Nobody Made You Click the Link

aerialsquid:

This is from the Batman ‘66/Man from U.N.C.L.E. comic, written by Jeff Parker with art by David Hahn, in a scene where Hugo Strange is attempting to analyze and then brainwash them into assisting his plan for psychology-based world pacification, a not unreasonable motivation in the era of the Cold War. And wow.

The original Batman ‘66 comic ran itself into the ground as a promising start devolved into horrible art, a fundamental misunderstanding of the line between camp and lazy parody, and a focus on reworking more well-known contemporary villains to fit the Batman ‘66 setting rather than engaging with existing characters from the show itself. I didn’t have immensely high hopes for this one either, but the series has actually been surprisingly good so far. The plot (and there actually is one) has been welding the themed-villains-and-bright-costumes themes of the Adam West Batman show quite satisfactorially to the superspy shenanigans of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. without trying to spoof either one of them. It knows that it’s not fun because it’s trying to be funny, but because it’s playing what it’s doing straight as an arrow while the concepts themselves are bizarre.

And here we have, praise to the blessed saints Kane, Finger, and Dozier, the writer actually taking the material seriously. This is the kind of stuff I’d have loved to see put in fanfic and here it’s being put in the closest thing we’re getting to canon these days. It’s not coming at Batman et al with an expectation that the reader will be really thinking about other versions of Batman, but addressing the Batcharacters of the show itself.

Batgirl’s analysis is noteworthy because her background (and choice of transport) are different from those of later Batgirls. The show itself is kinda patronizing towards women, as are many of the characters, and Batgirl loudly forging her own identity with a lace-trimmed motorcycle takes on meaning it wouldn’t have in a modern context.

With Robin it reflects his deep respect–perhaps even fixation–with Batman/Bruce, listening with determination to countless lectures intended to keep him on as straight and noble a path as possible in every aspect of his life. Robin doesn’t really have any friends outside of Bruce because I imagine it’s hard to relate to teenagers whose biggest problem is that the malt shop is out of straws. When he fights he does so more viciously, sometimes even held back from aggression by Batman because he takes what he does so damned seriously.

I can’t entirely speak to the accuracy of Hugo’s analysis of Ilya and Napoleon, though ideally some relevant Fans from U.N.C.L.E. can pipe in about that, but given my limited understanding of the show they make sense. They’re from different sides of a stalemated war–Russia vs. America, Capitalism vs Communism–that threatens at any moment to destroy the world, but their devotion to each other is ironclad and their devotion to protecting this fragile world equally so. They do what U.N.C.L.E. needs them to do because if they don’t, they might let pass the spark that will ignite the Cold War’s powderkeg.

A passing analysis is also given to Batman’s villains. Almost all of them have some theme and I like that Hugo pulls out that acting out that theme is symbolic of them trying to control their own minds. Note that Joker’s theme is ‘chaos’, not 'jokes’, a much stronger definition of a character whose main motive is disrupting a society that values rules and order.

And Batman himself? There’s one line from Hugo I really want to pull out that I think defines what makes West!Batman so very different from his successors:

“[The darkness] transformed you like the others. You cloak yourself in it but you refuse to personify it.”

West!Batman is not the night, nor is he vengeance. He’s a well-known, well-loved figure, known as the Caped Crusader but not the Dark Knight. He appears in public shaking hands with the police, who’ve even given him a special legal dispensation to do the things he does, because that’s not what his world needs. It’s a world where virtue is sure to triumph as long as people have virtue and Batman’s job is to inspire that virtue.

He isn’t Miller’s Batman, or Dini’s, and very much not Nolan’s or Snyder’s. He’s Dozier’s. This uniqueness is being recognized but at the same time taken seriously. The fact that this comic can take what are often seen as caricatures and look at them instead as characters is what makes this series actually good, rather than a dull attempt to cash in on childhood nostalgia like so many other remakes and callbacks.

(And the fact that this comic isn’t sneering down its nose at the entire affair makes me really happy because I’m a tiny bit sick of folks insisting that well-implemented Lawful Good is naive, stupid, ineffective, and fit only for mockery rather than sympathy. Maybe I’m reading too much into this scene, idk.)

(via iconuk01)