Monday Madness - 19 Sept. 2005

In light of the All Star Batman and Robin debate that everyone is predicting will poison the internet I've decided to post this. Okay I completely pinched this idea from James at the Comic Asylum. I took the "What Kind of Batman Are You?" quiz and came up with this:


You're Classic Batman. You're the old school,
iconic Batman that everyone knows. Your
sidekick is Dick Grayson, the original Robin,
and you also team up with Batgirl alot. You're
the World's Greatest Detective, and also one of
the best fighters on the planet. You're against
guns and lethal force. Right now, you're pretty
much in the prime of your career, before you
become haunted by Dead Sidekicks and loved
ones.

What kind of Batman are you?
by Quizilla

I think this is fantastic. It's weird how I managed to score the Batman I actually like without cheating. I'm a fan for the classic Bat and like that interpretation of him. I think the things like the Dark Knight Returns and even Year One are basically versions of the classic Batman. Whatever he is now is just sort of lost on me. I get that he's driven to protect Gotham and all, but does he need to have all traces of humanity removed? Batman is at his best when he is more than a singular character – every fictional character is. I know that we as people and readers have a natural tendency to boil characters down to one driving factor but even singular characters are good when that singular idea is explored in a multifaceted way.

I know we can’t return to the Silver Age and I’m definitely not making a case that says we should but there was something that was lost along the way. Dimension. I think the Silver Age started to really introduce dimension to characters but then things started to get dark simply because they could and have pretty much stayed there since. This isn’t always a bad thing. I like dark and gritty but it gets just as boring as all the Silver Age hokeyness. Give me diversity. Batman is great because he is “just a man” so lets se him like that again instead of the jerk-o-matic that he seems to be now. Instead of changing him from book to book how about putting all those characterizations of the same character into one book, into one story? I’d buy that.

Heck that’s why I’m getting Batman The Animated Series on DVD. That’s basically the boiled down version of the Batman I like. So there’s the question for you to explore and post your replies in the comments for a free dollar bin comic.
Once you’ve taken the quiz, explain why you agree or disagree with the answer. What kind of Batman do you like and why? Heck post and explain why you hate Batman if you want to.