Comic Creators Comment on Batman Movies

[Silver Nemesis]

Here are some quotes from writers and artists who worked on the Batman comics, each giving their opinion on the Tim Burton Batman films. If you can find any more quotes, please feel free to add them.

Matt Wagner

"The Burton films were strong on atmosphere but obviously showed that Burton was more interested in the misfit villains than in his title character. In fact, BATMAN RETURNS is often credited as being a better film but I f***ing HATED how it made Batman little more than just another costumed creep, little better than the villains he's pursuing.
Additionally, Burton is so blatantly NOT an action director. That aspect of both his films just sucked."

http://www.batman-on-film.com/interview_mattwagner_jett_2006.html

Bruce Timm

"Burton and Furst were probably influenced by pretty much the same sources we were [...] There were things about the first movie that I thought they got just right – the spooky aloofness that Batman has and the fact that he isn't chummy and hanging out with Commissioner Gordon. I was particularly taken by the scene where Batman takes Vicki Vale back to the Batcave and he's not making eye contact with her, he's not talking to her, he's just being monosyllabic. I thought that was a cool way to go with the character, and that probably influenced us to a degree. We wanted to keep him as remote and creepy as possible [...] Now the Catwoman thing, in retrospect I wish we had made Catwoman more like she was in the movie, because I think that black costume is really, really cool."

http://tiny.cc/fq7w1w

Lee Bermejo

"At the time the first one came out, I was in fifth grade and absolutely loved it. It was so completely new and fresh at the time and obviously made a huge impact on how superhero movies would be done for the next ten years. Visually, they were impressive. Honestly, I can't watch it now because all I concentrate on is how loose the story is, and how little they made you care about the character the movie is named after. In my opinion, all the previous movies failed to be true Batman films because most of the important elements of the Batman mythos where missing. There was no relationship with Gordon, Alfred was never a real presence, and Batman never really did those cool Batman things. The guy could barely move in that suit and he always seemed a little weak to me. It seemed like the attitude was, 'Let's just get to Batman doing his thing so we can spend more time introducing the Joker". The second one was barely a Batman movie at all. It just featured Batman characters. That was clearly a case of Tim Burton doing his own thing with no real care about a story or what these characters represented. The last two were just unbearable and I couldn't get through more than 20 minutes of the fourth. I walked out of the theater it was so bad."

http://www.batman-on-film.com/leebermejointerview.html

Norm Breyfogle

"I really didn't like ANY of the Batman movies. Tim Burton is far too much of a flake to do such a highly rationalistic super-hero. And there were SO MANY bad errors. Batman's costume being so stiff, eliminating ninja flexibility. Batman firing missiles into a crowd of citizens (even though he was ostensibly aiming at the Joker). Making Gotham City so weird that it didn't even really look like Earth (and Batman's supposed to be the more realistic of the superheroes!), etc., etc I understand that a more adult and subtle version of Batman MAY (and I emphasize may) not sell as well as a kid's merchandising franchise, but I'm not a kid!"

http://www.normbreyfogle.com/media/interviews.asp?page=ozcomics

Alan Grant

"I had hoped that when the Batman movie franchise began, back in '89, it would tie Batman into real life and make Gotham a real if weird-to-the-max city. Instead, Tim Burton and the director who followed him (Schumacher, was it?) preferred to source their tales in the campness of the '60s TV show. Don't get me wrong—I loved the '60s TV show, which was must-see for me and all of my teenage friends; nobody went out on Saturday night till Batman was done. But it was a product of its time, and its time is long gone. Michael Keaton should have played the Joker, and Jack Nicholson should have been Batman/Bruce Wayne. That at least would have made both of them actually act for their money, instead of just playing at being themselves."

http://graphicnovelreporter.com/content/alan-grant-batman-and-beyond-interview

Geoff Johns (ranked Batman 89 amongst his top five favourite comic books movies)

"I've got to give a nod to Tim Burton's 'Batman,' just because it did bring Batman into a whole different place and it took (him) away from the TV show."

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/other_news/news/?a=39871

Mark Millar

"You know how "Batman and Robin" is the worst movie ever made? You're wrong. It's the first Batman movie that bites the big one. Yeah, the Tim Burton picture everybody's supposed to like and, frankly, that came as a bit of a shock. I remember being dazzled by this when I was eighteen and went back to see it four times in three weeks. Oddly, I hadn't seen it since and was quite excited about seeing it again, but oh f*** is this movie bad. Tim Burton's "Batman" is the one thing beneath Judas Iscariot at the very base of Hell and Michael Keaton is terrible as Batman. We all loved him at the time because he seemed to be taking it seriously, but watch it now and you'll realise he was just bored. The special effects are "Plan 9 From Outer Space" awful (check out the Batwing sequence, I dare you) and everything from Kim Basinger and Robert Wuhl to the paper-thin plot makes this by far the worst of the batch. Even the brilliant Nicholson is embarrassing, indulged to the point of tedium and clearly out of his mind on drugs the whole time. Please try to watch this again before you leap to your nearest message board to defend this gilded dog-turd of a movie. I swear you won't make it past the first ten minutes.

Daniel Waters (oh-so fashionable screenwriter of the time) does a really nice job on "Batman Returns," although the fact that it all takes place around one stage makes the whole enterprise oddly claustrophobic and not in a good way. "Batman Forever" is probably the best of the bunch, digital technology giving the movie the gloss and pizzaz it's lacking in story and, God bless him, Jim Carrey is nothing if not American's finest living actor. He doesn't just steal every scene he's in; he steals it, takes it home and sends a ransom note to the other actors. He's breath-taking as The Riddler and had Tommy Lee Jones not f***ed up and delivered his lines as straight as they were I think this could have been quite close to very good indeed. The seeds are there, of course, for "Batman and Robin," but it's a waste of time to castigate that picture when we all know how sh*te it was anyway."

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=14523

Graham Nolan

"This will sound like blasphemy, but I was never a big fan of DKR or the Tim Burton movies. Batman (to me) is always first and foremost a detective. He solves crimes using his superior intellect and incredible resources that the police can't handle. He works best as a character with a small group of supporting players."

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/bane-dixon-nolan-part-1.html

Paul Levitz (on Batman 89)

"I think there was a hope that it would do some good, but nothing like what ultimately happened. The business about doubled as a result. It was a combination of things: the movie was such a radical departure from what had been done adapting comics [...] If somebody saw the movie and saw it and went 'I didn't realize comics were like that, or that even Batman was like that,' they had to go to a comic shop. That had a terrific power that we've never seen equaled from any of the comic book films by any of the publishers."

http://www.nycgraphicnovelists.com/2012/01/paul-levitz-history-of-past-and-future.html

Grant Morrison (on Batman 89)

"Tim Burton's version is nothing like Frank Miller's Batman, but obviously it happened because of what Miller did in changing the consciousness of people towards Batman as an icon. It kind of shocked people – it allowed for Batman, at least, not to be treated as a purely camp or comedic or vaudeville type. That's what a lot of fans didn't like in Michael Keaton. He was a comedian – so, again, it was going be another cartoonish performance, and it kind of was – but it was a really Goth cartoon. What Michael Keaton brought to it was more in the Bruce Wayne role because, with Keaton, you really felt that Bruce Wayne was this damaged child. He was constantly bewildered. I thought it was a great performance. After you saw him as Bruce Wayne, you were willing to just buy the guy as Batman."

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/lists/grant-morrison-on-batman-hes-got-everything-20120720/tim-burtons-1989-batman-19691231

(on Batman Returns)

"I like the second Burton film. The whole film was about the effect Batman has had on everyone else. And I think that he gave people who might otherwise have been locked up in prison license to just put on a top hat or a latex suit and call themselves a fantastic name. I like it better than the first one, and I think Michelle Pfeiffer was really good. But on both movies it's a closed set, so it's models and, like, 30 people in Gotham, and only one street corner, and I find them quite claustrophobic. In retrospect, you have to watch them as if they're stage plays rather than movies. I think at the time I wouldn't even have noticed, but they really feel cramped – this really tiny fairy-tale world. But at the time they were groundbreaking – suddenly this Batman stuff could all be taken seriously."

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/lists/grant-morrison-on-batman-hes-got-everything-20120720/batman-returns-19691231

Jason Aaron

"Over the years, I think Joker and Two-Face have headlined the best stories. Penguin has rarely had his day, though Danny DeVito's performance in "Batman Returns" was pretty great."

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=16924

Scott Snyder (ranked both of Burton's films over Schumacher's and Nolan's):

"I LOVE these both. I waited in line with my dad (with a commemorative BK glass I dropped – dropped! and had to get out of line to get again). This was like the Batman I'd been waiting for. A man whose whole city seems like a twisted projection of his own mind. A guy fighting demons in this wild, darkly imaginative and wholly realized world. I'll admit – I was a completely non-believer before seeing Batman in Michael Keaton, but in the end, he won me over."

http://ifanboy.com/articles/batman-writer-scott-snyder-ranks-the-movie-tv-batmen-exclusive-capullo-art/

Steve Englehart (on Batman 89)

"I liked the whole thing a lot. I wish they hadn't changed Silver's and Thorne's names, but I thought they captured them, and Bat/Bruce and the Joker, very well. The thing that did it for me was Bruce saying at one point that he wasn't crazy, which of course is my view, and not that of many others."

http://dccomments.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=interviews&action=display&thread=16

(on the rest of the Burton/Schumacher series)

"My opinion's the same as everyone else's: each one was worse than the one before. I wasn't involved with any of them."

http://www.batman-on-film.com/interview_steveenglehart_jett_2006.html

(on Batman Begins)

"I thought it was an extremely well-written, well-directed, and well-acted movie about a guy who was very similar to The Batman but wasn't The Batman. Too many little things rang false about the character and his world for me to buy into it. But that didn't stop me from enjoying it a lot."

http://www.batman-on-film.com/interview_steveenglehart_jett_2006.html

(on Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight)

"... Close but no cigar. His Joker is more nihilistic than insane, I thought; there was still a core of rationality in there. It's someone very like the Joker, but not the Joker. But I liked the character on screen a lot. As for the Oscar, I don't see why not, at least until we learn his competition. But Hollywood will want to honor him because they didn't give him one for "Brokeback.""

http://www.norwalkreflector.com/article/54017

[BatmAngelus]

Thanks for digging and finding these, Silver Nemesis.  Haven't read some of these before.

There was discussion in the Your Version of Batman Begins thread about Mark Millar and now that Silver's posted the quote, I wanted to bring something up that's important.

First off, I think Millar's entitled to his opinion- whether we agree with it or not- so I'm not going to bash him for expressing it.

I am, however, going to question how truthful he was being.

His work in comics aside, the man's had a wishy-washy reputation for talking about projects/characters that aren't his own.  If he's talking about the next Kick-Ass movie or Nemesis, he's probably telling the truth.  His opinion on someone else's project, though?

Let's run down what I've experienced from him:

Millar actually first came to my attention in 2003 when he posted the "story" about Orson Welles' failed Batman project. 
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=14529

While there are some who still believe in it up until this day, the story was revealed to be a hoax, particularly when knowledgeable fans pointed out that there was no way Jimmy Cagney could've been cast as the Riddler in 1944-1946 when the character didn't exist until 1948.

At the time, this was easy to dismiss as Millar playing a joke.  A "what-if" story, though it would've been nice if he had said so in the same article.

A year later, Millar broke the scoop that people were dying to know: who was going to be Superman in Bryan Singer's Superman movie?
Millar's answer: JIM CAVIEZEL!
http://www.superherohype.com/features/articles/86661-mark-millar-confident-caviezel-is-superman

He stated:

Just to hammer home how confident I am as regards my source (pretty much as good as it gets), I will personally write a cheque to charity for 1000 dollars from my Wolverine royalties (Wolverine 20 and 21 out October 2004) if Jim Caviezel isn't cast as Superman on the day principal photography starts. Warners may have a couple of PR stunts planned prior to the final announcement, but this is a bet that Jim C is standing there in a Superman costume once the cameras start rolling.

I'm not sure if he ever did write that money off to charity but as we all know, Caviezel was not standing in the Superman costume before cameras were rolling.

Last year, Will Beall was announced to be doing the Justice League script.  Millar claimed that he had heard great things about it, saying in June 2012:

A pal of mine is good friends with the new Justice League screenwriter and said his take on the team is incredible. Very real-world and not at all what you might expect. WB has a chequered history with their superhero characters. They're great with their boy wizards, but less consistent with their DC stable. But my chum said that this could be a thing of beauty and has been in the works for a little while now, not just an avengers knock-off. Best of luck to them. The tidbits I heard sound quite dark and mature, which isn't what I expected. But word on Gangster Squad is great too so I feel this is in really good hands.

http://www.slashfilm.com/mark-millar-justice-league-script-dark-mature/

Flash forward to February 2013 and Millar apparently thought the whole project was a bad idea:

"Now the stuff I grew up with... I adored the DC stuff growing up but really, how do you do a movie about Green Lantern," asks Millar, "his power is that he manifests green plasma from his imagination and uses them as weapons against someone? Even that in itself if you just imagine then watching a fight scene with a guy who's like a hundred feet away making plasma manifestations fight someone – it's not exactly raucous, getting up close and personal.

"The Flash has door handles on the side of his mask and if he doesn't wear that mask, I'll be pissed off, you know what I mean? They're in a weird, weird situation – if you've got a guy who moves at the speed of light up against the Weather Wizard and Captain Cold or whatever, then your movie's over in two seconds.

"You can get away with stuff in comics that in live action's just a bit sucky – the best one is definitely Aquaman. Aquaman can't even talk under water. If you think about it in comics it's fine, you just have a speech balloon, but how do you have Atlantis and people talking under water? Are they gonna talking telepathically? Is it going to be body forms? The actual logistics of each member of the Justice League is disastrous, and you put them all together and I think you get an excellent way of losing $200 million."

http://www.scifinow.co.uk/news/33956/justice-league-film-is-an-excellent-way-of-losing-200-million/

No mention made of all the good things that he had "previously heard" about the project.  In fact, if you click on the Millarworld source link in the Slashfilm article where Millar had praised what he heard about JLA, you'll find that it directs to a thread that's been deleted.  Hmm...
http://forums.millarworld.tv/index.php?/topic/100844-this-new-justice-league-movie/

Now, in November 2012, just before he apparently changed his tune about Justice League, Millar got the role of consultant for the Marvel projects at Fox:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=42105

Perhaps this had an "influence" on his opinion. 

It was in this role as consultant that he got asked questions about the next big X-Men film, Days of Future Past, and gave out intel in interviews, like this one from February 2013:
http://www.sfx.co.uk/2013/02/01/mark-millar-on-x-men-days-of-future-past/

A month later, in March, the film's director Bryan Singer was asked about Millar's involvement.  Singer's answer: he wasn't involved at all yet.

I've not spoken to Mark Millar at all. He's not involved. I don't know what his role is about. All I know is that I have my own specific beliefs about how to take this universe forward. I started with the first X-Men, then First Class and now I am combining them and I think it could go further than that and I have some ideas about that, so perhaps he should chat to me at some point.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/03/11/bryan-singer-on-mark-millars-involvement-in-x-men-days-of-future-past/

While Millar had never said that he met Singer in the first place, it's a bit odd for him to have established authority to talk about the project when he hadn't even met with the director yet...

So, now let's look at his opinion on Batman 1989 in this context, along with something else people should know. 

This piece that Silver Nemesis found is from September 2003.

From 2008-2010, Millar wrote the comic Kick-Ass.  What superhero movie gets a tribute not once but twice in the story?  Batman 1989. 

The character Red Mist drives to the Danny Elfman soundtrack (I believe) and consciously quotes the Jack Nicholson Joker at the end of the comic (and the movie) with "As a great man once said, 'Wait'll they get a load of me.' "

Now, perhaps Millar was feeding his disdain for the movie by having his supervillain like it. 

Still, it's an odd choice.  Perhaps Millar's opinion on the film just happened to change...again.

[johnnygobbs]

The character Red Mist drives to the Danny Elfman soundtrack (I believe) and consciously quotes the Jack Nicholson Joker at the end of the comic (and the movie) with "As a great man once said, 'Wait'll they get a load of me.' "

Now, perhaps Millar was feeding his disdain for the movie by having his supervillain like it.  

Still, it's an odd choice.  Perhaps Millar's opinion on the film just happened to change...again.

If you're right and Miller's intention is to imply that a typical fan of 'Batman '89' is a megalomaniac child-killing would-be rapist then he's an even bigger dick then I realised, and no I don't apologise for the language in this instance because if true that's a pretty douchey thing for Miller to do. 

In any case, whatever he thinks of the film that entire line plays off his readers and the film-audience's knowledge and appreciation of that iconic line so it seems rather hypocritical of him to rubbish the movie as he has done.  Also how can I trust the word of somebody who has so drastically changed his opinion about a film he remained 'dazzled' by after watching four times over three weeks as an adult?

Besides, if Miller is going to compare his immature, bratty, control-hungry arch-villain to any sets of fans shouldn't he be looking at the types of fanboys who vote down popular movies on IMDb en masse, who attack professional critics on 'Rotten Tomatoes' for daring to say the slightest criticism and who are known for their rabid slogan 'In Nolan We Trust'?  Now what set of fans could I possibly be thinking of...hmmmm...

[BatmAngelus]

I know I'm the one who proposed the theory, but really, there's very little evidence, other than Red Mist liking the movie, to suggest it holds weight.  (And even then, I'm not sure if RM liking the film means anything.  Alex DeLarge in Clockwork Orange likes Beethoven.  Is the author of that book condemning Beethoven?). 

If Millar wanted to use the Kick-Ass comic to trash or condemn B89, he could've easily done more with the connection.  Kick-Ass would ask Red Mist, "You liked that movie?" or Red Mist would try to emulate Nicholson's Joker more while committing terrible acts, etc.  Such disdain would also likely bleed through into other works.  As it stands, none of this stuff happened.

I think it's more likely that Millar will just say anything to get attention and people talking about him.  It's the only way I can make sense out of the Orson Welles hoax, the Caviezel claim, the JLA claim, the JLA criticism, and talking big about X-Men: DOFP when he wasn't even involved with production.

In 2003, before any of that and before his comics were getting adapted into movies, he may have just said whatever he wanted in order to get a reaction and get people talking about him.

In reality, I think he might actually hold affection for the film, which bled through into writing Kick-Ass.  Let's face it, in 2008-2010 when he was working on the comic, the 1989 movie was not the Batman movie people were talking about all the time.  It was The Dark Knight. 

While Millar could've easily had Dark Knight references in Kick-Ass, he chose to reference the 1989 movie (twice!) instead.  To me, that says something positive about his opinion on the movie.  Otherwise, out of all the superhero movies before 2010, why reference the supposed "worst Batman movie?"

At the time, his statements on the '89 film were five-seven years old and he probably didn't count on someone like Silver Nemesis digging up an old CBR post where he expressed his "feelings."

[The Laughing Fish]

Given that Mark Millar first gave praise to that Justice League script that ended up being scrapped, to suddenly saying that most JL characters wouldn't work in live-action, it makes me suspect that he talks garbage for the sake of attention. He comes across as two-faced. I haven't even read any of his comics, and I have no interest in doing so after watching that reprehensible piece of trash called Kick-Ass.

[johnnygobbs]

In reality, I think he might actually hold affection for the film, which bled through into writing Kick-Ass.  Let's face it, in 2008-2010 when he was working on the comic, the 1989 movie was not the Batman movie people were talking about all the time.  It was The Dark Knight. 

On balance, that's what I think too.  Why reference a movie if it's the 'worst film ever made'?

His comments just come off as incredibly inconsistent.  Also, I could understand if he'd been a child when he first saw 'Batman '89' and was swept away in the hype, but he was an 18-year-old when he watched the movie fours times in three weeks.  I adore the movie but even if I had been lucky enough to see the film on the big-screen when it first came out I doubt I would have wanted to watch it more than twice in quick succession.

[Cobblepot4Mayor]

I just kind of switch myself off now to all this needless criticism. I'm so fed up of it all. Once you've read a dozen of so whining blogs about each Batman film it really does hurt the enjoyment of watching the films. It got to a point where instead of enjoying the brilliant performance of Jack Nicholson as usual I was looking out for justification of his haters comments. Jack Nicholson!....one of the greatest actors in our time playing a classic Batman character and we're being encouraged to prove how terrible it really all is? Frankly I'd rather sit back, relax and enjoy each of the 7 Warner's films a million times more than I already have before I hit the crematorium. Because life's too short to moan.

I must admit I'm disappointed by several of the above quotes especially coming from people I admire such as Norm Breyfogle. These were the first comics I enjoyed at the time of first seeing the movies and for me they go hand in hand in entertainment. You'd think the DC creative staff would get behind the feature films a little more and appreciate them being made at all. Filmmakers could always have spent their money elsewhere after all and then the creators could have a moan as to why their work was being rejected from being adapted. Still I advise other fans to ignore criticism like this. I couldn't give two craps what even the DC creative people think. If you let other morons tell you what to enjoy your living a very sad life in my book.

I've never read Kick Ass nor seen the movies. Just glimpsing them in trailers was enough for me to see how dreadful it all is. I cannot believe comic fans actually buy this overrated trash. So Mark Millar's views is something you can easily laugh off.

I admire what the filmmakers achieved and they should be respected for their worthy tries. After all in movie land there is just (if that) 2 hours to fit in decades of Batman history. Can you really blame them for sacrificing a relationship between Batman and Gordon and just leaving it off for a much later movie? Graham Nolan's comments were quite shocking. The nerve of this guy to criticize when he himself wrote The Dark Knight Rises! He's no angel himself.

[BatmAngelus]

Graham Nolan's comments were quite shocking. The nerve of this guy to criticize when he himself wrote The Dark Knight Rises! He's no angel himself.

Well, Graham Nolan co-created Bane and co-wrote the original Bane comics that Rises drew inspiration from. 

If you mean the writers of the Dark Knight Rises, that was Chris & Jonathan Nolan, with David Goyer, who (I don't think) have had critical comments of the previous movies, other than Goyer remarking once that he wish they hadn't killed off Nicholson's Joker.

[Silver Nemesis]

Wow. BatmAngelus, you just nuked Millar's credibility in one post. I didn't realise he was the source of the Orson Welles and Caviezel (cast him as Batman, Snyder!) rumours. And I hadn't bothered to cross reference the date of the Batman 89 review against the publication date of Kick-Ass. Maybe he's started to appreciate the movie more since writing that review. In any case, I don't think we should read too much into what he's said and written. I'm sure he wasn't taking a shot at Burton fans with the Red Mist character. For one thing, Millar just isn't that subtle. And for another, his criticism of the 89 film strikes me more as an expression of humour than genuine contempt. I think he was just trying to write a funny article about how bad comic book movies were in general, and he strayed a little too far into polemics. Don't take it too much to heart.

I don't think anyone should be upset by these quotes. These people are entitled to their opinions and some of them highlight perfectly valid flaws in the films. It doesn't mean they're completely right, or that your own opinion is wrong, or that you shouldn't enjoy the movies anymore. I've studied critical theory in connection with both film and literature, so I can't help analysing things and looking for faults in them. No work of art is truly perfect, but the trick is to see if the merits outweigh the flaws. If criticism of a film detracts from your enjoyment to the point where you no longer like it, then the film couldn't have been that good to begin with. But if you still enjoy a film, even after confronting its faults, then that's the sign of good movie.

Now, in November 2012, just before he apparently changed his tune about Justice League, Millar got the role of consultant for the Marvel projects at Fox:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=42105

Perhaps this had an "influence" on his opinion.

And now he's endorsed the Superman vs. Batman film:

"No, not at all," he replied. "I actually think it's a brilliant idea. Justice League would have been a really weird move for them. Could you imagine doing The Avengers without doing Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and everything beforehand?"

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/mark-millar-talks-batman-vs-superman-172700892.html

The plot thickens...

I've never read Kick Ass nor seen the movies [...] I cannot believe comic fans actually buy this overrated trash.

In fairness, how do you know it's overrated if you haven't seen or read it?

[BatmAngelus]

In any case, I don't think we should read too much into what he's said and written. I'm sure he wasn't taking a shot at Burton fans with the Red Mist character. For one thing, Millar just isn't that subtle. And for another, his criticism of the 89 film strikes me more as an expression of humour than genuine contempt. I think he was just trying to write a funny article about how bad comic book movies were in general, and he strayed a little too far into polemics. Don't take it too much to heart.

I don't think anyone should be upset by these quotes. These people are entitled to their opinions and some of them highlight perfectly valid flaws in the films. It doesn't mean they're completely right, or that your own opinion is wrong, or that you shouldn't enjoy the movies anymore. I've studied critical theory in connection with both film and literature, so I can't help analysing things and looking for faults in them. No work of art is truly perfect, but the trick is to see if the merits outweigh the flaws. If criticism of a film detracts from your enjoyment to the point where you no longer like it, then the film couldn't have been that good to begin with. But if you still enjoy a film, even after confronting its faults, then that's the sign of good movie.

Agreed.  The main reason I singled out Millar is because of his poor track record with the truth.  If I thought the quote was his genuine opinion, like with the others, I wouldn't have commented.

I believe at one point I read something by Greg Rucka criticizing the Burton/Schumacher films in how Batman killed in their movies (well technically B89-Forever.  Is it funny how George Clooney, perhaps the most maligned Batman actor, is the only live action Batman from the WB movies to not kill anyone?) and that he couldn't see that version of Batman as a hero.

I was curious lately what Rucka thought about the Nolan interpretation, since Batman is still responsible for the deaths of Ra's, Two-Face, and Talia.  I dug into it and while he didn't comment on the "Batman kills" aspect of the films, his response on the Dark Knight Trilogy was:

I think they're exceptionally well-made films that are inherently ashamed of the fact they're about a superhero who calls himself "Batman."

http://ruckawriter.tumblr.com/post/30045442431/what-has-your-opinion-been-on-the-nolan-batman-trilogy

And now he's endorsed the Superman vs. Batman film:

"No, not at all," he replied. "I actually think it's a brilliant idea. Justice League would have been a really weird move for them. Could you imagine doing The Avengers without doing Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and everything beforehand?"

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/mark-millar-talks-batman-vs-superman-172700892.html

The plot thickens...

To be fair, Millar just criticized how the other JLA members- Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman- would work on film when he did the 180 and slammed the JLA movie concept.  His new comments about JL seems consistent with that, at least.

I think even he knows it'd be tough for him to bash a Superman vs. Batman story since he's famous for writing one in Red Son.