The avatars of Batman

Time may change me...

Christian Bale reinvented the celluloid version
in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005)

A critical difference between comic book protagonists, especially superheroes, and their counterparts in literature is that the former are practically immortal. The obvious reason for this is that books are seldom serialized, while most comic books are. Therefore, it is understandable for the personalities of comic book heroes to evolve over time, and sometimes end up as the polar opposite of what they started out as. This typically happens in cases where more than one writers contribute to the comic, and more often than not one or more of them start drifting towards mediocrity. The character is then revamped to renew the waning interest of readers and/or add a new dimension to the character's makeup.

Characters like Tintin and Asterix, and their entire supporting cast, were very tightly knit by their creators and retained their essential qualities all through their "careers". Their enduring popularity is largely due to the extremely professional and well-developed "script" of the comics. While Tintin relied on the continuous success of a formula that struck a chord with the readers, Asterix surprised its audience by incorporating sci-fi/fantasy elements into the stories. But none of these witnessed a significant change in the portrayal of the leading protagonists. On the other hand, collaborative efforts such as Archie Comics tend to develop a loose outline of a character, and keep revising and revisiting it as and when the storyline demands. In case of superhero comics, it is relatively easier to add a novel hue to the character's personality. In many cases, it is as simple as adding a new superpower to his repertoire. Other than this, general revamp tactics include new origin stories, new love interests, and in cases as extreme as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, new universes.

The curious case of The Bat

Batman, and also his arch-nemesis Joker, are somewhat different in this regard. Batman's origin story has remained almost unchanged throughout his 80-year history. He has no superpowers, no constant love interest (Catwoman is a recurring one, but clearly not in the same vein as Lois Lane to Superman or Mary-Jane Watson to Spiderman). It would appear that his character would be tricky to revamp. Maybe it is too. Nevertheless, Batman has possibly witnessed more character revisions than most other popular superheroes. Superman has always been the big blue boy scout. The fact that he is always meant to do the "right thing" makes his character rather monochromatic. Spiderman has always been a bumbling, troubled and confused crime-fighter. His choice to become a superhero wasn't entirely a conscious one, it resulted from an accident which altered him physiologically. Although he could have chosen not to fight crime, it's hard to conceive that he would've lived a normal life.


As for Batman, one can argue that the murder of his parents was an accident that altered him psychologically, in a way similar to, though not the same as Spiderman. Be that as it may, a psychological change always leaves a lot more wiggle-room for reshaping the character. Spiderman's accident gave him superpowers, Batman's gave him nightmares.

The early era

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. To begin with, Batman was created as a typical private detective of the 1930s, with an intense hatred for criminals. He was born in the era of pulp, and the influence was clearly visible. In many ways, he was quite similar to Sandman (the original pulp detective of the 1940s, not the protagonist of the Neil Gaiman series or the Spiderman villain). He was bitter towards a world that took his parents from him at an early age, and this served to fuel his brooding persona. It is interesting to contrast the seedy surroundings of Gotham in which he operates with the dazzling skyline of Superman's home turf Metropolis.

Batman's first appearance in "Detective Comics"
(May 1939)

However, the problem with a character that reflects an era is that it needs to change when the era changes. And so, in the years following World War II, DC Comics "adopted a postwar editorial direction that increasingly de-emphasized social commentary in favor of lighthearted juvenile fantasy." Once his environment was changed to a more cheerful one, there was no way Batman could continue with his dark and menacing image. Instead, he too became a boy scout but with a costume that now seemed even funnier than Superman's. He got himself a teenage boy as a sidekick, and it just got worse from there on. Interest in the character waned, because the readers already had a superhero who was much better at being a goody-two-shoes. As if this wasn't enough, psychologist Frederic Wertham criticized Batman comics for their supposed homosexual overtones and argued that Batman and Robin were portrayed as lovers. By the latter half of the 1950s, female characters such as Batwoman and Batgirl were also introduced to make the comics more warm and sunny. Batman also became a part of the Justice League of America around this time (1960 to be exact), which further reinstated his image as a "regular" superhero.

The rapidly declining popularity of Batman forced DC to introduce the "New Look" Batman in 1964. The detective-oriented stories returned, and the campy sidekicks were retired or killed off. At this point, one might have thought that Batman was returning closer to his original portrayal as a superhero with dark shades. But Adam West had other ideas. 

The darkly "sunny" times

The Batman television series, which debuted in 1966, is now remembered as the worst thing to ever have happened to the franchise. But it was immensely popular in its time, and this drastically impacted the image of the character in comic books too. Adam West's Batman was an unfit comic vigilante in an embarrassingly tight costume, who slid down a pole a la firemen to reach the Batcave, and the screen flashed "KAPOW" when he punched criminals. 

The stuff of Batman fans' nightmares,
Adam West as Batman in the 1966 TV series

He was a sad sad parody of his dark brooding former self. Robin as his sidekick was even more of a joke, figuratively as well as literally, and most of his sentences started with "Holy" and ended with "Batman". Although initially successful, as most parodies are, the show as well the comics eventually lost its audience. As the comic editor Julius Schwartz himself said, "When the television show was a success, I was asked to be campy, and of course when the show faded, so did the comic books."

By the late 1960s, a conscious effort to distance the character from this comic image had started through the collaboration of writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams. Batman once again found himself in grim surroundings, investigating dark, dirty cases, and sick criminal minds. Some of the stories had a gothic feel to them and nearly bordered on horror, as the readers were made to realize once again that the bat costume is not supposed to be funny. However, the popularity of the franchise continued to drop throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, until some lifelong fans and graphic novel veterans decided to do some damage repair.

The resurgence of the anti-hero

Death of the Joker in The Dark Knight Returns (1986)

Frank Miller's 1986 limited series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which tells the story of a 50-year-old Batman coming out of retirement in a possible future, reinvigorated the character. DKR, as it is affectionately referred to by fans, was not only critically acclaimed, but was a major financial success too. Although the importance of this may be downplayed by "true" fans, it is noteworthy that the Batman of the 70s was critically acclaimed too, but was still on the verge of being cancelled due to lack of popularity. Miller pretty much laid, or maybe re-laid, the ground for Batman and everything related to him as we see it today. The scary Joker, the hopelessly corrupt Gotham city police force, Bruce Wayne's recurring nightmares about his parents' murder, and of course, to top it all he added a dash of Batman vs. Superman to the mix. The artwork was also markedly different, bordering on avant-garde, and in a macabre way. Miller's Batman was morally ambiguous, in the sense that although he had very high moral standards which he chose to impose on the society that just refused to get in order, neither his opinions nor his methods always fell within the moral bounds prescribed by society. He was, in many ways, an anti-hero, who despised the fact that Superman had "sold out" to the government and derided his righteous attitude as boy scout-like. The concept of Batman and Joker being each other's raison d'etre also gained mainstream popularity following this series. Readers lapped it up.

The epic face-off that was
the highlight of The Dark Knight Falls

During the same period, DC was in the process of rebooting the histories of its major characters through the Crisis on Infinite Earths series. Batman's origins were re-written by Frank Miller in the Year One storyline, which also attempted to beef up the character of Jim Gordon.

Alan Moore continued this dark trend with 1988's 48-page one-shot Batman: The Killing Joke, in which the Joker, attempting to drive Commissioner Gordon insane, cripples Gordon's daughter Barbara (Batgirl), and then kidnaps and tortures the commissioner, physically and psychologically. Moore continued the theme of Batman being the reason for Joker's existence and vice-versa. In fact, the last few panels, with the two arch enemies laughing like madmen over a silly joke (the Killing Joke) exemplifies just how beautifully twisted this superhero really is.


Following this, the character has essentially stuck to its image, despite minor variations. The 1988 release A Death in the Family and 1993's Knightfall are good examples. Although the artwork was not as unconventional as DKR, the themes remained morbid. After sustained popularity throughout the 1990s, Jeph Loeb's 2003 Batman: Hush series marked the return of Batman at the top.

Movies

Jack Nicholson (Batman, 1989) and
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, 2008) as
Joker, the iconic Batman villain

The portrayal of Batman and other related characters in other media has followed more or less the same pattern as in the comics, but over a much shorter period of time. Tim Burton's two Batman movies were dark and violent in a depressing way, much like the early Batman comics as well as DKR and The Killing Joke, which served as his primary inspirations. Michael Keaton made a sufficiently dark Batman, while Jack Nicholson was undoubtedly the best Joker until Heath Ledger came along. However, Batman Returns, the second movie in the series, turned out to be too morbid for the mainstream audience, and the baton passed on to Joel Schumacher to revive popular interest. His portrayal of the franchise took it back to its 60s campy feel, but with bigger budgets and elaborate special effects. While Batman Forever (1995) was a huge commercial success, and Val Kilmer was not too much of a compromise as Batman, try pitting Tommy Lee Jones' part comic act as Harvey Dent/Two-Face against the character as depicted in DKR or the recent version portrayed by Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight (2008). In both the latter cases, the character of Harvey Dent is seriously scarred, not only physically, but emotionally as well, and Miller makes it clear that even if his face is fixed, the emotional scars can't be remedied by plastic surgery. Schumacher's next offering Batman & Robin (1997) was not just a bad Batman movie, but a really bad movie from every aspect. George Clooney, in his nippled costume, was a pathetic caricature of the dark knight, and the others are not even worth mention.


Then, following a 8-year hiatus, Christopher Nolan re-launched the character the way it was meant to be.

The rest, as they don't say, is the present.

Images: Photo Bucket, Studio Daily,Wikipedia, DC Wikia