A Tale Of Two Batmans

PLEASE BE WARNED THIS ARTICLE WILL CONTAIN SOME SPOILER FOR THE DARK KNIGHT RISES!

For those of you who after reading my first blog thought that I would only be writing about highbrow topics, well you were sorely mistaken. I like most of my fellow human beings am a complex and wondrous creature (though I am of course much better then most of you out there). I can love Shakespeare, Mozart, Art in general (though not cubism), the works of Akira Kurosawa and Poetry, and yet at the same time still love Star Trek, The Sex Pistols, Hackers (fantastically ridiculous film with very early Angelina Jolie boobage), the word boobage and comics.

I love comics, I love the ideas behind the stories, the art, the films based on them and the worlds they create. I know some people still maintain that comics are for children and not a "serious" medium, well obviously they are wrong and they should read say, Sandman, Preacher or Watchmen to prove themselves so, and then contact me for some more reading suggestions.

In comic book terms I am a DC man. I read and enjoy many Marvel titles but prefer the work of their rivals (please note I include the works of DC Vertigo in this). Of the vast pantheon in the DC Universe my favourite being Batman (Surprise Surprise). I won't go into too many details of why, as I will end up sounding like a pre-pubescent girl at a Twilight Convention (or a Justin Beiber concert, if Twilight isn't a big thing any more. I don't know I don't keep track of these things) Suffice to say that firstly Batman without powers has fought some truly mighty villains, using only his training and his intelligence (and billions of dollars), and secondly he has the most impressive rogues gallery of any comic book hero, super or not.

Now being a huge Batman fan I was of course looking forward to the final part of the brilliant Christopher Nolan Dark Knight Trilogy. After the absolute pile of crap that was 1997's Batman and Robin, Nolan had bought back some respectability to the character with Batman Begins and then set the bar for all comic books films stupendously high with The Dark Knight. There had been some worrying reports during production of The Dark Knight Rises, such as Bane's voice was not understandable, and that Nolan was planning to do something that the Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Ra's al Ghul or anybody else to have fought the Caped Crusader had not accomplished. Kill the Batman.

I however had full faith in Mr. Nolan and boy did he deliver. I have seen the film 4 times at the cinema (Twice at the IMAX). It's not my Favourite Batman film, that's still The Dark Knight, however it's joint second with Batman Begins. It marries bits and pieces from The Knightfall, The Dark Knight Returns (more on this later) and the No Man's Land story-lines together and forms something unique and intriguing. The cast is as with all the other Nolan films excellent, with special mentions due to Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon (when is this man not watchable),  Tom Hardy as Bane and Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, even when Bruce Wayne/Batman is not on screen if one or more of these three is on you don't miss him.

Now The Dark Knight Rises is not a perfect. It has been noted by many many people who have talked about the various plot holes littered throughout the film. I won't repeat them as I don't care about them. The way I know I don't care about them is that even after finding out about them, I can still watch the film and not notice them and enjoy the film. 

One critic of the film I will address is Ralph Garman. Ralph Garman is an Actor, Comedian and radio host. He co-host one of my favourite podcasts, Hollywood Babble-On with Kevin Smith, and is I hate to say a far bigger Batman fan then me (I meanhe got Adam West a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Christ's sake). His main Problems with the Film are that he doesn't think that (and I'm paraphrasing here) Batman would a) abandon Gotham for 8 years if his girlfriend died and b) He would leave Gotham to an untrained Robin at the end so he could go make out with Selina Kyle. I have thought about these points and come to the conclusion that, as in DC comics a Multiverse exists, with many versions of Earth and many different versions of the heroes and villains also existing, this is just another version of Batman, and one where Bruce Wayne gets to go off and be happy. The comic versions of Batman are in a different universe as are all the other  film versions and of course the Adam West version.

By the way I like to subscribe to the Multiverse idea for our reality as well, it has been theorised by physicists that there are indeed other universes where things are different to ours in some or many ways, say in one of these universe the dinosaurs didn't die out, or the Roman Empire never fell. I subscribe to this theory in the hope in the infinite universes out there with their infinite possibilities, There may be a Universe on which I am Batman. I mean how cool would that be! Of course this also brings out a possibility that there is a universe out there where I am Robin. I try not to think about this too much as, me in tights is not something I or anybody else should imagine.

So as far as I am concerned we get an excellent Batman film for 2012 and we should be happy with it, But No! 2012 it seems is the year that we Batman fans were truly spoiled. Released a little over a week ago was The Dark Knight Returns - Part 1, an animated adaptation of the first 2 books from the iconic graphic novel by Frank Miller. An older (55 year old) Bruce Wayne dons the cape and cowl again after a 10 year absence, having watched Gotham turn into a hell hole. The graphical novel when it came out was a shot in the arm for the character, it bought about a darker more gritty Batman than there had been before. Something I'm glad to say has stayed with the character ever since. 

The animated film sticks very closely to the first two books of the series and the look of the animation along with the excellent score by Christopher Drake give it a feeling of watching Gotham in the Blade Runner universe (which in case you need to be told is a very high compliment coming from me). The voice cast is very good especially Peter Weller as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Ariel Winter as Carrie Kelley/Robin.

I have so far watched all the DC Animated films, most of which have Batman in them. I would have to say in my opinion (which is far from humble) this is the best one I have seen so far. I would go as far as saying that this is on par with The Dark Knight Rises and Batman Begins, and it's only the first half. I can't wait for Part 2 next year when Batman will take on the Joker (bought out of his comatose state at Arkham Asylum by the the return of his favourite foe) and the biggest fight of Batman's life when he goes toe to toe with Superman.

Shakespeare and Me.

I love Shakespeare, and before anybody gets on their high horse and starts to ramble on about the authorship question, and how the plays and sonnets where not written by William Shakespeare. Just don't!

I don't care about who did or didn't write these wonderful words, I care that they were written down. If someone can prove that it was Edward de Vere, Kit Marlow, Francis Bacon or any of the other multitude of candidates people claim, then all well and good. Until then I will continue to refer to these collected works as those of Shakespeare. 

Now that we have gotten that out of the way I will continue. Some people say that Shakespeare is hard or too old fashioned and hence not relevant. About these people I would say to quote the great man himself "They have a plentiful lack of wit."

When I first picked up my first Shakespearian play The Merchant of Venice, I too found it daunting. That was until I was told about the poetry of the language and how sometimes with words, less isn't more (Thanks Mrs Bennett). Once you understand that the sentiments of the words is what is important, you can look beyond them to realise how important they are (more about this later). You can of course "translate" the plays into modern English, just as they can be translated into any other language. I for one though prefer the original. There is a richness that makes the extra effort to understand it worthwhile.

Sure you can say;


Now all of my family's troubles have come to a glorious end
Thanks to my Brother, King Edward IV.
All the Cloud that threatened the York family
have vanished and turned to sunshine
Now we wear wreaths of victory on our heads
We've taken off our armour and weapons and hung them up as decorations.


but doesn't it just sound better as;

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York,

And all the clouds that loured upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,

Our bruisèd arms hung up for monuments

Shakespeare's contribution to what we refer to as modern English should also not be overlooked he invented thousands of words and hundreds of proverbs still in popular use today. I won't list any as, I assume that if you are reading this then you have access to the internet, so can stop being lazy and look for yourself and be surprised.

Of course the plays and sonnets aren't just a good guide to the English language (though they are that too.) They are as I mentioned earlier important. Shakespeare's works are a mirror to show us our humanity. He displays love, camaraderie, deceit, villainy and every other aspect of what makes us more then mere animals. The joy and despair of Romeo and Juliet's love, The anguish of Henry the Fifth the night before Agincourt, Macbeth's blind ambition, Lago's envy and anger at Othello, Shylock's anger at his persecution etc etc etc. All these are things most of us deal with regularly throughout our lives. As long as they are relevant so is Shakespeare. 

Of course he isn't the first, nor the only person to have shown us these aspects of humanity. A couple of thousand years before Shakespeare, Homer did a fantastic job with The Iliad and The Odyssey (and if you are lucky I will write a piece on him someday). However in my opinion Shakespeare did it better then those before and has yet to be equalled by those who followed.

I will end with a quote from someone more qualified then me to praise Shakespeare

"He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul."
John Dryden Quote (1631 - 1700), "Essay of Dramatic Poesy"