SEEKERS OF THE BAT

In the 700th anniversary issue of the Batman book, Grant Morrison just throws out the term Popcrime. Mindlessones.com posits that he intended for this to explain the outlandish, unrealistic crimes of the Golden Age of comics as actually Performance Art crimes. It’s a great way to pull the ridiculous stories of the the 1950s into the modern context. Click through to read more.

What is popcrime? Clownish capers, catty conundrums, fowl felonies. Catwoman stealing the giant emerald eyes of Bast, the Penguin besieging the city with hundreds of robot umbrellas, those are examples of pop-crime.

via MindlessOnes.com

Ra’s Al Ghul and his daughter Talia are unique members of  Batman’s gallery of rogues. That is because they consider Batman part of their family.

Ra’s Al Ghul is Arabic for ‘The Demon’s Head’. He created the League of Assassins, an eco-terrorist group devoted to thinning out the human population, over 600 years ago. His longevity is due to his repeated use of extremely rare Lazarus Pits, which renew youth at the cost of your sanity. For all his years, he has not found a more worthy opponent than Batman, who he simply calls ‘Detective’. He has repeatedly tried to recruit Batman to join his side, even offering him marriage to his mortal daughter Talia.

Although he returns Talia’s affections, Batman can not be associated with the League of Assassins.  As heir of the Demon (and skilled assassin in her own right), Talia is torn between her allegiance to her father and her feelings for Batman. Matters were made more complicated once they consummated their relationship with the birth of a son, Damian.

Despite all the times she has put his life at risk, she continues to keep watch over Batman from afar. Even helping nurse her ‘step-son’ Jason Todd back to health, and training Catwoman (Batman’s girlfriend at the time) how to protect his identity against interrogation. She reveals her true feelings by continuing to refer to Batman as ‘Beloved’.

Batman pitches in with the ubiquitous ‘Got Milk?’ advertising campaign. Surprising, because it’s quite difficult to strike fear into the hearts of criminals with a milk mustache.

Here we see a Filipino cosplayer with an excellent recreation of the batsuit from the film ‘The Dark Knight’. By his own admission, he needs to put a little more work into the helmet.

via cosplay.ph

Today, we’re featuring a different kind of fan art. This bat fan painted a batman logo in midair with special photography. Spectacular.

Much like James Bond or MacGyver,  Batman is a character that can be counted on to ALWAYS triumph in the end, no matter how hopeless the situation seems. This photo depicts just another such impossible reversal of fortune, as Batman finds the strength and willpower to dig his way out of a buried coffin. In this way, he is much more than just a rich guy with gadgets. He is a irrepressible force of nature, and deserves to be feared by his foes.

Another alternate universe?  Muppets Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker are actually Batman and Robin?  Hilarious!

via Bat-Blog

Here DC Comics gives us a teaser for the cover of Batman 650.

After Dick Grayson left the fold to become Nightwing, Batman was left without a partner. That wouldn’t last long, as he soon came across an angry but extremely gifted juvenile delinquent named Jason Todd.

As the second Robin, Jason was violent, unmerciful and allowed people to die. Although Batman tried to reel in his tendencies, Jason soon became a very unpopular character, prompting DC Comics to conduct a nationwide poll on his fate.   The people spoke, and in the infamous ‘A Death in the Family’ story arc,  the Joker bludgeoned Jason Todd to death with a crowbar before Batman could save him.

Much like the obsessive, irrational guilt he holds over being unable to prevent his parents’ death, Batman also punishes himself for Jason Todd’s death. Soon after he took on Tim Drake as the third Robin, he erected the now-familiar glass memorial to Jason’s memory to ensure he never forgot his greatest failure.

The significance of Jason Todd’s glass case would eventually have gone the way of the giant penny and robot dinosaur except that in 2003, Jason was brought back to life by the ridiculous “Superboy-Prime Reality Punch”. In retroactive continuity, Jason now inexplicably clawed his way out of his grave shortly after his death to be nursed back to health by Talia, daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul. He has returned to plague the Bat family in a number of guises, first as an adult Robin, then as an evil Nightwing, then as the murderous Red Robin, then as a gun-toting stand-in for the recently killed (Omega Sanctioned) Batman, and currently as the new Red Hood, the original alter ego of the Joker. In all his versions, he sees himself as a more effective Batman, using lethal force to succeed where his mentor failed.

Update: His return in the comics has coincided with the release of the excellent animated film: Under the Red Hood, which recounts Batman’s reaction to his return:

This might be the best fan film to date. The Joker escapes from Arkham and Batman interrogates all the usual suspects for information. The Bat in the Sun film crew’s attention to detail and faithfulness to the source material is outstanding. Except for the alternate logo, which I understand the reason for (see the seekers of the bat logo above), I completely buy this take on the Batman universe. I also appreciate the main actor using more of a Kevin Conroy batvoice rather than the much maligned Christian Bale grunt. My one question is was that bartender supposed to be Black Canary? Seems like the sequence was inserted purely to shoot a strip club scene :)