Oh, how I long for the days when Batman was the world’s greatest detective and solved crimes committed by gangsters and overly-theatrical villains using some neat gadgets, his skills and his self-education on crime scene investigation.
Oh, how I loathe today, with Batman being the be all and end all of super beings, despite having no powers, a seemingly infinite amount of money to build more and more outlandish devices, robots, rocket ships and battle suits to use on his fellow Justice Leaguers. I loathe how a mere mortal, who ages normally, gets injured normally, has to eat, sleep, shit, exercise regularly and run a billion dollar company can also find time to defeat alien warlords. I loathe how a man, albeit a brilliant man, but still just a man, with a finite amount of brain power regardless of how clever he may be, can outsmart every single living being ever with a tiny, bite-sized gadget from his plot-armor belt.
I loathe how every single professional assassin, former Marine/vigilante, Hellspawn etc who go up against him somehow turn into imperial stormtroopers! He’s one regular, non-enhanced guy in spandex. He’s not Spiderman, with faster-than-human reflexes and spider sense.
I loathe how a wealthy detective in a bat costume is now somehow the universes biggest Mary-Sue. He now has a Justice-buster exo-suit, bigger than the Hulkbuster armor and he uses it against the Justice league. Somehow gods, kings, alien super beings, guys with magic rings that can literally do anything and the fastest man alive who can travel through time and space can’t beat one middle aged man. It’s patently ridiculous. I mean, any Lantern character could scoop him up from half a mile away in a bubble, suck all the air out of it, rendering him unconscious and fling him into the sun without lifting a finger (cough cough, Sinestro, where are you?)
It’s now impossible to enjoy Batman as a character because of these things. He’s been ruined by his owners. Turned into a bastardized version of basically every better character from both of the big 2, he’s just a cardboard cut-out of all other characters with a bat sticker slapped on them and a fetish for violence and little boys in tights (every Robin! You know it!)
How a character like Professor Zoom hasn’t run up to Batman and shot him in the mouth with a sawed off 12 gauge at lightning speed and just ended it is beyond me.
While the Dark Knight trilogy was good (not great), I’m able to pick it to bits very quickly. It takes no effort at all to dissect Bat-Fleck and the Schumacher abortions too.
Truly, the best versions of Bruce Wayne as Batman on film now are the 2 Micheal Keaton films and Batman TAS (Batman Beyond gets a pass cuz it’s in the future and a different main character). Adam West’s Batman is amusing and silly, but still holds a special place in the characters history.
The Arkham game series is worthy as well, though it does get more than a little ridiculous in games 2 and 4, but they’re still fun. And damn, the detective work!!! I love it.
Damn you, DC comics and damn you, Warner Brothers for ruining one of your best characters at nearly every turn. I hope Todd McFarlane somehow gets ahold of the publishing rights to him. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be any worse than what you’ve been doing for several years.
This is all to say nothing of the Batwoman show, the Titans show and Gotham which are all more depressing than a case of the crabs! But that’s another rant for another day.