Thursday, August 27, 2015

So, Exactly How Demented And Evil Is Scott Snyder's Batman?!?

I have to confess--despite being usually of high quality, I am not a huge fan of Scott Snyder's Batman run.

It's just a matter of taste--I like a Batman who occasionally foils a bank robber or investigates a mugging. Common, "ordinary" street-level crime is beneath the notice of Snyder's Batman, though. The entirety as his nu52 run on the title has been obsessed with long, longer and longest arcs about threats to the very existence of Gotham City.

Who has time to worry about gun-runners when a secret society is about to take over the city? Bodega hold-ups? Please--Batman must be focused 100% on whether the Joker, who might actually be an immortal god, can use mysterious chemicals from his spine to turn every single person in Gotham into a Joker-Zombie, all of whom will die any minute! When the Riddler is transformed into a madman more powerful and successful than Ra's Al-Ghul, who has time to stop drug dealers? Batman has no time for your petty crime!

Again, well-done. Just not to my taste.

But perhaps just as off-putting is how Snyder made (old) Bruce Wayne into a totally evil mother-frakker.

[SPOILER ALERT] In the last apocalyptic arc, Bruce had his entire memory wiped clean by DC Science--and now he's bright, innocent Bruce Wayne, who never experienced the tragedy that drove him to become Batman.

Well, Superman comes looking for Alfred, seeking his help to "fix" Bruce. And Alfred dismisses him, saying that there's no way that Bruce could ever be Batman again without that burning memory of his parents' murder to drive him.

And Bruce evidently thought the same thing:




That's right--Batman actually planned to clone himself, and implant his emotional trauma into each clone, so it would become Batman and continue the legacy.

Not only is that as demented as anyone in Arkham Asylum...it's also the exactly the same plan as the world's greatest megalomaniac tried 30 years ago:







Maybe I shouldn't be disturbed that the plan Batman came up with to continue his legacy is the exact same one that Victor Von Doom used to continue his legacy. It could be that I'm wrong to believe that Batman is dissing the ability of every Robin and other protegee he has had, and apparently determined to create his own line of Kristoffs. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned to think that maybe making your hero a self-absorbed destroyer of lives maybe kind of a little bit warps the definition of hero.

But that's the nu52 in a nutshell for you--where the most popular hero is no better than Doctor Doom.

From Batman #43 (2015) and Fantastic Four #278 (1985)
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5 comments:

  1. UnknownAugust 27, 2015 at 9:07 AM

    Do all the characters still have story relevant anecdotes and long, pretentious ways of telling them?

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  2. SallyPAugust 27, 2015 at 9:10 AM

    Holy Crap, Batman! I didn't realize all this was going on, since I had dumped the book because I had no interest in reading about Gordon in a giant Moth suit. But this...this is cold!

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  3. Mr. Morbid's House Of FunAugust 27, 2015 at 2:49 PM

    Yeah, given the comparisons, Batman totally looks very much like a villain doing struff like this. Not that I put it past Batman to potentially use something like this under extreme circumanstances, but to do so intentially, to willingly torture clone after clone after clone with a lifetime's worth of painful memories is very sick and twisted, and VERY unlike the heroic Batman I know. he may not be as cordial as he was in the old days, but the NU52 under synder damn sure isn't that way, and worse.

    Sad really. No wonder their experiening 2 million$ in loses.

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  4. AlephZAugust 28, 2015 at 4:12 AM

    This idea of implanting cloned Bruce Waynes with the pain of being Batman to create soldiers to do his bidding was also the plan Darkseid had in one of the Final Crisis tie-ins.

    So he's either got it from Victor Von Doom or the embodiment of human evil. Not a good set of inspirations, that.

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  5. Martin GraySeptember 4, 2015 at 4:54 AM

    I'm hoping this story will end with a more balanced Bruce, one who realises he's gone crazy. I mean, remember his plan to Frankenstein dead Damian?

    ReplyDelete