Friday, June 09, 2006

Detective Comics 820

One panel, obscured for the spoilerphobic



Thoughts?

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. It's a reference to Batman: the Animated Series.

    When Bruce is hit by fear-gas, he sees his Giant Disapproving Skeleton Father.

    Fact!

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  3. I don't know when it was revealed, but Thomas Wayne had gone to a costume ball dressed as a 'bat-man' Bruce found this costume years after becoming Batman. I imagine that from time to time he would see his disapproving father 'bat' dressed this way. Looks like Fear gas to me.

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  4. All part of the post-OYL Batman. I've read that Don Bats is supposed to finally be past his parents' deaths, and that now he wears the funny suit and punches out evil clowns because it's the right thing to do. The panel is therefore a symbolic rejection of Batty being dominated by the memory of his parents.

    Or it could be that Herr Batguy cannot help but disregard the opinions of anyone wearing a suit with rolled cuffs and goofy booties.

    You never know.

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  5. I think it's just Batman moving beyond his fear of his father's disapproval - it's a sign that he's growing up as a character. He's now his own person, and any theoretical disapproval from his dad won't change that.

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  6. I'm still bemused by the fact that his dad is wearing elf boots and panties.

    That more than anything else hurts my brain.

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  7. That wasn't really Jason Todd who came back to life!

    IT WAS THOMAS WAYNE!!

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  8. It's definitely the fear gas, but I've never seen Thomas Wayne portrayed this way. I'd forgotten TAS, though.

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  9. I think I've seen a Golden Age cover in which an "imaginary story" tells the tale of Thomas Wayne and young Bruce fighting crime as Batman and Batman, Jr or Robin. Maybe I'm wrong

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  10. So if Batman is no longer motivated by tortured childhood trauma and the angsty wailing of his unavenged parents, doesn't this mean that he could probably more effectively fight crime by hanging up the ol' rubber bat suit and, I dunno, donating lots of money to police departments, public education and low-income housing? 'Cause the bat-shaped gimpsuit always used to make sense within the context of "he's kinda crazy", and when you take away the crazy you just end up with the guy in the bat-shaped gimpsuit.

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  11. Wayne can't donate money to Gotham, because Gotham is full of thieves, hucksters, scam artists and murdering criminals who will warp the original intent. There's no one to trust in Gotham City. If you want to make it better, you have to do it yourself.

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