Yes, because Bruce definitely does not have his own anti-gun agenda. CLEARLY.
For anyone who watched “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” the Batmite finale had a whole thing on this – Batman NEVER EVER uses a gun. Nobody tell his right-wing fans about that…
The whole thing about him and guns stems from his parents’ murder. like jesus fuckin christ people.
BATMAN HATES GUNS
BATMAN HATES GUNS
BATMAN HATES GUNS BECAUSE GUNS ARE WHAT CAUSED HIM TO BECOME THE BATMAN IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE
“characters cannot have even mildly controversial opinions even if they make total sense for that character”
HISTORY TIME!
In the very, very beginning, Batman used guns. He had a belt with a holster for the one he used and everything.
… However, that Batman ALSO found murdering villains so acceptable that he quipped whenever he did it, even when there wasn’t a need for murder.
Both of those things changed when the Comics Code Authority got in the mix. Batman had to lose the gun as well as his dark, murderous aspects to appease the government and concerned parents that thought comic books caused juvenile crime and (gasp, the horror) homosexual tendencies!
Batman slowly regained his dark edge starting around the 70s, but in the process, writers took time to really think about and understand the psychology you’d expect from a man whose parents were shot to death in front of his eyes as a child. That psychology being: why the hell would he want to use the weapon that brought him so much suffering? And why would he want to kill people if it wasn’t necessary?
Technically, Batman does use guns… on his vehicles. Or when a situation calls for it. But it’s not to kill, it’s as a tool, such as disabling a car or tearing down a wall. It’s rare for him to actually use a gun for its typical purposes, and he only does it if there’s absolutely no other option. It’s the “you know shit is getting serious when Batman has to resort to that” scenario, and it only has that power because he HATES using guns and rarely does so.
For Batman, guns are bad. He’ll acknowledge that they have their uses, but he never loses sight that guns are terrible, terrible things that would be better off not existing. Being able to disable a vehicle or break down a wall with guns does not override all the people guns kill.
DC Entertainment’s new advertising campaign, “DC YOU,” seeks to promote the New DC Universe (DCU) line of comics while at the same time stressing that they have something for everyone.
Batman isn’t treated like being drugged, raped and thereby forced to become a father is the biggest, most important thing a person needs to know about who Batman is as a character. His identity is not defined by Talia having raped him. And even completely disregarding Batgirl, the narrative of Talia having raped Batman didn’t exist exclusively to make Batman a mere prop in the service of making Talia look more threatening for another woman to have to face her.
None of the above can be said about Batgirl. What Joker did to Batgirl in Killing Joke, her moment of victimization, is treated as THE most defining aspect about who she is and what she’s about, more important than her origins or her identity… and it existed solely to make the Joker look more threatening for Batman and Jim Gordon. With Batman, we know his parents’ murder fueled becoming Batman, we know Bane broke his back, we know Talia raped him, we know he took Robin in, and in all of that the emphasis is on how he struggles and triumphs over those tragedies… while the emphasis for Batgirl is on how she suffered, and still suffers.
As exemplified in the cover that was rightfully pulled by DC, at the artist’s request because people criticizing it were getting attacked. The Joker variant cover does not show Batgirl resisting, fighting back, pushing to triumph over what he did to her. That cover is all about emphasizing Batgirl as a victim first and foremost, not as a hero who fights and struggles to overcome such adversity and horrors to be her badass hero self.
There was literally no reason for Batgirl to be depicted that way. Joker did not need her depicted that way. He would have been just as threatening if the cover allowed her to have an angry glare and perhaps signs of trying to break herself free. That’s literally all it would’ve taken for the cover to be okay with most people: a simple sign that Batgirl is her own character with her own personality that deserves to be treated as such, after far too many cases of being defined purely as a symbol of how dangerous the Joker can be.
Well, I know this isn’t DC “canon,” but at least I can say this Harley may actually be Harley Quinn or fairly close. She’s got the harlequin theme she’s supposed to have instead of looking like the female Joker knockoff DC’s been trying to turn her into.
“Labyrinth” is one of my favorite movies of all time. Towards the end, Our Heroine Sarah realizes that her adversary-slash-paramour Jareth The Goblin King has only a silver tongue and esteem damaging words in his arsenal. With the magic words (above), she breaks his magic crystal ball of spying and Jareth disintegrates in a flashy fashion fit for David Bowie.
What does this have to do with comics you ask? I was struck by how much imagery Labyrinth and Barbara Gordon shared (clocks, shiny round lenses, goblins, ect), and really wish they shared just a little more.
Now most of them are annoying wank-stains who get all upset when Jason Momoa says “Fuck Marvel” yet cheer RDJ on when he says the equivalent to DC Comics. And they also have an annoying…
DC gets so much shit for starting Their universe later but I now think it was the best thing for Them as it lets Them see and avoid all of the mistakes Marvel has made that are now starting to come back and bite Them. The studio’s habit of isolating exceptionally talented directors like Edgar Wright is also going to seriously hurt Them, especially compared to DC’s filmmaker driven approach.
There are things DC absolutely deserve to get shit for, of course.
One is how they’ve changed Harley Quinn. There’s nothing of her harlequin theme anymore, the codename applies as well to her as changing Batman’s theme to chickens and still calling him Batman. It’s even worse for two other reasons: DC made the change solely because they saw the interest in Harley’s look in the Arkham Asylum game, and it actually makes her look more like a female Joker wannabe than her own character.
Second is Man of Steel. Like what they pulled on Harley Quinn, Man of Steel was the company going “Well, people like the Dark Knight films, let’s throw away everything that makes Superman into Superman except the powers and alien origin and put that out there.” There’s no respect for the character and franchise themselves, only an assumption that they need to be radically redefined all because Bryan Singer screwed up what was at the time the only attempt made at a Superman movie in 20 years.
Third, their constant excuses and putting off of female-focused films. This is a huge problem Marvel has too, but the key difference is that unlike Marvel, DC has an unquestionably iconic female superhero in Wonder Woman that’s considered equal or just very slightly below Superman and Batman in terms of place in the DC pantheon. DC Comics put out animated films for both Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, both films sold roughly the same (though I think Wonder Woman got better reception), and yet DC Comics went on to make excuses for the Green Lantern animated film and made a Green Lantern live-action film while claiming the Wonder Woman animated film did too poorly to justify a live-action film.
Both DC and Marvel have tons of shit wrong with them. The only real plus marks I can think of for DC are that they’re finally listening to some extent when it comes to Wonder Woman, and the changes they make aren’t a deliberate attempt to ruin franchises or characters over not making enough money like Marvel’s doing to the X-Men and Fantastic Four.
“Haha, I’m Clown Girl, but for some reason everyone’s calling me Harley Quinn! There is absolutely nothing of the harlequin theme I’m supposed to have here, if anything I’m just a female Joker wannabe now, but I’ll still have a name that has nothing to do with what I am because DC sucks.”
salarta 