Not to Be That Person, But I Really Do Miss the Old Batman and Here's Why

Batman has gone through a lot of changes over the decades, and I honestly miss the old Batman and especially the way his comics used to be twenty or thirty years ago. I think that, as time has progressed, the Batman IP has lost a lot of what originally made it special. To be clear, when I say "Batman," I mean the entire Batman mythos, not just the big man himself.

The problem with comic book characters is that they're in a never-ending genre and medium, and there are bound to be story choices and changes that fans don't like, especially for a character like Batman. The characters constantly need new stories and events because they're never allowed to retire, and they constantly need bigger and more dangerous threats to go up against.

I feel like this has ended up having diminishing returns for everyone in Gotham. Another issue is DC's constant continuity reboots, which have been absolute hell for the Bat-Family's character development. Characters like Tim Drake and Barbara Gordon have suffered massively because of reboots like the New 52.

DC Has Refused to Let the Bat-Family Grow Up

Even Reverting Major Character Development at Times

There's a strange issue in comics where some characters just aren't allowed to grow up. The biggest example of this has always been Marvel's Spider-Man. I think that's an entirely different tragedy there. But Tim Drake has also massively suffered from this phenomenon. Tim started out as a young, privileged, rich kid who wanted to help Batman and make a difference. He ended up becoming Robin and, over time, went through a great deal of tragedy, such as losing both of his parents. Tim Drake was Robin for years and then moved on to his own identity.

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Tim eventually took on the name of Red Robin and seemed to grow fully into his own role as a hero. He even defeated Ra's al Ghul during a period when Batman was presumed dead and wasn't available to help. That's a major accomplishment, and it seemed like Tim was ready to become his own hero, just like Nightwing. But for reasons I will never understand, DC has seemingly spent all of its time trying to undo this character development and turn Tim back into the default Robin, someone who's always there to fill the role and is never allowed to grow.

I Miss the Old Barbara Gordon, Back When She Was Oracle

Back When She Was an Actual Character

By far the worst example in the Bat-Family of someone being regressed is Barbara Gordon. I don't even know where to start with her. Barbara is a character who has a long legacy of being mishandled and mistreated. Back when Barbara was originally Batgirl, no one cared about her. That might sound harsh, but Batgirl generally wasn't an important character. She only ever did two things of note in her career, which were retiring from the role of Batgirl and being shot by the Joker. That was it; she had nothing else of note to her, and DC was more than happy to abandon the character.

It wasn't until Suicide Squad #23 by John Ostrander and Kim Yale that Barbara Gordon was brought back as Oracle and given actual respect. Instead of just "the only woman in the Bat-Family," Babs was given actual importance as Oracle: a global force for good that nearly every hero depended on. Oracle wasn't just important to the Bat-Family; she was a key player for the Justice League and every other major superhero group on the planet. Ostrander and Yale took a character that DC didn't care about and made her into one of the most important female superheroes in comic books.

Despite Barbara being an extremely popular character now, especially because of her being one of the few characters with a disability who was treated with respect, DC has completely undone all of her characterization over the years. DC has reduced Babs to nothing more than Nightwing's love interest in most appearances now. They even had a weird era where they portrayed her as a teenager, despite being a thirty-year-old woman in her Oracle years. While writer Kelly Thompson has tried to bring her back to her Oracle legacy in Birds of Prey, I think it's clear that she's still working within DC's restrictions on the character.

Honestly, the Joker Has Got to Calm Down

It's Unbelievable What's Happened to the Joker

Look, I love the Joker. I think he's a great character, but I think DC needs to stop. We've gone too far with the character. The Joker was different from anything else in comic books when he first appeared because he wasn't a mad scientist or a mobster; he was just a serial killer. Over the years, the Joker has been a serial killer, a goofy prankster, and a genocidal maniac. I really like it when the Joker is a serious threat. I'm not someone who thinks he needs to be playing goofy pranks or telling jokes. I'm fine with the Joker being a killer.

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But what I'm not fine with is how far DC has pushed the Joker. I enjoy it when the Joker attacks Batman's moral center, when he tries to push Batman over the edge with specifically planned brutal attacks. But DC has made the Joker into a genocidal maniac who kills hundreds of people when he appears. There's a significant difference between stories like The Killing Joke and stories like Batman: Endgame or The Joker War. The first story is about the Joker trying to prove a point. The latter two are just the Joker causing mass death and chaos for the sake of it.

The Joekr has been written as far too sadistic and dark over the years. I love Batman's no-kill rule. I think it's an integral part of the character, but even I have to admit that it's a bit absurd that Batman doesn't kill the Joker given how far some stories take him. In the video game Batman: Arkham City, there's a sub-story where players can read about how the Joker broke into a daycare and killed all the children, before dismembering them and sewing their individual parts together randomly. I think that's just a completely and unnecessarily violent take on the character.

Batman Keeps Learning the Same Lesson Over and Over Again

Personally, I'm Tired of It

Another thing I am tired of is Batman's continual story trope of learning that he doesn't have to do everything alone because he has friends and family he can depend on. I cannot list the number of times I have seen this story done, and none of them have been done as well as the Bruce Wayne: Murderer? storyline by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. Ever since that story, Batman constantly faces some big threat, thinks he can do it alone, then has to learn to rely on his friends. I don't know why Bruce constantly has to relearn this lesson, but I'm tired of seeing it.

It's natural that, after existing in comics for over eighty years, there might be a few repeated story beats, but I honestly find it so difficult to read stories from the '90s and later where the characters were fully fleshed out. It's unbelievable to read anything with Oracle from the '90s and then see Barbara Gordon in anything other than Thompson's Birds of Prey. It's for these reasons, and a couple more, that I truly do miss the old Batman.

Batman: The Killing Joke, Bruce Wayne: Murderer? Batman: Endgame, The Joker War, and Suicide Squad are all available now from DC Comics!

Batman

Created By

Bob Kane, Bill Finger

First Appearance

Detective Comics

Alias

Bruce Wayne

Alliance

Justice League, Outsiders, Batman Family

One of DC's most iconic heroes, Batman is the vigilante superhero persona of billionaire Bruce Wayne. Forged by tragedy with the death of his parents, Bruce dedicated his life to becoming the world's leading martial artist, detective, and tactician. Recruiting an entire family of allies and sidekicks, Bruce wages war on evil as the dark knight of his hometown, Gotham City.

Race

Human

Franchise

D.C.

FIRST APP

Detective Comics #27 (1939)

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