It’s often been remarked that Spider-Man’s schtick wouldn’t work nearly so well if he didn’t live in a town with so many tall buildings, but consider: how well would Batman’s “I am the night” routine work if he was operating out of a normal city where people actually live, rather than a perpetually twilit urban hellscape that looks like the Art Deco movement had a one-night stand with Soviet Brutalism in a wrought-iron-and-gargoyle factory?
That is my favorite description of the Batman aesthetic ever.
OMDFG that’s a perfect description.
Imagine Spiderman ballooning in wide open areas. No, sorry, can’t get to that crime, its against the prevailing wind.
Also, Batman brooding on top of a Wafflehouse.
Batman: God, this stupid city with its sufficient lighting and lack of crumbling infrastructure to shoot grappling hooks into
Superman: Everyone for miles has lead poisoning, I’ve spent the entire night stopping crossword puzzle museum robberies and heists at the Second National Bank of Gotham on the corner of second street and second avenue, and earlier the wall of…clouds? smog?…cleared up for a minute and I’m pretty sure the sky was literally blood red
Commissioner Gordon: If I shine this light into the sky, a man dressed like Dracula shows up.
Internal Affairs Investigator: I’m not sure how that’s a good use of tax doll-
Commissioner Gordon: He brings us lots of inadmissible evidence.
Are you fucking kidding me? You know how this would actually go?
Commissioner Gordon: *slaps roof* You know how much overtime I don’t have to pay on account of this bad boy?
Internal Affairs Investigator: Yeah, but still–
Commissioner Gordon: I just turn it on, and instead of paying a whole precinct time-and-a-half to never see their families, a guy dressed as a bat punches whoever we’re looking for a bunch of times and dumps them in the parking lot.
Internal Affairs Investigator:
That’s not–
Commissioner Gordon:
Sometimes I fire it up just to see who we get. It’s like having a cat that brings you guys with twenty warrants out for their arrest instead of dead birds.
Internal Affairs Investigator:
Okay, but you can’t tell people that. Like, we can’t say it out loud.
Commissioner Gordon:
So I shouldn’t have told the FBI they could borrow it if they ever feel like clearing their most-wanted list?
‘childhood is when you idolize Batman adulthood is when you realize that the Joker makes more sense’ – this is the most Reddit thing I’ve read all day.
Childhood is idolizing Batman, adolescence is thinking the Joker is right, adulthood is realizing that Gordon absolutely doesn’t get paid enough for this shit
hey siri frame this ask above my fireplace and notify the anon that they are literally the most valid human being on this god forsaken rock of a planet we call earth
We start with a slow pan down to Gotham as Oracle narrates
“Ask your average person who Gotham’s most famous citizen is, and you’ll get the same response every time: Bruce Wayne. Everybody’s heard of Bruce Wayne. You’ve probably heard his name a million times before. But there are some things that the average citizen doesn’t know about him. See, to the people of Gotham, Bruce Wayne is a rich kid who never grew up. They think he’s a buffoon, an airhead, a moron. But the truth is…”
*Batman bursts out of a window, screaming, on fire*
*record scratch, freeze frame*
“…they aren’t entirely wrong about that.”
EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE
This is then followed by a series of clips from interviews with various Gotham citizens, all of whom give humorously ironic descriptions of Bruce Wayne’s idiocy:
“Bruce Wayne? I hear the guy gets through a super-car every month! Replaces every one, just like that!”
*Cut to shot of the Batmobile flipping end-over-end after slamming into one of Bane’s APCs*
“Wayne? Please! The guy would probably have accidentally killed himself years ago if he didn’t have that butler to babysit him!”
*Cut to Alfred physically restraining Bruce from going out to fight Scarecrow while having a broken arm, a concussion, and the flu,*
“I bet he throws away cash like it grows on trees!”
*Cut to Batman shouting “Hey, Lucius! Ask R&D to make some kryptonite/Nth metal alloy baterangs! Y’know, just in case!”
“I’m almost jealous. Super rich and he gets to hang out with gorgeous women across the world? Sign me up!”
*Cut to Bruce being slammed face first into a wall repeatedly by Lady Shiva.*
One thing I really adore about Tom King’s Batman (This is from I Am Gotham with David Finch) is that he takes the Moore/Miller “Isn’t Batman craaaaaazyyyyyy” approach and then flips it on its head, showing the repetition and the obsession, the unhealthy coping mechanisms, and then asks the simple question, why are they unhealthy? They kept him alive, kept him together, helped him become a better person, didn’t they? It takes the mentally ill aspect of Batman’s character and separates it, utterly, from the “Sociopathic villain” perception it seemed to go hand in hand with, explaining that, yes, Batman can be mentally ill, and yes, Batman can still then be an inherently, unambiguously good person
jinlinli 