Uncomfortably Similar
As we learned in class today, Robert Kane (and Bill Finger) was commissioned to create a comic in parallel to that of Superman. Having read Batman Chronicles before knowing this and feeling that there was something fishy going on with respect to how similar the two comics are, this piece of information confirms my suspicion. Now, having the knowledge that the Batman Chronicles were written with the intention of imitating Superman and looking back at the chronicles, the amount of similarities between the two become more and more evident to me in seemingly all aspects of the comics.
When we studied Superman earlier this semester, one of the main takeaways from the narrative was with respect to Superman's invincibility. Because there was never a fear for Superman's safety, the audience would never have a reason to doubt Superman's success and would lose any feelings of suspense or thrill that a typical action/superhero narrative would provide and rendered the stories quite boring. While you could probably make the argument that for really any superhero story 99.9% of the time the protagonist/superhero succeeds in the end and the audience should never truly fear the character's demise, I felt a very similar sentiment with Batman as we all did with Superman. Despite the fact that Batman is in fact a human and isn't physically indestructible, he is protected by all of the gadgets and money he has to support him. As Professor Serrano said in class today with respect to comparing Bruce Wayne/Batman's money to Superman's physical prowess, "pick your poison", as they virtually function to the same "invincible" effect. However, for me at least, the main difference between the two characters' that lead me to much prefer Batman was in their personas: Superman is a corny goody two-shoes while Batman has a bit of a clever, sadistic side to him.
Furthermore, while I found most of the artistry of the two comics to be uncomfortably similar, I was particularly struck by the similarities between Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. As Colin pointed out today in class, Bruce Wayne looks exactly like what one would imagine a 1940's superhero's alter-ego to just as Clark Kent does. As I'm now looking back at panels from some of the Superman comics we read earlier this semester that depict Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent appear nearly identical: if you put the two's side by side in front me (and took off Clark's glasses), I don't think I'd be able to tell the two apart.
While of course Batman has an important place in comics and in history, after doing a more detailed comparison of the two and revealing how closely similar they are, I'm lead to believe that Batman was primarily created as a cash cow after seeing the success and popularity of Superman. Were the publishers of DC simply trying to squeeze out every dollar they could from this genre, or were they genuinely trying to appeal to a more refined audience of the superhero genre?
While you're right in that they're similar, I found myself slightly liking Batman better. Perhaps this is because story wise, there is a little more intrigue as Batman must figure out who is a criminal and take them out. The punchline for Batman is that he successfully wins against the criminals, whereas in Superman, I found the story began with Superman knowing who to punch and the punchline was Superman making them "better" or "confessing" and basically just showing off how great he is. In that regard, I think Batman is better because of its villains; sometimes they remain his equals and overall they are pretty interesting.
ReplyDelete