He's Not The Hero We Needed, He's The Hero We Got

All week I've been going over Batman's changes over time and how the events of the comic book industry have changed him, but what about Batman now? Well, the common thought people have when Batman comes to mind is Christopher Nolan's film trilogy. These movies are a gritty, realistic and cerebral take on Batman. But they are by no means the definitive story of Batman. Lets explore this topic further.

It all started with the 2005 film, "Batman Begins", directed by Christopher Nolan. Batman Begins tells the origin of how Bruce Wayne became Batman. Followed with two sequels, Nolan's Batman movies reshaped the conception of superhero movies and-along with Marvel's growing Cinematic Universe-launched superheroes and comic books into the public eye. Now your everyday Joe Chill off the street will know who The Joker and Bane are, but is this version of the Batman mythos the best version to think of when the character is mentioned? The theming of making everything as realistic and tangible as possible would be an interesting angle, but because these movies were so popular, it drove other comic book mediums to take a more serious and gritty tone. Some examples include the CW's "Arrow" television show, the "Man of Steel" movie and many independent film makers attempts at "redesigning" fictional characters to be darker and grittier within their fan-made movies. This also effected the comics, to some degree. Around the time of "The Dark Knight Rises" the character of Bane received a costume redesign in the comics, being given a wool coat similar to Tom Hardy's version of the character in the mentioned film. Speaking of funny voices, lets talk about Batman's raspy, cough-drop-desperate voice. The Batman voice was an original idea by Nolan to both disguise Bruce's voice and to intimidate criminals. However, because some of the movie's dialogue is distorted by Batman's gruff tone, viewers of the movie have often used this voice in means of a joke. The trilogy tries to do something new for the Batman mythology and as a Batman fan I can appreciate that, but alternative takes on a character either need to be closer to the source material in tone or expressed through another art form. In my opinion, of course.

I am in no way against The Dark Knight Trilogy, I enjoy watching the movies despite any argument I might have made. The problem is, DC Comics and Warner Bros-in letting these movies soak in the popularity they have-have backed themselves into a corner. While Marvel's film department is doing fantastic. Despite their diverse movies, Marvel has managed to create a film universe in which different tones can be balanced. However, because The Dark Knight Trilogy did so well, Warner Bros Studios seems convinced that a darker and serious toned superhero universe can be even more successful. The fact is, no matter how well it worked, a realistic and serious toned superhero universe based off DC Comics can't work as well as Marvel's Universe. That kind of tone could only really work for Batman because of the character's history of being adaptable to any style. I can only hope DC/Warner's next Batman on film invokes the comic book-esque feel and gives viewers a more accurate representation of both Batman and the DC Universe. Thanks for reading.