awesome and less crazy...well, for as “less crazy” as Grant Morrison is capable of doing.

However, Batman vs God led to one of my favorite Bat stories of the last ten years, in BATMAN AND ROBIN, after Damian died and Bruce went to Apokolips to fight Darkseid to get the power to bring him back. That was a great book.

Mike: I will second you on that one. “Super Robin” should have been an awful arc...from Batman going to fight Darkseid to bring him back to life, to Damian getting superpowers, but instead, it ended up being one of my favorite Batman stories in far too long.  I am not even sure how that happened beyond Peter Tomasi just being one hell of a good writer.

Grey: It was purely about Tomasi’s level of awesome, he’s just such a great Batman writer.

JR: I can’t stand Damian. If they’d have employed the “Kill A Robin” hotline like they did when the fans voted to murder Jason Todd (thanks, DC, for bringing him back despite our votes, by the way--can I have my 1-900 charges back adjusted for inflation?) I’d have set up a robot call to ensure that that the little punk took a dirt nap. Tim Drake has surpassed even Dick Grayson as Robin. I did see that full page ad they ran for REQUIEM and thought, “OK, that’s kinda weird but kinda cool. They could easily make Damian the new Spectre! Could you imagine having a dead League of Assassins and Batcave Training Dojo kid showing up to right moral wrongs? Throwing down on Superman when the big blue cheese gets too uppity?  Or did they nerf Clark’s susceptibility to magic in the New 52? I couldn’t bare to keep reading that “soft reboot” junk.  

R.J.: One of the lines from BATMAN R.I.P was when Robin shouted “Batman and Robin will never die!” Given the state of Batman today -- with Jim Gordon in a suit of tech armor and Bruce Wayne operating with a new brain that never experienced the trauma of his parent’s death -- where do we all see the future of the Dark Knight going?

S.J.: It’ll be interesting to see how they reverse this crisis of identities, however the Batman character seems immune from most criticism. The fandom just isn’t like others, such as Superman. I’ll offer an example:

Superman loses his red trunks when the New 52 came about and everybody nearly lost their minds, swearing to never buy a Superman comic book until the trunks were back.

Batman becomes Jim Gordon in a giant, bunny-looking Gundam and there’s not a single peep.

We all know that eventually, Bruce Wayne will don the cowl again, but how they will reach a point where he’s moved enough to do it? I have no clue. What I see of him in the Batman/Superman comic book, currently, is an aggressive cop hiding behind the mantle of ‘the bat’. He is leading a coordinated effort with the GCPD, rather than convince people that Batman is still a rogue vigilante, just with higher tech.

Regardless of how it turns out, I imagine sales will remain steady as the fandom continues to blindly throw dollars at whatever is adorned with the bat-symbol.

Mike: Yeah, that is exactly the problem for me.  I can’t see either of these changes as lasting all that long (Gordon as Batman or Superman having limited powers).  They aren’t even reflected in Justice League or Justice League of America.  I personally WANT to see characters evolve and change, but it just doesn’t seem to last all that long.

Batman is probably too iconic for his own good to a certain extent where no lasting change can happen.  If I ran the zoo, Dick Grayson would be Batman permanently. Actually, by now, Dick would probably be close to retiring himself and passing the mantle on to someone else.

BUT, all that aside, I still consider myself a Batman fan.  I love the comics, the cartoons, most of the movies, etc.  Nothing makes me smile more than seeing my kids pretending to be Batman and company in the backyard (somehow they always insist I have to play Darkseid...even they have been infected by Bat-God Syndrome).   And I am cautiously excited about Batman Vs Superman.  I think Ben Affleck will be great in the role.  

JR: I’d like to see him go bankrupt. He’s been the best because he’s a one-percenter. What if he forgot to pay his Bat-taxes? What if he can’t call up Lucius Fox and say, “Make me a Batmobile that could deforest the Amazon in 45 minutes.” What if instead he came down to street level? No powers and no unlimited material wealth--just tons of training and knowledge. Can he MACGYVER his way against the Arkham escapees, street level criminals and the occasional tussle with the Justice League? I’d sure like to see him try. This Bat-God malarky is the antithesis of Batman.

What about Bat-Oversaturation? Are we there yet?  Or is the endless onslaught of Bat-Merchandise a reaction to market demand?

Happy Batman Day, everyone!