‘Superman & Batman’ movie will follow ‘Man of Steel’

[nx1701g]

Is he Batman or The Punisher? You decide.

In a lot of ways I've always felt that Batman and the Punisher are essentially the same character. Punisher is just Batman if he would decide to start killing.

 

[Christopher]

In a lot of ways I've always felt that Batman and the Punisher are essentially the same character. Punisher is just Batman if he would decide to start killing.

I don't see that, unless you limit yourself strictly to the Batman of the 1939 comics or the Burton movies. Batman isn't just a vigilante, he's the World's Greatest Detective. He's a supergenius crimesolver and forensic scientist. He's essentially Sherlock Holmes as a two-fisted pulp detective. The Punisher is basically an obsessed ex-Marine. He has a wide range of specialties, but they're all military -- combat, infiltration, espionage. He has a similar mental discipline to Batman, I suppose, but he's no master detective.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Is he Batman or The Punisher? You decide.

In a lot of ways I've always felt that Batman and the Punisher are essentially the same character. Punisher is just Batman if he would decide to start killing.

Naw. The Punisher is a violent murderer. He kills pimps, drug dealers, gansters, gun runners and all manner of criminals. Batman is a rich man's Daredevil. Both are human, and both use primarily their skills and brains to fight crime in their respective and very rough cities.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Forget Frank Miller...Jan & Dean captured the true spirit of Batman:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otMJtADp5qs[/yt]

 

[CorporalClegg]

I've never heard that before. I didn't even know it existed.

I'm kind of ashamed.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I just discovered it about a year ago...as a lifelong superhero fanatic and longtime 60s music aficionado, I wondered how it had escaped my notice for so long...!

They did an entire theme album, it seems.

 

[dahj]

CW's airing two specials right after The Flash on Jan 19th, one about Legends of Tomorrow, and another about the DC Cinematic Universe:

http://comicbook.com/2015/12/30/cws-dawn-of-justice-league-special-to-debut-suicide-squad-traile/

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Sounds like this Batman is a lot like the Batman from The Dark Knight Returns.

 

[Christopher]

Sounds like this Batman is a lot like the Batman from The Dark Knight Returns.

Which is in keeping with everything we've heard about this Batman since the beginning. The filmmakers have made no secret of the fact that TDKR was pretty much their exclusive reference point for Batman. I guess it's understandable that the director of Watchmen would want to pay similarly close homage to the other seminal dark/deconstructive DC miniseries of the '80s.

 

[Kor]

Batman is just a comic book version of pulp vigilantes like the Shadow, anyway (but sans guns after 1939).

Kor

 

[the G-man]

In a lot of ways I've always felt that Batman and the Punisher are essentially the same character. Punisher is just Batman if he would decide to start killing.

I don't see that, unless you limit yourself strictly to the Batman of the 1939 comics or the Burton movies. Batman isn't just a vigilante, he's the World's Greatest Detective. He's a supergenius crimesolver and forensic scientist. He's essentially Sherlock Holmes as a two-fisted pulp detective. The Punisher is basically an obsessed ex-Marine. He has a wide range of specialties, but they're all military -- combat, infiltration, espionage. He has a similar mental discipline to Batman, I suppose, but he's no master detective.

I think the issue is that, a lot of what you describe as "Batman" has been missing from the character since the late 80s.

During that past 20 or 30 years, I've rarely seen Batman use his detective skills. It's more what you describe as combat, infiltration and espionage, supplanted with high tech weaponry and surveillance equipment.

 

[Christopher]

Batman is just a comic book version of pulp vigilantes like the Shadow, anyway (but sans guns after 1939).

He's not "just" what he started as, because the character has evolved a great deal and accumulated other influences since that primitive beginning. He started out as a Shadow/Zorro pastiche, then became more Sherlock Holmes-like and more Superman-like (in terms of the wholesome, heroic, kid-friendly attitude he took on). And then he absorbed a lot from Daredevil once Frank Miller came along. And I realized recently that Batman: Year One draws heavily from the Green Hornet, since the Green Hornet was a wealthy public figure who became an outlaw vigilante because his city was so racked with organized crime and corruption that the authorities could do nothing, except for the one honest city official who secretly worked with the Hornet.

If Batman were only one thing, he wouldn't have been so enduring and adaptable a character.

 

[Showdown]

Saw this today. Do you think armored Lex will appear in the film, or just made for the toys? I wished it would have Wonder Woman instead of Lex.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Forget Frank Miller...Jan & Dean captured the true spirit of Batman:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otMJtADp5qs[/yt]

Have you heard R. Kelley's "Gotham City" song?

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfpnIyqieyk[/yt]

It's not half bad, and I could see Batman fighting every night to make the kind of city Kelley sings about, a reality. It's too bad that this song was apart of the Batman & Robin soundtrack.

 

[nx1701g]

Saw this today. Do you think armored Lex will appear in the film, or just made for the toys? I wished it would have Wonder Woman instead of Lex.

I think that he's going to. Some of the people who have seen early previews of the film have said that there's a lot more to Lex than what the promos have shown.

 

[YLu]

I'm not reading the spoiler, but I thought the The Dark Knight Returns reasoning for an even crueler Batman was merely the fact he's been doing it for so long, seen his basically adopted family be killed in various ways, and is in many ways at his moral endpoint, or close to it.

Plus there's the fact that it was meant to be a satirical deconstruction of superhero comics, which is why everything was pushed to an almost farcical extreme. Superman was the unthinking lap dog for an eternal Reagan administration, Batman was the kind of deranged, violent figure that might realistically be more likely to be a costumed vigilante, etc. The problem is, comics creators since have missed the point that it was a deliberate exaggeration and critique of mainstream comics and have used it as a template for mainstream comics.

Aspects of it were satire, but I'd argue Batman's personality wasn't one of them. Aside from YEAR ONE, every other time Miller's depicted Batman it's been with the same over-the-top personality. And per Miller's own words:

What, in your mind, is the biggest misunderstanding that people have about The Dark Knight Returns?

Oh, I'm very glad you asked that question, because it's one I've been dying to answer. What I feel was misinterpreted most was that people thought I'd cast Batman as an anti-hero, when, in fact, I'd intended him as the purest of heroes.

 

[Christopher]

Well, either it's satire, or Frank Miller is out of his mind. The latter is pretty much a given these days, but I was trying to give his younger self the benefit of the doubt. Either way, the end result is too extreme to be a particularly good model for how to approach Batman as a character.

 

[ancient]

Saw this today. Do you think armored Lex will appear in the film, or just made for the toys? I wished it would have Wonder Woman instead of Lex.

I think that he's going to. Some of the people who have seen early previews of the film have said that there's a lot more to Lex than what the promos have shown.

The style seems a bit too different, but maybe.

Well, either it's satire, or Frank Miller is out of his mind. The latter is pretty much a given these days, but I was trying to give his younger self the benefit of the doubt. Either way, the end result is too extreme to be a particularly good model for how to approach Batman as a character.

Frank Miller is great.

 

[Anwar]

Didn't Miller say something about how if TDKR had been one more issue longer he'd have had Batman fighting on giant pianos or something? He definitely wasn't afraid to poke fun at Batman in that series.

 

[JD]

I'm really hoping there's something going on with the character to explain that, and that it isn't normal behavior. He's always been a dark character, but that's taking it to more of an extreme than we usually see.

I'm not reading the spoiler, but I thought the The Dark Knight Returns reasoning for an even crueler Batman was merely the fact he's been doing it for so long, seen his basically adopted family be killed in various ways, and is in many ways at his moral endpoint, or close to it.

Seems simple enough to me; it can't be easy being the Bat.

What the review said about Batman does make me a little nervous. I'm really hoping there's something going on with the character to explain that, and that it isn't normal behavior. He's always been a dark character, but that's taking it to more of an extreme than we usually see.

They're probably trying to draw as sharp of a contrast between Batman & Superman as possible. I actually like it. Just from the trailers Batfleck has already surpassed Bale's version in my eyes. Bale is ok, but he lacked a real intimidation factor with that goofy voice. This batman has a crippled batgirl & dead Robin, he's probably snapping spines like Bane at a dance party.

Yeah, I like it too. They've been talking about this Batman being in a very bad place, psychologically and emotionally, at the start of the movie. Makes sense to me that befriending Superman and Wonder Woman would start to bring Batman back from that dark place a bit.

I'm hoping it is something along the lines of what you are guys are talking about here. I'm not against a darker, more violent Batman as long as he's given a good reason for being that way. The way they had Alfred acting in the one trailer and the fact that they are putting such an emphasis on what Bruce went through in Metropolis and Robin being dead, makes me think that will be the case.

Forget Frank Miller...Jan & Dean captured the true spirit of Batman:

That is hilarious. I didn't know it even existed. If they ever do a retro Batman & Robin movie, that has to be the theme song, or at least used in it somewhere.