Today's Video Link

batman02

John Green tells why he hates Batman. I love Batman but I can't disagree with much that he says.

I started reading Batman when he looked like the left-hand picture above and now he looks like the right-hand picture. As he and his world have gotten grimmer and darker and more realistic, the "logic" in his premise has gotten shakier and shakier. At times also, the character himself has had moments of such total ugliness and insanity that I've imagined a story where the old Batman battles to rid Gotham City of its worst menace ever…the new Batman.

A certain amount of darkening was probably necessary from a commercial standpoint and in some ways, that old art style just came to look like an old art style. But there's a problem with making a fantasy character more "realistic," which is that it's harder to make those huge leaps of logic in his premise. We can buy a talking rabbit named Bugs Bunny when he's in his world. Put him into ours and it's suddenly quite different.

In a way, the great thing about Batman is that there are so many of him that you can usually find one you like. Often, it's the one that was current when you began following the character. But though you like the Batman of one decade, you may well despise (and not recognize the validity of) the Batman of some other decade. If you've been a fan of the character for forty years, you probably hate half of them. One of these days, I'll write a post about the issues and dramatizations that I liked.

Here's what John Green has to say. This man does interesting commentaries as he sculpts his haircut into odd shapes. There are times when it looks like he's trying to replicate Batman's cowl…