What era of Batman comics are your favorite?

Started by batass4880, Thu, 11 Sep 2008, 20:43

Previous topic - Next topic
^ Sure  :).
Basically, the Joker is back in Gotham City and hunting after the underling who ratted him out to the cops.  Since he doesn't know which gang member it was, he decides to kill all five of them (thus, the five-way revenge).  It is essentially a cat-and-mouse game, with Batman hunting after Joker's former thugs and trying to protect them and Joker killing all of them off in his usual creative Joker ways.  When it comes to the fifth and final thug, Batman succeeds in saving his life in the shark tank and hunts down Joker at the end.

The only possible influence I can think of for TDK is a name.  In the movie, Bruce and Alfred track the fingerprint on the bullet to a man named Melvin White.
Two of the thugs names in The Joker's Five-Way Revenge are Bigger Melvin and Packy White.

The significance of this story, I think, is that it brought the modern Joker to us. 
The Joker in Batman #1 is a relatively humorless homicidal maniac.  He may laugh and smile occasionally, but his personality was pretty much the standard pulp/comic villain. 
When the Batman comics got lighter, the Joker became comical, but a bit of a pushover in terms of his crimes.
What Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams did in this story is combine the two into one unique characterization, where Joker had the dangerous homicidal tendencies from Batman #1, but with the deceptively light, humorous personality from the lighter era.

That awkward moment when you remember the only Batman who's never killed is George Clooney...

Wed, 14 Jan 2009, 16:39 #31 Last Edit: Wed, 14 Jan 2009, 22:44 by batass4880
Excellent, thanks alot BatmAngelus! ;)

As much as I liked Ledger's pure killer Joker, I personally prefer the killer-clown version, the way Jack did it.

Any era where Batman is in dark & realistic settings, just the way his stories should be.

Quote from: The Batman Returns on Fri, 16 Jan  2009, 09:09
Any era where Batman is in dark & realistic settings, just the way his stories should be.
Dark, yes.  Realistic?  That one's open.

Sorry, I should've been more elaborate. What I meant by realistic is how the Batman operates. There are the comics that depict him as campy & in a silly costume, not making him live up to his name. Therefore, it's more realistic to have the Batman wear menacing suits & scare the hell out of superstitious criminals, like at the beginning of BATMAN for example. Now THAT'S Batman! ;)

Yeah, maybe it is because the movies are what got me into the comics, but whenever I read them I always see bits a pieces where I'm like "that looks like something Keaton would do."

Does anybody on here know what ever happened to that series Legends Of The Dark Knight? I haven't seen it anywhere for like a year, and being on this topic it just popped into my head.

Thu, 22 Jan 2009, 22:34 #36 Last Edit: Thu, 22 Jan 2009, 22:36 by david icke
Quote from: BatmAngelus on Wed, 14 Jan  2009, 16:23

The only possible influence I can think of for TDK is a name.  In the movie, Bruce and Alfred track the fingerprint on the bullet to a man named Melvin White.
Two of the thugs names in The Joker's Five-Way Revenge are Bigger Melvin and Packy White.


Have to say, very impressed with this observation.

Hi, first post, big bat-fan, had to check out this site after it was linked to at superherohype.

My fav era of teh comics would have to be the 70's and early 80's, basically the ones I grew up reading, Denny O Neil, Steve Engelheart/Rodgers, Irv Norvick , Gerry conway, Gene Colan, Dough Moench, Jim Aparo, Bob Haney, Mike W Barr(for Batman and the outsiders).

I sort of drifted off comics for a couple of years after about 86 but came back in with the advent of the Burton movie and Robin's death. The comics were very good in the period after Robin's death, Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, as has been mentioned, were top class, brilliant stuff that should really be collected in book form. The Aparo stuff with Jim starlin, John Byrne, Marv wolfman etc in Batman was great for me as I knew these guys from my early years reading.
I drifted off comics again in '94 after they did Knightfall, got back in when Batman Begins came out. I think the first BM comic i bought was 'All star' which I enjoy a great deal , good to see some other folk do too. I strated buying Batman again when Grant Morrison came on board and have been hooked all over again, don't think I'll be drifting off to spend my money on computer games(in the 80s) or records(90's) again.

Ok, just off to have a nosey around the forum, cheers.