The most famous private detective in the world.

Hi there !

Today, this post will be dedicated to this man there, I named Batman.

(Also known as the Caped crusader, the dark knight, the goddamn Batman, black'n'leather dude, etc etc..)



I've been enjoying a lot of Batman's adventures through my childhood and I think he deserved that I did a post about him. Furthermore, I just finished following a course about comics, so I thought I could do something here.

So, Batman...Well, this character was created by Bob Kane, who was a compulsory liar, so it's quite difficult to know if he plagiarized/stole the work of somebody. He claimed he didn't, we'll believe him for that.
This character, like most of the superheroes, finds its/his sources in the detective genre (Batman is also known to be the best detective, and we can say that the hardboiled detective genre is also a part of the character) that D.C exploited to become what is known now. The main source of inspiration might be the character of Zorro that first appeared in 1919.

At the start, he was a much more darker character than Superman (created also by D.C who appeared the year before in the first Action Comics. You can notice that Superman appears in ACTION comics, while Batman is in Detective Comics.). The character, in his appearance really looked like a Bat (as you can see on the picture below) and didn't mind killing a few people to get the job done.

Later though, D.C decided to smoothe Batman a little, and for that, they included "Robin the Boy Wonder"  in Detective Comics 38 (1940). It was also a way to attract young readers (Batman being much more for young adults at the time).....Well, at the time, sticking a 9 year old kid with a man living as a bachelor, it wasn't weird....Not sure it would be done now..

But what about the character ? Well, it's the classic figure of the super hero, and it's why it worked.
The character of the superhero is liked because it embodies power, and protection, but not authority in the institutional sense of the word. The police and the similar kind of authority had been always sticked to this sense of repression, and most of the time, on the people. Here, you had the character of a wealthy man, belonging to the upper-class, but, who cares for the lower classes and fought against the bad guys, on the side of the state, so on his own. So the sense of justice was there, without the sense of repression on the good people. A model that was used for the character of the private dectective and passed on to the superheroes.

Plus, you had a tragical dimension. Indeed, the character of Batman, his creation came because of a tragic incident, the boy lost his parents because of some thug named Joe Chill......
So we can say *puts on sunglasses* that..they got chilled. ("YYYYEEAAAAAHHH"......No ? Damned...Nevermind then)
Anyway, like a lot of superheroes, and a lot of villains, Bruce Wayne (the face behind Batman, even though we can safely say that Batman can have his own face) had his "bad day", and he chose to go the good path and fight evil.

The success of the character mgiht also come from his villains. Any good hero needs the proper villain and Batman was well served. From the Joker, his nemesis, constantly trying to prove him how crazy Batman is, to very dangerous and strong one like Bane or Killer Croc, our black'n'leather dude is constantly fighting impressive ennemies.

In any case, the comic has always been a success, and because of that/thanks to that, it resisted when, after WW2, most of the superheroes were dropped. Indeed, the war being a great fuel for any patriotic feeling (the first page of Captain America was the character hitting Hitler), when the cold war came, most of the heroe didn't follow...But Superman and Batman, and a few others resisted and kept on living.

And then, after a long time, where the character was exploited on a more optimistic way, darkness came again. Batman was hit several times and severely. In his comics, Frank Miller used a darker tone, Batman also lost one of his Robin, and started to be reckless, etc...

And one day, that book appeared.

That book is very important because along with Watchmen, these two were the first best selling graphic novels ever.
(Not the first graphic novels, but the one who sold the much)
The theme of dystopia is used and it's quite dark. It was a major success.
(The last movie of Nolan will be also based on this novel and on several others)

That novel though doesn't belong to the mainstream comic vein but to the current of alternative comics, which is a brand of american comic that incorporated stories that couldn't be published as mainstream stuff because of the violence/sex/blood/other terrible stuff it contained.
I think it definitely suited the dark knight.





But comics were not the only thing that popularized that character of course.

The animated serie helped touch the kids.

(All my childhood....In the schoolyard, I used to get on the highest ground with my black/red (colours didn't perfectly match sadly) coat and pretend I was like him...Damn...Such a long time ago...)




The movies helped a lot too. Even though they are not my favourite, Tim Burton created a very good setting in Batman, and Batman Returns.

We had a little rought period with Joel Schumacher, and we entered the 2000 period.
The years 2000 until now have been very successful and rich for our beloved Dark Knight. Whether it is the movies made by Nolan, and the music that accompanied them (Thanks Hans Zimmer), the black'n'leather hero found itself with extremely successful movies.Not only it was a good superhero movie, but a good action and plot movie as well, which is not that common among the genre...
A serious bump appeared with the second especially

The very good prestation of the late Heath Ledger helped the movie to get the affection it deserved.










But the cinema weren't the only media that helped regained the colours (per say) of the hero. The videogames industry also participated in this effort.

Batman Arkham Asylum was a great success with his dark atmosphere and the gameplay used.
His following game, Arkham City added a bigger map and some delightful characters, for exemple Catwoman, the "femme fatale" of the roman noir. (Even though Poison Ivy can claim that prize too)

In any case, his success these last years was complete. The boost these productions set up was quite enormous, and provoked the people into getting their hands on some of the comics D.C had published. (The Killing Joke, for example)

And it is not done yet. Indeed, the last episode of Nolan's trilogy will come out in July 20, 2012. I don't know how it will be, but I'm sure a lot of people (including me) will go check it out. I sincerely hope the conclusion is as good as the previous movie was.

In conclusion, I think the goddamn Batman has some good days ahead of him. I'm happy for him, he is definitely one of my favourite, very provably, my favorite super hero.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna jump from roof to roof with a nail gun and a mask on my head. Don't worry, I won't forget to put on my big black coat, it's raining after all, and the colours on the coat finally match. Yey !