Will the Real Batman Please Stand Up?

The one thing that you can be sure about with most superheroes is their consistency. After all, being dependable, though not always predictable, is part of what makes them heroic figures.

But, compared with other characters from the genre like Superman and Spiderman, Batman’s character and personality have been extraordinarily fluid in over 80 years of his existence.

 

He made his first ever appearance in a story called “The Case of The Chemical Syndicate” published by Detective Comics – later to be shortened to the DC we know today. From the outset, Batman was a ruthless killer of criminals. Square jawed, remorseless and almost without any character, he was an immediate hit.

 

Over time, more and more was added to his back-story including the untimely death of his parents at the hands of a mugger  – the event that set him on his path as a winged avenger. For several decades, the comics continued in this vein and it wasn’t until the late 1950s that, for various reasons, his popularity began to dwindle.

 

Then, in 1966, a whole new Bruce Wayne was introduced to the world in the form of the TV series starring Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin. Purists were up in arms at this distinctly camp interpretation of the character and the unsubtle ways that it tried to bring a comic’s sensibility to the fight scenes with their pop-art captions of “kapow!” and “smash!” as the Dynamic Duo repeatedly came to the aid of the hapless Commissioner Gordon.

 

The next leap forward for the character came in 1989 when Tim Burton directed the first in the big budget movies starring Michael Keaton, an actor he’d previously worked with on Beetlejuice. The movie took Batman back into darker, more gothic territory, largely influenced by the Alan Moore and Frank Miller graphic novels. A series of increasingly OTT movies followed until, with the release of Batman and Robin in 1997, this particular franchise ran out of steam.

But you can’t keep a good superhero down, so 2005 saw the release of the very well received Batman Begins starring Christian Bale in the first of a trilogy of films that presented Bruce Wayne in a far more natural light as a man psychologically damaged by life and eager to iron out his problems through a combination of crime-fighting and psychotherapy.

 

The movie also heralded the first in an unexpected form of merchandising for the character – online slots. Not only is there a game based on the Batman Begins movie, a whole series has also been launched themed around the 60s TV series with titles featuring various villains including Mr Freeze, The Joker and The Penguin.

 

Following the Bale era we had Batman v Superman and an appearance in Justice League  with Ben Affleck wearing the cape and presenting a more heroic version of the man. Looking ahead, the next actor due to appear is Robert Pattinson in The Batman, slated for release in 2021.

Precisely which direction this will take Batman is being kept under close wraps. But we can be fairly sure that the Boy Wonder of the TV series and the Batcopter will not be making a reappearance!