The very first appearance of Batman, in Issue #27 of Detective Comics released in May 1939, was a dramatic
entrance for a character who has gone on to become one of our most enduring cultural
icons, still popular enough after 72 years to make Batman: Arkham City a major game release! In contrast to the bright,
colourful Superman portrayed in his Action Comics debut the year before, ‘The
Batman’ was shown as a dark, Gothic figure swinging across the rooftops with a
struggling crook caught in a headlock.
The first page of the story promised ‘A mysterious and adventurous
figure fighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrong doer in his lone
battle against the evil forces of society’.
Batman’s first ever appearance in a comic book
encapsulated perfectly the essence of his character. A dark, mysterious vigilante, who dressed in
a scary costume in order to terrify criminals.
However, as the 20th century moved on, later portrayals of The Batman
diverged from this premise- sometimes wildly, sometimes for the better. There are a number of different Batmen in
different types of media, and the Batman portrayed in Arkham Asylum (and its
upcoming sequel, Arkham City) strikes his own distinct note.
In the world of comics, Batman has, for the most part,
remained fairly consistent to his original character. Throughout the Silver Age of comics, lasting
from roughly 1956 until 1970, the tone of Batman’s comics remained fairly
light-hearted; Gotham’s caped crusader still swung around the rooftops
dispensing heavy-handed justice, with the same air of boyish
adventure that was shown in his earlier, Golden Age appearances. An overall lightening in tone due to a
mainstream backlash against comics (which were seen to be ‘corrupting’
children) led to more science fiction stories and a reworking of some of Batman’s
villains; the Joker became a goofy prankster instead of a psychopath who
murdered when he felt like it. However, as the Silver Age came to an end in the 1970s, a
paradigm shift in the tone of the wider comics world began to affect Batman,
lending a new air of grit and darkness to the character. The Joker returned to the comics (after a
four-year absence) and went back to his roots as a homicidal maniac who
committed brutal murders in a whimsical fashion. As the 80s rolled on, Batman continued to get
grittier; Frank Miller produced the noir-esque The Dark Knight Returns,
one of the most influential Batman comics ever released, and revamped the
character’s origin in Batman: Year One. While Miller’s comics are an extreme
example of ‘modern Batman’, his treatment of the character- a complex,
Dionysian figure who cloaks himself in darkness in order to fight evil- has
prevailed into the present day. Despite
the proliferation of allies that Batman has developed and surrounded himself
with (Robin, Catwoman, Oracle, Batgirl, Huntress, etc.) that gritty edge has
remained a key part of Batman stories, and has bled through into other media
portraying the character.
The film and television portrayal of Batman faced a much
longer path to modernism, however.
Batman’s first appearance on film was in a 15-part serial released in
1943, called simply Batman. The show
maintained many of the key parts of the Batman mythos, but suffered from
terribly low production values and a lack of inherent respect for the subject
matter; the actor portraying Bruce Wayne/Batman, Lewis Wilson, appeared
overweight and unathletic, with a high voice and a Boston accent that did not
come close to approximating the cultured tones of Bruce Wayne in the
comic. The costumes looked ridiculous,
and both Batman and Robin, played by Douglas Croft, lacked the fitness to
convincingly fight crime. The series was
almost unintentionally farcical, and unfortunately began a trend that would
continue in Batman’s film and television appearances for another 40 years.
Another Batman serial, this time entitled Batman
and Robin, came out in 1949, but it was again low-budget and farcical
as a result due to the silly costumes and production errors. 1966 saw one of the most famous live-action
portrayals of Batman hit the screen- Adam West played Batman in a TV series
which was the most successful on-screen showing of the Dark Knight yet, even if
it differed drastically from the tone set in the comics that were being
released at the time. Adam West’s Batman
was a campy, pop-art comedy series which featured slapstick, satire and
action-comedy as well as plenty of fight scenes adorned with huge ‘BIFF’ and
‘POW’ captions. It was silly and fun - but unfortunately ruined the mass-media credibility of Batman as a
serious character for several decades.
Tim Burton’s Batman reboot in 1989 brought Batman back to
his darker comic roots and laid the groundwork for a more serious, mature
Batman on the big screen. The film
itself was a big box office success, and was the highest grossing film based on a DC comic book until 2008's The Dark Knight. It also spawned Batman:
The Animated Series, which is both critically acclaimed and loved by
fans of the character. Batman:
TAS helped to kick-start the entire DC Animated Universe, and the voice
actors from that series have become synonymous with their characters; Kevin
Conroy voiced Batman and Mark Hamill voiced the Joker. Both, coincidentally, voiced the characters
in Arkham
Asylum and will be reprising their roles for Arkham City, which draws
a big connection between the games and the animated series.
Following
the success of Tim Burton’s Batman and the sequel Batman
Returns, the Batman films started to go downhill with a change in
director; Joel Schumacher (reviled by fans as ‘the man who put nipples on the
Batsuit’) brought back camp and bright neon, making Batman Forever into a
more family-friendly film that failed to hit the mark with reviewers, and Batman
& Robin into a turgid critical disaster which was so bad that it spurred
a public apology from the director. Once
again, Batman’s credibility seemed to have been ruined, and it was not until
2005 and the release of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins that he
could be seen as a serious character again.
The success
of Batman
Begins and The Dark Knight is due in no small part to the way in which
they treat the Batman comics. Nolan
mirrored the dark, sophisticated tone of modern-day Batman comics in his films,
slipping in thought-provoking ideas on the nature of morality alongside
excellent action sequences. Heath
Ledger’s Joker was pitch-perfect, reflecting on the essential duality between
him and Batman while cackling insanely and trying to kill people.
The success
of Nolan’s Batman films, along with the incredible fan loyalty to Batman: The
Animated Series, can be seen as the foundations for the release of Arkham
Asylum in 2009. The Batman in Arkham
Asylum is voiced by Kevin Conroy, as in the Animated Series, wears an
armoured Batsuit similar to the one worn by Christian Bale in Batman
Begins and The Dark Knight, and uses the detective skills that he has
honed across the 70 years that the Batman franchise has existed. In short, the game combines all of that
history into a strongly-developed Batman for the modern era, one who punches
bad guys and solves crimes with his genius-level intellect, coming up against
the most interesting and diverse Rogues Gallery (in my opinion) of any
superhero. The Batman of Arkham
Asylum and Arkham City is distinct from those we’ve seen in other media
due to that synergy and the desire of the game’s creators, Rocksteady, to do
the character justice; they have looked at the original portrayal of Batman and
stayed true to that, while bringing in the most successful elements from other
versions of the character to create a critically-acclaimed and excellently-pitched
portrayal of Gotham’s Dark Knight.
It remains to be seen where Batman’s character will go from here, but if the
success of the Christopher Nolan films and Arkham Asylum is anything to go by-
comic fans, filmgoers and videogamers like
dark, serious Batman.
