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Taegan MacLean's avatar

It's bewildering.

Aren't there multiple universes of Batman? Noir Batman? Dracula Batman? Red Rain Batman?

Great work on this one, as always.

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Quiara Vasquez's avatar

No offense to Mr. Reeves, but the best possible interpreter of the Bat-canon is a nine-year-old doodling Batpeople on the margins of his schoolbooks.

I'm being humorous but not hyperbolic - even people really into the character, I think, would say Batman's arrested development is key to the character in a way that it isn't for the other big superheroes. You can have Spidey go through adolescence, adulthood, fatherhood even and still have the fundamental thrill of his character - what if you could walk up walls and fly around the city? - remain in tact. Superman "adulting" is sort of core to his character, and I think the real reason most "mature" "deconstructions" of the superhero myth from Watchmen on down use him as the model and not a "relatable" character. But Batman needs to be a kiddy hero, because age him up any more and it becomes ludicrous for a grown man with no powers to dress up like a bat and throw boomerangs at people instead of just shooting them.

I'm sure Matt Reeves is trying to make a point about income inequality or whatever but I just think that is a fundamentally dumbass take on the character.

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