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What Has The Dark Knight Saga Added To The Batman Mythos?

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OdieFromTheOz KING OF EXPLODO KILLS from Shadow Mosses Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
KING OF EXPLODO KILLS
#26: Jun 27th 2013 at 12:51:31 PM

[up][up][up]That first one describes the second Robin perfectly. it uh, it didn't end very well.

nyo ho ho
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#27: Jun 27th 2013 at 12:57:35 PM

They recently made the Tumbler Batmobile canon, I believe. And I think parts of Batwoman's post-RIP redesign were supposed to have been inspired by the movie Batsuit.

While it didn't happen, it also seems at one point they were going to put Dick Grayson in a costume resembling the movie Batsuit when he first became Batman. There's concept art of it, I believe.

edited 27th Jun '13 12:58:59 PM by comicwriter

ATC Was Aliroz the Confused from The Library of Kiev Since: Sep, 2011
Was Aliroz the Confused
#28: Jun 27th 2013 at 12:59:41 PM

It gave batman a growly deep voice.

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books
FantasyLiver Since: Oct, 2012
#29: Jun 27th 2013 at 2:51:07 PM

[up][up] I didn't know about the Batsuits although the Tumbler actually originated in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns

ATC Was Aliroz the Confused from The Library of Kiev Since: Sep, 2011
Was Aliroz the Confused
#30: Jun 27th 2013 at 8:21:24 PM

What about all those batmobiles we saw in Hush?

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books
Noaqiyeum we must dissent (it/they) from across the gulf of space (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
we must dissent (it/they)
#31: Jun 29th 2013 at 5:16:07 PM

[up][up][up] Hasn't Batman usually had a deep growly voice...? Bale just made it Deeper And Growlier.

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ATC Was Aliroz the Confused from The Library of Kiev Since: Sep, 2011
Was Aliroz the Confused
#32: Jun 29th 2013 at 5:42:21 PM

[up]Adam West?

edited 29th Jun '13 5:42:34 PM by ATC

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books
OdieFromTheOz KING OF EXPLODO KILLS from Shadow Mosses Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
KING OF EXPLODO KILLS
#33: Jun 29th 2013 at 9:43:06 PM

The definitive Batman voice has been kevin Conroy ever since The Animated Series, who played Batman more with a very confident voice rather then a gravelly one.

nyo ho ho
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#34: Jun 29th 2013 at 9:47:52 PM

Yeah, Conroy's voice was more... sterner, sharper and deeper whereas Bruce's voice is lofty, cheerful and lighter. It's like the kind of thing that's typically done with Clark Kent.

Bale went with Bruce's voice being fairly sharp and stern, with Batman's voice being distorted.

Lots of others don't bother quite as much. Young Justice Batman sounds almost exactly the same in and out of costume - though Batman voice is slightly softer (like he's slightly whispering). The Batman did a Conroy style bit, but with there being less difference between the two.

Though Adam West's Batman and Bruce take the cake for being almost exactly the same.

edited 29th Jun '13 9:51:19 PM by KnownUnknown

KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#35: Jun 29th 2013 at 10:52:18 PM

That was the best thing I've ever seen.

ATC Was Aliroz the Confused from The Library of Kiev Since: Sep, 2011
Was Aliroz the Confused
#36: Jul 2nd 2013 at 7:31:05 AM

That. Was. Beautiful.

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books
Noaqiyeum we must dissent (it/they) from across the gulf of space (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
ATC Was Aliroz the Confused from The Library of Kiev Since: Sep, 2011
Was Aliroz the Confused
#38: Jul 10th 2013 at 8:37:11 PM

I know!

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books
PolarPhantom Since: Jun, 2012
#39: Aug 29th 2013 at 12:58:59 PM

Well, I suppose it redeemed Bane in the mainstream audience's eyes after his... bizarre turn in Batman And Robin.

FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#40: Aug 30th 2013 at 1:20:44 PM

Since this thread got derailed into a thread about Robin, I liked this old trailer that a fan made. It was a film about Grayson handling Bruce's death and trying to move on (and failing), and eventually returning to the role of Robin. Rather than becoming Batman or Nightwing.

Also, while I may be wrong here, but wasn't Batman's origin story prior to Batman Begins basically "Bruce goes around the world and learns a lot of cool, useful techniques?" In that case, Begins offers a more concrete depiction of his origin, with Bruce being trained by ninja to fight... like a ninja. If there's one thing I like about the saga, it's the irony of Batman being trained by one of his most notorious rogues.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#41: Aug 30th 2013 at 2:30:10 PM

I like the irony of Batman rejecting the ideal of killing a criminal by killing a whole bunch of criminals instead.

Nolan's Batman is terrible at that not killing people thing. He kills people in every movie.

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SciFiSlasher from Absolutely none of your business. Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#42: Aug 30th 2013 at 6:31:16 PM

[up] He's nothing compared to Burton's Batman.

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."
Maridee from surfside Since: Nov, 2009 Relationship Status: Dating Catwoman
#43: Aug 31st 2013 at 1:39:50 PM

Weirdly enough, if you go around as a vigilante it gets really hard not to kill people. They're made of all these squishy bits.

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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#44: Aug 31st 2013 at 1:49:19 PM

So very true. There's a narrative moment in a recent Wolverine I really liked, as Logan tried to nonlethally subdue several mind controlled S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but wound up having to kill a few of them in order to win the fight and go on to face the villain.

What the Wolverine is thinking is: there are too many trashy samurai movies. There aren't enough that tell it like it must have been. When he was there, Japan was peaceful, rural. He liked peaceful. He's thinking that because his previous thought was a quote from a good samurai movie: A samurai has to be "willing to shoulder the sin of killing." He supposes that counts for soldiers all over, because he doesn't identify much with samurai aristocracy. He said, before he started out along this corridor, that he would TRY not to kill these innocents. He's doing his best, but it's just not possible to MANAGE this sort of fight. So he's doing it again, like he did with the father in the mall...he's shouldering that sin.

Due to its nature as an escapist fantasy, this is an element of violence often glossed over in superhero storytelling: that Batman can neutralize an infinite number of enemies without killing anyone. That to take a life is a choice when violence is applied; it is only possible to kill someone if you choose a lethal injury over a nonlethal one. That killing and not killing are equally viable at all times; that one is just as easy and just as reliable as the other, always, and that it's always possible to win the fight without ever having to take a life to do so. It's just patently untrue.

Absolute Pacifism has its own set of problems just as Absolute Zero Tolerance does; a hero who is willing to lose the fight if the alternative is to kill an enemy on the battlefield has just as many problems as a hero who kills everyone he ever fights. It's not one or the other that you have to pick from, and while it's bizarre to use Wolverine of all people to make this point, a good hero needs to be willing to apply reasonable force to end the altercation, even if that means going lethal to do it, but still reluctant to go lethal in every scenario.

To take a life is hard. It should be. Not wanting to kill is a mark of a good person. But sometimes it's necessary.

edited 31st Aug '13 1:55:21 PM by TobiasDrake

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FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#45: Aug 31st 2013 at 7:25:31 PM

I liked the perversion on Batman's no-kill rule in Batman Begins, when he was facing Ra's Al Ghul at the end.

Batman: I won't kill you. -throws Batarang, creating escape route- But I don't have to save you. -exits train, leaving Ra's to die-

Thinking of that scene, I could accept Batman's voice in the first film. It was grizzly when he threatened people, and "cool" when he was talking to Rachel, more subdued when he was talking to Ra's. The version we heard in the sequels was worse.

edited 31st Aug '13 7:27:37 PM by FOFD

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#46: Aug 31st 2013 at 9:50:33 PM

That was so f'ing hypocritical, though. Seriously.

Putting someone into a situation in which he will die and then not saving him from that situation is still killing him. That's like if I tied you up in a bear cave and then left. I didn't kill you. The bear killed you.

Batman is not a killer by virtue of the fact that the train crash, which only occured because Batman had Gordon blow out the supports, killed him.

That was about as hypocritical as Batman taking a stand against killing those who do evil by blowing up the base and killing everyone who kills those who do evil. Those Who Fight Those Who Fight Monsters are apparently not Monsters.

edited 31st Aug '13 9:51:18 PM by TobiasDrake

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Maridee from surfside Since: Nov, 2009 Relationship Status: Dating Catwoman
#47: Sep 1st 2013 at 9:30:24 PM

[up][up][up]Nice. Logan's the right person for that conversation, too. He probably knows exactly how squishy a body can be.

Welp. No. Ra's put himself in the situation where he was trying to kill a city full of people. Bruce didn't do that. Bruce didn't ask him to seek him out, to teach him these skills, to tell him about the League of Shadows. Bruce didn't put him on the train, or make the only solution crashing the train before it could hit the watertower. That train was in motion long before he got there.

...He just took the only escape route out and went with it. But dragging Ra's out on an unstable grappling hook could've been just as fatal. Might've pulled a Gwen Stacy. (actually the irony of that would be really awesome.)

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TheEvilDrBolty Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
#48: Sep 1st 2013 at 9:34:28 PM

@Tobias Drake - just curious, was that the Paul Cornell & Alan Davis Wolverine series?

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#49: Sep 1st 2013 at 9:57:03 PM

[up][up] Granted, but the same argument could be made for, "Ra's chose to put himself into a situation where Batman has to put a .22 slug through his brain matter to save the city." The point of, "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you," is that Batman is not killing Ra's al Ghul. Ra's al Ghul's death is not the result of a violent action on Batman's part, but on Batman simply allowing the consequences of al Ghul's own actions to catch up with him.

But that's completely untrue, because the reason al Ghul is dead is because Batman had Gordon blow up the train tracks. It's just like Harvey in the second movie: to say that Batman didn't kill Ra's al Ghul is like saying that Batman didn't kill Harvey because Harvey chose a course of action that resulted in Batman tackling him off a ledge to his death. It's a justified killing, certainly, but Batman still killed him. He killed him to save lives, but he still killed him, and in al Ghul's case, he even made a conscious choice to leave al Ghul to die in the train that was crashing because of Batman's actions.

[up] I just checked the cover. I don't know about Alan Davis, but it is Paul Cornell.

edited 1st Sep '13 10:00:31 PM by TobiasDrake

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indiana404 Since: May, 2013
#50: Sep 1st 2013 at 11:37:24 PM

Losing cash-cow villains aside, the issue with superheroes killing, I feel, is that a lot of them, particularly in DC, usually have the upper hand in physical combat, making it look like they can steer the course of battle away from lethal results; that they can choose whether to kill or not. Conversely, it's usually the least powerful of vigilanties who have the highest body-count - guys like the Punisher, Deadpool, Hitman or Wolverine. When Logan has to deal with an army of ninjas or tackle the unstoppable Juggernaut, it's pretty clear that non-lethal action just doesn't enter the equation. But when Superman can end any fight simply by staring, he has that choice all the time. DC heroes already have to tip-toe around the issue of accountability; having them kill someone would likely dispel that unambiguously heroic image the company is so protective of.

To that effect, Nolanverse Batman had already shown blatant disregard for privacy, freedom from torture, and even foreign national sovereignty, so making him a killer would've all but sealed him as (even more of) a self-propelled Patriot Act metaphor.

It's a simple principle, really - violence used against a physically inferior opponent may occasionally be justified... but it's never particularly heroic.

edited 1st Sep '13 11:38:40 PM by indiana404


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