References to the films in the comics

[johnnygobbs]

You are a legend Silver Nemesis!  Keep up with these awesome posts.

[Furstmobile]

Hey Silver, do you have Detective #742?

There's a moment in that issue where he gives the Batmobile some Keaton-esque voice commands. He's even running down a wet city street, with his cape kind of catching the wind in similar way, telling it to "Open."

[Silver Nemesis]

Cheers Gobbs Glad you like them. Here're a few more.

There's a moment in that issue where he gives the Batmobile some Keaton-esque voice commands. He's even running down a wet city street, with his cape kind of catching the wind in similar way, telling it to "Open."

Good call Bingo. I'd completely overlooked that one. The silhouette of his cape mirrors the shape of Keaton's when he's running down the alley with Vicki. And the use of a single-word voice command reflects the minimalist speech of the movie Batman.



I was looking over some of Paul Gulacy's work on Legends of the Dark Knight and Catwoman Vol2, and he's used Burton's movies for visual reference more times than I'd realised. This image in particular was clearly influenced by Batman Returns.



The term 'Batwing' originated in the 89 film. Until that point it'd always been referred to as the Batplane. Many comics have since modelled their depictions on the versions seen in Batman 89, Batman Forever and Batman: The Animated Series.



In the Elsworld story Batman: Gotham Noir the Joker is never actually referred to as 'Joker', but instead goes by the name Jack Napier.



Staying on the subject of Elseworlds, my favourite, and the first really gory comic I ever read as a kid, was a 1993 comic called Batman/Dark Joker the Wild. This tale relocates the Batman myth to a violent Warhammer-style fantasy world in which the Joker is a brain-eating sorcerer and Batman is literally a man-beast. The 89 movie's influence on the tale is evidenced in some of the gothic fantasy imagery, but more noticeably in the Batman-Joker relationship. In this story the Joker is the one who killed Batman's parents.



Batman himself is shown to use lethal tactics against the Joker's forces.



And at the end of the story, in a scene that visually recalls their confrontation from the 89 film, Batman and the Joker fight at the top of a vast, gothic citadel. Batman intentionally kills the Joker, tearing out his throat and hurling him to his death. And for all those people who complain about the Joker screaming when he fell to his death in the movie, he screams when he falls in this comic too.



The final exchange between Batman and Jaymes (this story's equivalent of James Gordon) is similar to the scene where Gordon first activates the Batsignal in Batman 89.



This isn't a Batman comic reference, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. In Mark Millar's Kick-Ass the eponymous character and Red Mist listen to some unspecified Danny Elfman music while patrolling the city. While they never state what the music is, I always assumed it was the Batman theme, since that fits the context.



I was really disappointed they changed this scene in the movie. But one scene they changed for the better was the final one, where the villain Red Mist quotes Jack Nicholson's Joker.



In the movie they made this reference more explicit by having Mist sitting at a desk looking out of a window as he says it.

[GBglide]

Track 8 is "Roasted Dude".  Not exactly cruisin' music....

[Silver Nemesis]

Here's a short post about the Batman newspaper comic strip that ran following the release of Batman 89. Written by Max Allan Collins (who also wrote the English language translation of Batman: Child of Dreams) and drawn by Marshall Rogers, it was originally published between 1989 and 1991. The Desert News ran an article introducing the comic in which they pointed out the movie's influence on the strip.

Last summer's movie is not only responsible for this new comic strip, but also for a great deal of its plot.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/71391/NEW-BATMAN-COMIC-STRIP-PREMIERES-TODAY.html?pg=2

Interestingly, the article also addressed the issue of Batman killing in the movie and the comics.

Batman had no qualms about killing criminals in the movie, nor has he ever had any hangups in the comic books. In fact, historically Batman will kill when necessary, while many other superheroes will not. This difference has caused Batman's friendship with other heroes to be shaky at best. For example, Batman and Superman split up their comic book friendship in the mid 1980s because of differences relating to violence and killing. (Ironically, Superman did later have to kill three Kryptonian villains and this caused him to develop a split personality and to spend months of self-imposed exile in outer space. But he and Batman are still estranged).
The Batman movie perhaps best aligned itself with the mid-1980s graphic novel, "Batman: The Dark Knight" by Frank Miller. Hence, the surge of violence and dark overtones.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/71391/NEW-BATMAN-COMIC-STRIP-PREMIERES-TODAY.html?pg=2

The strip doesn't take place in the movie canon or the comic canon, but rather occupies a self-contained continuity that is a mixture of the two. It is implied that the series begins shortly after the events of the movie, or at least a sequence of events similar to those depicted in the movie.

The first page tells us that this is the first year of Batman's crusade, just like the film.

 

Vicki Vale has won a Pulitzer for her coverage of Batman's activities. She physically resembles Kim Basinger, albeit with shorter hair.



The first time we see her she is being interviewed on television, discussing whether Batman is a friend or foe.



She and her interviewer talk about the Joker's recent reign of terror. Apparently Batman rescued Vicki from the Joker.



Not much is known about the clown prince of crime, though he's rumoured to have been an enforcer for a recently murdered crime boss.



The details of Batman and the Joker's final confrontation are then related by Vicki. Apparently she witnessed the two of them fighting. The Joker tried to escape by grabbing a rope ladder dangling from a helicopter. Batman hurled a projectile at the Joker, causing him to let go of the ladder and plummet to his doom.



However, the Joker's death is far more ambiguous in the comic. He fell into Gotham bay and might have survived, though he is presently presumed dead by the authorities.



At the time the comic strip begins, Batman has not yet returned to Gotham following the defeat of the Joker. He's waiting for the city to summon him using the Batsignal he gave them in the wake of the Joker's demise.



This was the starting point for the strip and it clearly has its basis in the 89 film. The strip would go on to feature Catwoman, the Penguin and Two-Face, and those stories in turn influenced Batman Returns, Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Forever. I'll post more about that in the relevant threads if I get the chance.

[Paul (ral)]

Marshall Rogers, a relatively unknown cartoonist

That was a long time ago!

I love Marshall's style.

[Silver Nemesis]

Yeah, I thought that 'unknown' comment was a bit off. Rogers was always one of my favourite Batman artists. Didn't he do some pre-production concept art for the 89 film?

[GothamAlleys]

You're close. DC actually asked Furst to do a complete redesign of the comics Gotham for them, which he did. .

The first issue in which Furst's Gotham appeared had come out by the time he committed suicide, and the issue was dedicated to him.

Anyone knows which issue is that? I just wrote about the impact and influence of 1989's Batman and I really wanted to add that

[GBglide]

"Destroyer" was a three part story. http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_Destroyer

Batman #474
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27 (this issue has drawings by Furst at the end)
Detective Comics #641

[Azrael]

In Legends of the Dark Knight # 122, part of the NML arc, Batman not only wears all-black, but there are a few obvious visual nods to the movies (some panels obviously used Kilmer as reference). Also, note the musculature of the torso armour and the gloves, like a combination of the B89 and BF suits. Batman in this issue combines the darker look of the movies with the agility of the comics, IMO it shows that an all-black Batman can totally work on the page.





(Imageshack decided long ago that they want to suck, badly, so a facebook page can serve as an imagehost too)