In my fourth birthday I dress up like Batman. Then I knew him just by the 60s TV show, whose constant repetitions I watched religiously. Although by then the Burton’s film was already in cinemas, I don’t remember watching it until they star showing it on TV. My next memory about the dark knight, and maybe the strongest one, was also from TV. I must have been around seven years old when I stared watching Batman: The Animated Series. It instantly became my favourite cartoon, but also my principal referent about what Batman is, or must be. Even now I can’t stop relating Batman with that kind of noir 50s ambiguous era. I love everything about that series. The stories were amazing; smart, deep and amusing at the same time. Then I met many of Batman’s enemies, even the ones I knew from the 60s series were so different. The Riddler became my favourite, he was so smart and all their plans were too… well planned. But all they were great; many had those tragic origins that make them unforgettable and heartrending; Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, Man-Bat, Clayface.
Ironically in the last media I approached Batman was in his original one. I started reading Batman comics when was around eleven or twelve. I read Batman form Contagion to just before No Man’s Land begins. And besides the regular series (here all the Batman and Batman related comics was published under one single title), I started reading many specials, and old issues. On that time I read, The Dark Knights Return, Killing Joke, A Death in the Family, and the whole Knightfall to KnightsEnd arc. I get intrigued by all those darker stories, many of them brutal, and thrilling. I met then his most obscure enemies, Mr. Zsasz, Tally Man, Abattoir, and also watch the most brutal side of the night crusader in Azrael and in the future Frank Miller’s Batman.
But the most shocking thing was sawing the perfect personification of madness, of anarchic chaos, in the Alan Moore’s Joker. Then I really understand the real darker side of the dark knight. So I started hating everything that felt like a diluted version of Batman, starting with the 60s show, and continuing with the, well disserved to be despised, Schumacher’s films.
I rediscovered Burton’s films then, maybe more for Burton than for Batman. But I watched them in a different way, and loved them more than ever. Specially Returns, which brought us the greatest Penguin I have ever seen in any media. Burton Batman films’ are remarkable, their gothic ambience, dark and fantastic. Like a Poe’s tale, like a Gorey’s illustration. That’s why I love them and for being all the opposite I hated Batman Begins. It’s a good film, that’s impossible to be denied, nevertheless I just can’t love it because it’s so realistic, so urban, so modern. And for me Batman is nothing of that. On the other hand, The Dark Knight it’s impossible to don’t be loved, despite all the things I didn’t like about Begins stayed. But I guess that worked for the story, is a story of our days, a post 9/11 film, that must happened in a world closer to ours.
The Dark Knight was almost the last thing I have read or watched about Batman. I hadn’t read a new Batman comic for almost five years, mainly because I don’t have the time nor the money to read a monthly comic. But I more or less knew what Morrison was doing with his R.I.P. And then the big a heard the big news, Batman was death, so I ran to buy that Final Crisis issue and read it. It was kind of disappointing; Darkside, gods killing bullet, Super holding the body. It just didn’t feel like the right ending. Luckily it wasn’t, the final Batman comic was coming, and it would be written by the greatest comic book writer (and one of my favourite writers in general) Mr. Neil Gaiman. When I finished reading the first part of Whatever Happened to the Night Crusader, I wasn’t sure what I thought about it. It was absolutely interesting, with a changing tone between comedy and tragedy. The Alfred’s tale was mind blowing. And the fact of Batman being “off screen” like a watcher, just as us, but also as an omnipresent being, it’s wonderful.
After I finished reading the second part I had no doubt, it was amazing. The first page with three panels each one showing a different Batman on his coffin. And then the stories about his death begins again, everybody tells a different story of a different Batman. They varies in tone, style and shape, but are the same in essence, in all of them Batman dies being Batman, sacrificing himself to save the other, don’t giving up, don’t turning back. Batman finished in the only way he could, because just the death could stop he being Batman. And then Batman It’s over, every Batman, and each Batman, that are really all the same one. Doesn’t matter if his fights are illustrated by onomatopoeic signs, or if he lives in a 50s noir Gotham, nor if he loves Thalia or Selina or it’s too busy to love anyone. Nor if is Burton’s, Miller’s, Moore’s or Nolan’s. Nor if he’s the one a four years old kid dress like or if he’s the one a college student saws Kierkegaard philosophy on his pages. all of them are the same, all of them are a hero, all of them are Batman.
Labels: batman, comics, neil gaiman
