"Beware the Batman" in 2013! New Animated Series
- Thread starter Admiral_Young
- Start date
The original Bat character did carry a gun, it wasn't until later the comics retconed and rewrote the character
Yeah, a year or two later. Sure, 1938 Batman was a gun-toting pulp hero, but that had been abandoned by the early 1940s. The way you say it implies that it was the status quo for a long time, but that's simply untrue. It was an early, tentative portrayal of the character that was swiftly abandoned along with other first-draft elements like the hyphen in his name, the purple gloves, and the New York setting.
Correct and even during that brief period he did not use a gun that often.
That's right. Looking at the synopses of the early issues of Detective Comics, it seems that usually he tried to apprehend the villains alive, and if they died, it was by accident or by their own folly. He usually used his fists or batarangs, and only resorted to guns in rare circumstances.
Here's a good essay on Batman's gun use in his first year:
http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2005/08/batman-and-guns.html
Several of the shots of Batman using guns are just splash-page or cover art that's not actually part of the story. In one instance, he shoots at a machine; in another, he fires a gun to signal the police. The first time we see him actually shoot anyone, he's shooting a vampire with a silver bullet. The only other time is when he strafes a truck from the Batplane, trying to stop its occupants from releasing one of Hugo Strange's monsters. There, he says, "Much as I hate to take human life, I'm afraid this time it's necessary!" And that story, published only ten months after the character's debut, was the last time he was shown intentionally killing anyone, due to an editorial backlash to that very scene. The next time he was shown using a gun three issues later, it was only to wing a sniper, and an editor's note explicitly states that he'd never kill with a gun and usually doesn't carry one.
So really, Batman only used guns to kill living people on that single occasion (since vampires are undead), and even then he stated that it was an exception to his moral code. This meme out there that "Batman used to use guns," as if he were some sort of Punisher-type killer for a significant amount of time, is a gross distortion of the facts, an attempt to impose modern tastes for more violent "heroes" onto the character.
I can't honestly say I'm surprised... I just couldn't get into it.. Even my everything Batman-loving son didn't care for it.
^But you're assuming there's a correlation between the show's removal from the schedule and its audience reception. Given that CN did the same thing with the popular Young Justice and Green Lantern, I don't think we can conclude that. CN's current regime just seems to find older-skewing action shows incompatible with their preferred identity for the network. They seem to prefer younger-skewing, more comical stuff, and are thus less supportive of shows like this.
I don't think it's a case of imposing modern tastes by spotlighting his gun use, but rather hanging a lamp on the fact that Batman is a derivative of the pulp character, the Shadow. Whenever I read those early stories, I don't see a prototypical Punisher. Instead, I note all of the "homages" (a generous term) to Walter Gibson and his work on the Shadow. The images of him wielding guns are more evocative of what came before (the Shadow and other pulp vigilantes) than what came after (the Punisher and his ilk).
Well, sure, but that's because you've actually read the stories and know the facts. I'm talking about the people out there who misrepresent or misunderstand the facts. I've heard rhetoric from some people who exaggerate Batman's early gun use as if to imply that it was routine and normative for a long time, and that his revision into a nonlethal, gun-free vigilante was something that happened after decades rather than just ten months. Maybe that's not intentional misrepresentation; maybe they're just confused and conflating this change in Batman's character with ones that came later, say, when the Comics Code was instituted. But there are still a lot of people out there who haven't read the original comics as you have, and who have a lot of misconceptions about the extent and prominence of Batman's early gun use.
I think the hyperbole about Batman's gun use may stem in large part from Wizard magazine articles nearly two decades ago. One of that magazine's recurring features was to examine "unknown" comic history and lore and then make snarky comments to amuse its readers. In particular, I remember them focusing on Superman spanking Lois, the Batman/Robin sexual subtext, and Batman's gun.
They would pull a comic panel straight out of a book (often with no context given) and rip it apart in the caption, e.g. "Batman Was Once Dirty Harry!" with a splash panel of Bats holding a pistol in both hands. I remember, after reading one such feature, inferring that Batman ALWAYS had a gun holstered in his utility belt in the golden age of comics.
For these pieces, I think that Wizard was more focused on punch lines than accuracy and led to many erroneous assumptions by their readers that may still echo today.
Official statement
There's probably no hope of even airing the remaining episodes either.
There's probably no hope of even airing the remaining episodes either.
don't really see the point in not showing any remaining episodes unless it's case of no play, no pay i.e if the eps don't get broadcast, they don't have to be paid for (in which case the production company has to eat the costs).
I wish WB Animation could find a more congenial home for original, older-skewing DC-based TV series than Cartoon Network. Maybe The CW? They currently have a Saturday morning lineup that includes reruns of Justice League Unlimited (preceded by The Spectacular Spider-Man). Though airing reruns has got to be cheaper than backing production of a new series.
The CW censors the heck out of Justice League Unlimited.
Maybe The Hub?
Maybe The Hub?
After Green Lantern, Young Justice and now Beware the Batman I'm not even going to bother with another Cartoon Network DC Comics based series until it gets a second season. I just don't want to go through this all over again.
Except those first two were put on unannounced hiatus about 2-3 weeks into their second seasons. So even that isn't safe.
Are they censoring it per se, or are they cutting it down to make room for more commercials?
I wouldn't be surprised if they're censoring it, since JLU was made for a prime-time slot and had more violence, death, and sexual innuendo than would generally be allowed in a Saturday morning time slot.
Here's a CW clip with some of the edits
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V_wKwzaCkQ[/YT]
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V_wKwzaCkQ[/YT]
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