But since my friend had it handy, I read the issue. It was fantastic: beautiful, well-drawn, and well-written. It was nostalgic. And sad. And it made me think about how different superhero comics are from all the manga I read because there isn’t just one creator. There are hundreds of people involved in the creative process and there are generations of stories because the titles last so long. People of different ages have different perceptions of Batman because different medias are popular at different times, but just about everyone knows who Batman is. The character is immortal in that way.

So how can they write character deaths like this? How can Batman die?

Of course, it’s easy to say that Batman won’t really die or stay dead. I believe DC has a reputation for retconning deaths anyway. (Or otherwise making a plot out of it, ala The Many Deaths of Batman in Batman 433-435.) But Marvel killed Captain America for realz, so why not? The way Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? is playing out at the moment doesn’t seem to lend itself to someone taking up the mantle like Bucky did for Steve Rogers, but the planned hiatuses (cancellations?) of Nightwing, Robin, and Birds of Prey, and the upcoming Battle for the Cowl three-part story seems to suggest as much. Will someone replace Bruce Wayne as Batman? Is Batman really Batman if it isn’t Bruce Wayne?

Assuming he remains dead, the decision to kill Bruce Wayne will impact the series for the rest of forever. Will there eventually be a generation of fans who will have never known him? Will they only know Dick Grayson or Jason Todd to be Batman? Or someone else entirely? Terry McGinus? That thought is bewildering to me. It’s so different from manga, which pretty much lives and dies with its original creator(s). Even though new Astro Boys are being produced after Osamu Tezuka’s death, there is still the original to trace back to.

What is the original Batman? A comic credited to Bob Kane when in reality, Kane contributed very little beyond the name “Batman” and Bill Finger did everything else. Bob Kane’s Batman originally had red in his costume, wings, and no gloves. Is this original relevant anymore? The debut Batman was really quite campy and had no problem with using firearms. The modern Batman has become a psychological wonder with his refusal to use firearms a core part of his character. While I’m sure most people will appreciate the original as part of the history, very few will herald it as the best as I’m sure most would with Tezuka’s Astro Boy.

So if Bruce Wayne is dead, even if he will forever remain Batman to my generation and those before me, will he be nothing more than a detail of history for kids fifty years from now? It’s a depressing thought, but the same could be said of Captain America. (And I wonder, what does Steve Rogers’ death say about our country in recent years?) It’s such a strange idea.

It’s too bad business won’t allow for the name Batman to die with Mr. Wayne. That would be ideal to me. It isn’t like they couldn’t just sell repackaged copies of No Man’s Land or Cataclysm or Arkham Asylum: Living Hell forever. It isn’t like they’d have to stop making movies. I mean, it’s working well enough for Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion and Dragonball, right?

And yet, if SDCC is any indication, comic movies are going to be going strong for at least the rest of the decade. We’ve got the Wolverine movie coming up, and what, I think DC’s going to do a Justice League movie? Not to mention the Watchman hubbub that’s been up since the trailer debuted in theatres with The Dark Knight. You know what I’d really love to see though? I wanna see Marvel to a Civil War movie. That would be so many kinds of epic. Despite the fact that we’ve seen so many superhero movies already, there are still endless possibilities because the DC and Marvelverses alone span hundreds of titles. With Hellboy and Hellboy II, it’s clear that more independent companies also want in on the potential cash cow too, not to mention that manga-oriented companies like TOKYOPOP and Viz are also very interested. We’ve got enough material here to go on forever!

I don’t doubt that the fanboys and girls will be endlessly willing to keep going to see these films in theatres. I don’t doubt that midnight releases will continue to feature long lines full of cosplay and excited debate. Batman is more than seventy years old; we still love him. But the hardcore fans only make up a fraction of the audience, and I wonder how much tolerance the general public has for superhero genre, especially considering most still don’t consider it a very “serious” kind of movie. How seriously can you take a guy dressed up like a bat? Fighting a clown? Kids stuff, right?

We of the fandom understand that Batman has perfectly legitimate, intelligent and relevant themes hidden beneath the mask, smoke, and mirrors, but from experience, I know that most people don’t care to look for those things and just go for the action-packed fighting or whathaveyou. It’s a cheap thrill, and cheap thrills get boring after a while. Is “educating” the general public about the more serious themes of comic books an achievable task? Would they really care to learn when they can easily get their fix of “seriousness” from what they already deem to be serious movies? Would having them understand the underlying themes of movies really even help slow or stop their gradual progression to boredom? I’d like to think so.

The Times article I mentioned earlier claims that most superhero movies follow the same sort of storyline. Hero meets villain. Hero confronts villain. Hero defeats villain. For the most part, I suppose this is true — Superman defeats Lex Luthor (kind of), the X-Men defeat Phoenix (kind of), Spider-Man defeats Venom (kind of?) — but the beauty of any genre is its ability to break free from the conventions that define it. The Dark Knight is actually a great example of that, or really, any Batman storyline involving the Joker. Does he ever really win? Is chaos something you can really defeat? What would defeating the Joker actually mean? Full of deep questions, see?

Personally, I don’t think the comic book movies are going to stop any time soon, though they may start to diversify and stray away more from the straight-up superhero path. Sin City and 300 are also great examples of this (okay, well, 300 is debatable, but it’s still pretty different). Eventually, the general public may come to realize that comics don’t just mean kid’s stuff. In the meantime, they’ll probably keep watching anyway. We seem to be good at hyping things up, after all. :P Franchises do best in trilogies, so I hope they’ll lay off of Spidey a while longer. I wouldn’t mind if they took a bit longer with the X-Men followups either. But Iron Man 2? Hell yeah! More Batman! Yes, please! More Superman? Sure! Bring it. We’ll watch ‘um. And we’ll smash a few more box office records while we’re at it.

[acting, cast, & character]

Everyone that said that Heath Ledger’s performance was amazing and surely Oscar-worthy? They aren’t just spouting fanboyish bullshit. Mr. Ledger’s Joker blew me away. He had the character down to a T. The Joker’s mannerisms, his supreme disregard for order, and his quirky insanity. All perfect. His laughter, his taunting, his eerily in-control demeanor as chaos erupts all around him. Beautiful. Ledger had said he had studied the character based off the very definitive Killing Joke, brilliant source material if there ever was one. Sure, he’s a clown, but he’s a clown with a purpose and a very specific foil role; it isn’t an easy character to capture. As the Batman is my favorite superhero, surely the Joker is my favorite supervillain, so the bar was set high. The glimpses we’d had of his portrayal in the trailers had already riled the crowd, but Ledger surpassed all expectations. A reviewer for the New York Times declared Ledger’s Joker “some sort of masterpiece.” I concur wholeheartedly.

But while Ledger has had all of the spotlight, the talent definitely didn’t end there. Though I’m also quite fond of Two-Face, his role seemed largely eclipsed by the Joker’s in all the trailers, and I had not paid much attention to who had been cast for the role. I subsequently spent the entire movie wondering why the hell Harvey Dent looked so damn familiar (I’m pretty bad with actors, you see). Walking out of the theatre, I almost yelled out “THANK YOU FOR SMOKING” (a great movie, by the way) upon realizing who it had been. Aaron Eckhart was a huge surprise for me — he was as perfect a Dent as Ledger was Joker. Even though they’d taken many liberties with Two-Face’s storyline, Eckhart managed the role extremely well and the core of the character was beautiful. They managed to play on his duality obsession without making it seem over-the-top and ridiculous, and his gradual descent from righteousness and sanity really, really well done. Impressive, impressive all around.

And our final star is of course Mr. Christian Bale as our Dark Knight — it’s a casting that I had already considered to be good. His chiseled American Psycho exterior is oddly appropriate for Bruce Wayne especially. Sure, it’s a billionaire superhero instead of a yuppie serial killer, but they’re both well played facades. His expressions are perfect for Mr. Wayne, and he’s attractive enough for the playboy role to fly. Bale’s Batman though, I never found to be quite as impressive. To be fair, the mask is a difficulty all superhero actors have had to contend with — it hides expressions, which are a key part of all character portrayals. The only thing that really sets one masked person from another is his voice, and I’ve always found Mr. Bale’s Batman voice to be far too forced. The need to change and mask Batman’s voice is certainly understandable, but Bale’s super deep, wannabe Kevin Conroy voice was already distracting and somewhat laughable in Batman Begins. And it’s even deeper in The Dark Knight. Really did not want. Other than that though, Batman wasn’t so bad. The emotion in the Joker interrogation scene was top notch after all.

The rest of the cast is also quite deserving of praise. I hate Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, but he makes a fantastic (thusly promoted) Commissoner Gordon; I love Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. It’s perfect. And Maggie Gyllenhaal is a grand improvement over Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Really, The Dark Knight has one of the best casts I’ve ever seen with both major and minor roles covered by stellar acting. Someone really knew who to pick his actors.

[story & pacing]

Now the story… this was probably the main reason I felt the need to delay writing this for so long. The short version is that I thought it felt a bit jumbled. The Joker certainly succeed in making it chaotic, in any case. The overarching theme was, judging by the name of the film and the final line of dialogue, supposed have been about Batman and his controversial role within Gotham City. This was also the major theme highlighted in many of the animated shorts collected within Batman: Gotham Knight, along with explorations of Batman’s morals and character. Unfortunately, both themes were lost somewhere in all the explosions and (albiet fantastic) one-liners. The Joker completely stole the show. Mr. Ledger’s performance was brilliant to be sure, but it came at a price — Batman was reduced to just a shadow on stage, disappearing every time you turned around, and there was no one else to hold together the actual structure of the film.

The beginning had started off well enough. District Attorney Harvey Dent was working to crack down on mob crime and needed Batman’s help in side-stepping jurasdiction technicalities. This was great for grappling with the question of whether or not Batman was really an ally to the authorities and the law. As well, the way Rachel was used to connect Bruce Wayne and Mr. Dent was great. For a non-canonical character, I’m really impressed with the way the scriptwriters worked her into the story, making her relevant, useful, and nonobtrusive. Everything was going fine; really, give Dent a different reason for Two-Face to exist and I think we would have had a perfectly good movie there. But then our clown prince of chaos came along and set everything on fire.

It’s appropriate, I suppose, that a character that bills himself as a messenger of chaos should wreck as much havoc as he did. Everything that came after his introduction was rising action, and at some point, it was such a steep ramp up that it became difficult to understand. Too much happened too quickly; we jumped from scene to scene, action to action; there were unpredictable twists, but I feel like we were forced through it all too fast — we didn’t have time to comprehend any of the themes or messages behind it. That isn’t to say that the Joker didn’t prove to be a great (and extremely entertaining) story element. He forced all the characters into situations they would have otherwise never found themselves in, forced them to make spontaneous, difficult decisions. He put the entire city in a hard place. Of course, that is his entire purpose. He even says it himself.

I guess I still have mixed feelings about it. It was really, really fun to watch, but I feel like it could have been more focused, more tightly wrapped up and packaged. Then again, the Joker did definitely contribute to the city’s debate over Batman’s role, so if that was the point of the movie, then the Joker did his job. So maybe, I was just hated the ending, if it could be called that. All that rising action? We never come down from it. We just sort of hit a wall at the end because it’s been a long movie already and we gotta stop somewhere. The Dark Knight felt more like two and a half hour glimpse into a different world than a cohesive film. There is no real beginning as it picks up in some ambiguous amount of time after Batman Begins, and there is no ending because we are not met with resolution.

But it couldn’t have been a longer movie — making it three hours wouldn’t have helped — so maybe it should have been shorter? Like I said, if we had confined the villain to Two-Face, it would have probably worked just as well, if not better. But we had to have the Joker. He is, after all, Batman’s most formidable enemy. They are probably of equal intelligence, wit, and resolve. The Joker is the chaos to Batman’s order. They complete each other as characters. Yin and fuckin’ yang. We had to have him. So then maybe we shouldn’t have spent so much time with Mr. Dent? Maybe we shouldn’t have given so much time to the romantic subplot, as well done as it was? Sure, both Dent and Rachel were brilliantly woven into the Joker’s plans, but… I dunno. Funny thing. As much as I love the Joker, it seems that most of this critique just stems from a lack of tolerance for chaos on my part.

[sound, design, & animation/effects]

For some reason, even though two of my favorite composers — James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer — collaborated on the score, I wasn’t all that impressed. It felt rather like a generic action score, and even though many of the track titles declare them “Joker themed,” they still felt unimpressively moody and plain. Besides, during the movie, background music is largely overshadowed by fantastic dialogue, revving motorcycles and explosions. The animation and effects also felt rather average. The Batmobile Battank met its untimely demise after an average chase scene, and though I rather liked the Batcycle, it wasn’t super amazing or anything. The other devices Batman uses were pretty interesting though — the sonar imaging (“like submarines!”) phones were smile-worthy, and there were lots of other things to remind us that these are the Batgadgets of the new century, which is always great to see in a historic franchise like this.

[other stuff i feel like mentioning]

I really appreciated all of the jokes in this movie. Some were corny, and some were subtler and cleverer, but just about all of them brought about laughs and smiles. I was also glad to see that the Joker wasn’t the only one making them, and that the humor seemed well-distributed among the characters. It all felt natural too and each type of joke suited the character it came from. Considering they had worked so hard to make The Dark Knight darker and more serious than Batman Begins, the movie definitely gets extra yaypoints for remembering that their main villain is in fact, a clown, and that there can be jokes in even the most serious of moments.

[in closing]

The Dark Knight was a great movie: it had superb acting across the board; its story was relevant and thoughtful, if a bit chaotic; and its technical aspects, while not breathtaking, were still very strong. Its biggest fault is probably in that it leaves a lot to be desired, and I have a hard time imagining that any sequel will be able to fill in all the holes left by this movie. Obviously, a large part of that is because of Mr. Ledger’s inability to reprise his role, which could have very easily been career-making if it wasn’t career-ending. The Dark Knight leaves Gotham City in relative chaos, and the final fate of the Joker is left rather ambiguous (I also felt Two-Face’s fate was rather ambiguous, but Wikipedia says otherwise). The sequel more or less DEMANDS our infamous villain’s return (the Joker declares Gotham his, how can he not return?), but I can’t see Warner Brothers recasting for the role. Indeed, who could possibly step up to the plate after a performance like Ledger’s? And what else could they possibly do?

Ignoring the Joker’s effect on the city in a sequel would be difficult and unpleasant. Puppeting his character from offscreen would be bitterly unsatisfying. What other major villains are there to take his place? Lucius Fox’s offhand comment about cats may point to a possible Catwoman, but Batman villains come in pairs, so who else? The Riddler might be a possibility, considering that Jim Carrey’s 1995 portrayal was rather similar to classic interpretations of the Joker, but it wouldn’t be the same… The Riddler is a fun villain, but I think pretty much everyone pales in comparison to the Joker. So maybe they will end up just recasting for the Joker… in the end, it doesn’t seem like any option is a good option. What a damned predicament.

I’m pissed as hell that Ledger’s dead. When Warner Brothers announced two years ago who they’d casted as our clown, everyone was rather aghast that it was a gay cowboy. Now, he’s a damned god for getting the character down as well as he did. If he was going to die, maybe he really should have just bombed the role and made this less painful for us to deal with. My brother joked in January that it was all a huge publicity stunt and that Mr. Ledger would show up at the world premiere for the movie in full costume, going “Why so serious?” on the red carpet to a crowd of thousands of cameras, laughing. Given the six months between his death and the opening date, this was an unlikely theory from the beginning, but I think I was secretly wishing that it were true for those entire six months.

Rest in peace, Mr. Ledger. Rest knowing that your final (completed) movie blew Spider-Man 3 out of the water and broke half a dozen box office records. Rest knowing that it opening to rave reviews and a week’s two week’s worth of sold out IMAX tickets. Rest knowing that you won’t be remembered as just a gay cowboy and that you just might score that posthumous Oscar.

I’m still fucking pissed at you though.

Yay, reviews! I’d actually finished the Death Note review earlier this weekend, but forgot about it… Gotham Knight leaked online last Thursday, and I plowed through the second half of Dennou Coil on Saturday. Seriously, that was twelve episodes watched all in a row while glued to my chair at ungodly hours of morning. It was great though. I also plowed through all of the first season of Rozen Maiden this weekend and will probably be writing a review for that later this week. I think in all, I watched almost 30 episodes of anime this weekend… Oh, woe.

AX news also gave me about twenty different things I want to talk about but have no reliable background to be talking about, lol. Blogging is so time consuming. Oh, why do I have a full time job?? I’ll get around to it all eventually, hopefully, maybe…?

On to some better news though, I trust that all of you have seen the five minutes of Batman: Gotham Knight that surfaced Tuesday. As a big fan of the way the Animatrix was handled, I’m really, really looking forward to Gotham Knight’s release, especially since YES, Kevin Conroy shall be reprising his role as the definitive voice of Batman. Honestly? From the five minute exclusive, Conroy’s voice was my absolute favorite part of it. It’s just so good hearing his voice again for a new project after years and years of hearing him from Batman: The Animated Series, among other animated versions. I approve of Bale’s performance in Batman Begins, but he did try a little too hard to force his voice to sound like Conroy’s when he was Batman. Nothing beats that guy; don’t even try.

The rest of the clip wasn’t all that impressive to me, possibly because the other voice actors sounded painfully generic in comparison. The animation was about average, and the particular style used in the clip wasn’t amazingly unique or anything. None of that really bothers me though. After all, there are five other shorts to look forward to, and just the very concept of anime and Batman coming together like this, as an in-between release preceeding the Dark Knight, is incredibly exciting. Batman has always been my favorite superhero.

I really haven’t looked that much into the information available about Gotham Knight though, just as I haven’t seen the last two or three most recent trailers released for The Dark Knight. My excuse is that I’m excited enough for it already, and after a certain point, it’s just painful to be teased. <_< So July 8th and July 18th, guys. That’s what I’m saving my money for. x3