Happy 75th Anniversary to Batman!

[thecolorsblend]

I've always been curious how the Bruce Wayne show would've turned out.

Smallville works for me because there's plenty of comic book precedent for Superboy. Ultimately, Smallville became a hodge podge of influences. Primarily Silver Age but plenty of Post-Crisis, Bronze Age and Golden Age thrown in as well.

But Batman doesn't really have that type of flexibility. At least, not as far as I know. The idea of an unmasked Bruce Wayne squaring off with all or most of Batman's rogue's gallery... I'm not sure how that would've worked.

I think things worked out for the best with this series.

[Silver Nemesis]

That series probably would've been like Gotham, only with the production values of Birds of Prey and a lot more teen angst. Smallville worked because it was effectively a Superboy show, but there isn't really a comparable Batboy-era of Bruce's life to provide the basis for a teenage Batman show.

The closest thing we have to that now would be Gotham High, which is a hideous stain on the history of Batman comics. No one wants to see that story adapted for screen.

[Gotham Knight]

A Bruce Wayne show could work if it worked as a story largely about the time he traveled abroad. You could do it as a eastern martial arts show set largely at the dojo and surrounding country or maybe as a wandering man show ala Kung Fu where he walks among the towns and villages of Asia/Europe helping people as a nomadic samurai all before he went back to Gotham.

[The Joker]

Dan Jurgens & Dick Giordano Batman Art from 1983.





Dan commented on X that he still had the training wheels on at this stage in his career, but even still, I think the talent was evident.

[thecolorsblend]

Obvious talent. But not so much of Jurgens's own voice. That Batman seems heavily influenced by Marshall Rogers and Neil Adams.

Which is no criticism. If anything, I probably would've preferred it if he had stuck with that model. Because the occasions he drew Batman in the Nineties are... not great.

[The Joker]

There's something to that.

When thinking of Jurgens' Batman, this is pretty much the first thing that comes to mind. Probably because it was around this time, that I started paying attention to the creatives, and not just visuals/stories.



I don't think Jurgens' Batman is necessarily bad, but will agree that his style never really popped as it did for Superman (same goes for John Byrne honestly). Which, I would say, made Dan as THE defining artist for Superman in the 1990's.

Though I will say, ever since Zero Hour, I do think Dan does a pretty good job with Batgirl.