"The Computronic Program-o-Mat was deeply unpopular"
October 5, 2021 10:02 AM Subscribe
"i am assuming for these purposes that wayne enterprises is a privately held conglomerate..." Kitty Unpretty (previously) lays out a plausible corporate structure for Wayne Enterprises (the fictional company owned by Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman). Highlights include the health division: "Anyone who tries to make anything brain-related gets the side-eye these days. They’ve been burned too many times before. 'And it’s definitely not supposed to be used to read or control minds?' any engineer working on a brain-related project will be asked, repeatedly, forever." and "Spite: A Valid Way To Run A Business Since 1864".
Also: Wayne Motors (1914): "Founded because one of Bruce’s ancestors really hated Henry Ford. You’d think it would be because of the unabashed antisemitism but it was actually the pacifism. In an ocean of good reasons to hate Henry Ford he found the bad one."
And: Gotham Solar (1987): "Associating Gotham with the sun in any capacity is hilarious. If It Works In Gotham It’s Gotta Be Good (unofficial motto)"
Also: Wayne Motors (1914): "Founded because one of Bruce’s ancestors really hated Henry Ford. You’d think it would be because of the unabashed antisemitism but it was actually the pacifism. In an ocean of good reasons to hate Henry Ford he found the bad one."
And: Gotham Solar (1987): "Associating Gotham with the sun in any capacity is hilarious. If It Works In Gotham It’s Gotta Be Good (unofficial motto)"
GRC: Technically speaking they still make radios and turntables and whatnot, but mostly it’s, like. Cables. Circuit boards. The kind of shit that only gets used by other companies and also people who have to make a road trip to Fry’s because all the other stores just sell phones now. Have you ever tried to replace a fucked-up molex connector without having to order something online? It’s hell. They stock GRC products in a special section of the Gotham Department Store, I decided this just now while thinking about molex connectors and getting mad.
posted by microscone at 10:44 AM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by microscone at 10:44 AM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
This feels like something from the 2011 Internet, where it was still possible to assume that somewhere there had to be *some* billionaires that weren’t just draining the life out of this planet and everyone on it.
posted by Jon_Evil at 11:10 AM on October 5, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 11:10 AM on October 5, 2021 [9 favorites]
I haven't read this, but the assumption that Wayne Enterprises is a privately held conglomerate is a faulty one. There have been more stories about various Waynes (Bruce, but also, I think Tim) dealing with cranky shareholders and board members than I could probably count.
posted by sardonyx at 11:26 AM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by sardonyx at 11:26 AM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
From "Coinsure": Does not yet offer a platform for posting exclusive content so in that regard it doesn’t quite suit as a Patreon or Kickstarter alternative but they’re debating adding those kinds of functionality.
That would be a great idea for gently steering the kind of inventors who come up with freeze guns and such to put their genius to work making something that doesn't kill people.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:35 AM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
That would be a great idea for gently steering the kind of inventors who come up with freeze guns and such to put their genius to work making something that doesn't kill people.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:35 AM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
A tapeworm rolled in cocaine is almost believable. I'm amazed somebody hasn't tried it yet.
posted by ardgedee at 11:41 AM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ardgedee at 11:41 AM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also--and I hate to pick out just one thing, but--"Ask him about the guy with the brain maggots! Just kidding, you don’t have to ask. He tells everyone that story." The Batman/The Wasp Factory crossover that I never knew that I needed.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:49 AM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:49 AM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I haven't read this, but the assumption that Wayne Enterprises is a privately held conglomerate is a faulty one. There have been more stories about various Waynes (Bruce, but also, I think Tim) dealing with cranky shareholders and board members than I could probably count.
sardonyx
That's true, though the author does say that they are "ignoring literally everything from canon". Though that makes this kind of pointless beyond it's neat that someone went to all this effort and it's funny and well-written.
A few years ago World's Foremost Batmanologist Chris Sims did an article looking at the canon depictions of Wayne's wealth and companies, including the historical reasons for making Batman rich in the first place.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:52 AM on October 5, 2021
sardonyx
That's true, though the author does say that they are "ignoring literally everything from canon". Though that makes this kind of pointless beyond it's neat that someone went to all this effort and it's funny and well-written.
A few years ago World's Foremost Batmanologist Chris Sims did an article looking at the canon depictions of Wayne's wealth and companies, including the historical reasons for making Batman rich in the first place.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:52 AM on October 5, 2021
I've seen at least one comment (on the piece as posted on Archive of Our Own) linking to a fanfic story reusing a lot of Kitty Unpretty's worldbuilding but showing a Wayne Enterprises board meeting. So, you know, take what you like! I do recommend that, if you take exception to the basic structural choices Unpretty makes, read the three paragraphs at the start explaining those choices.
BTW, the pickles company is a reference to Unpretty's fic "Bruce Wayne Banned from Wal-Mart (Snapchat Compilation)".
posted by brainwane at 12:04 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
BTW, the pickles company is a reference to Unpretty's fic "Bruce Wayne Banned from Wal-Mart (Snapchat Compilation)".
posted by brainwane at 12:04 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'll add that ignoring the canon isn't about nerd rage (well, not just about that), but that the 80+ years of Batman canon features a lot of weirdness and intricacies that could greatly enrich a fan project like this. For example, Bruce's mother, Martha Wayne, herself comes from money, the Kane family, and its corporate empire was folded into the Wayne empire on her marriage to Thomas.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:33 PM on October 5, 2021
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:33 PM on October 5, 2021
Believe me star gentle uterus, I'm adept at ignoring canon, as any comic reader needs to be. I've also read Unpretty's fanfic. I just a) wanted to put that fact out there for non-comic readers that the piece is deviating directly from canon before they even click the link (in case they care) and that b) I find though exercises like this richer when they can incorporate as much agreed-upon/foundational/whatever-we're-calling-it canon as possible.
posted by sardonyx at 1:02 PM on October 5, 2021
posted by sardonyx at 1:02 PM on October 5, 2021
Batman is a fascist who uses his control of media, industry, local police to craft a myth where torture, extra-judicial punishments meted out by some costumed strong man are necessary to save the people of gotham from crime and corruption. Institutions like the courts and government are portrayed as ineffective and unable to solve the problems facing gotham.
His media empire transforms anyone who dares oppose the Batman into a “super villain”. For example a the crusading, popular district attorney, Harvey Dent, suffers disfigurement in mysterious industrial accident and the media transforms him into “two face” and portrays him as a actually a criminal mastermind. An environmental activist is called Poison Ivy.
posted by interogative mood at 1:13 PM on October 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
His media empire transforms anyone who dares oppose the Batman into a “super villain”. For example a the crusading, popular district attorney, Harvey Dent, suffers disfigurement in mysterious industrial accident and the media transforms him into “two face” and portrays him as a actually a criminal mastermind. An environmental activist is called Poison Ivy.
posted by interogative mood at 1:13 PM on October 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
[Charles Foster Kane applauding GIF]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:14 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:14 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Batman is a fascist
Yeesh, not this tired Comics 102 take again, though it's predictable that it would show up here.
Again, Chris Sims has a good take on this line of thinking: of course in reality someone like Batman would be a fascist, Superman would be a tyrant, etc. But these are fictional characters operating in a specific genre with specific conventions and rules, and ultimately they exist in a world where they are necessary to exist. It's not reality, it's a world constructed around the character, and so it doesn't make sense to examine it "realistically".
It's refusing to engage with the premise on its own terms, just as yet another iteration of "Superman would actually be evil and terrible" misses the point that fundamental to the idea of Superman is the fantasy of someone with power being a good person.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:35 PM on October 5, 2021 [13 favorites]
Yeesh, not this tired Comics 102 take again, though it's predictable that it would show up here.
Again, Chris Sims has a good take on this line of thinking: of course in reality someone like Batman would be a fascist, Superman would be a tyrant, etc. But these are fictional characters operating in a specific genre with specific conventions and rules, and ultimately they exist in a world where they are necessary to exist. It's not reality, it's a world constructed around the character, and so it doesn't make sense to examine it "realistically".
It's refusing to engage with the premise on its own terms, just as yet another iteration of "Superman would actually be evil and terrible" misses the point that fundamental to the idea of Superman is the fantasy of someone with power being a good person.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:35 PM on October 5, 2021 [13 favorites]
They also make zeppelins because it’s a comic book, someone has to make the fucking zeppelins and it might as well be Batman.
Good point, well thought out and a persuasive argument.
posted by nubs at 2:19 PM on October 5, 2021 [7 favorites]
Good point, well thought out and a persuasive argument.
posted by nubs at 2:19 PM on October 5, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's not reality, it's a world constructed around the character, and so it doesn't make sense to examine it "realistically".
This is why Adam West Batman will always be the best Batman. It walked the appropriate stakes/silliness line perfectly.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:39 PM on October 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
This is why Adam West Batman will always be the best Batman. It walked the appropriate stakes/silliness line perfectly.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:39 PM on October 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's refusing to engage with the premise on its own terms
Not that you can't get a pretty decent comic if you do so refuse. But even Alan Moore backed off from that in a lot of his later work.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:05 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Not that you can't get a pretty decent comic if you do so refuse. But even Alan Moore backed off from that in a lot of his later work.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:05 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Batman exists in a world where it is necessary for Batman to exist.
I have never seen the anthropic principle used to explain Batman before, but I like it.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:19 PM on October 5, 2021 [11 favorites]
I have never seen the anthropic principle used to explain Batman before, but I like it.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:19 PM on October 5, 2021 [11 favorites]
I suspect part of why Moore backed off is that while the premise underlying "Watchmen" is a strong one when you want to drill deep into "yeah but what if these particular things had real-world consequences" scenarios, but it also becomes inherently self-limiting because reality imposes a lot of pretty strict constraints that you can selectively ignore in fantasy, so stories will get kinda samey after a while.
posted by ardgedee at 3:19 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ardgedee at 3:19 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Or the Batmanthropic principle, in this case
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:22 PM on October 5, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:22 PM on October 5, 2021 [14 favorites]
Bathropic principle, surely
posted by BungaDunga at 4:06 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 4:06 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
Saw a resurgence in the modern day with the advent of such exclusive product lines as the infamous “It Has Pockets” line of women’s fashion.That's more out there than the zeppelins.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:48 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
Well thinking of not-engaging-with-the-premise-on-its-own-terms, it's fascinating to me that all of these firms under the Wayne umbrella have primary functions, that is they exist to make something or provide a service, and derive profit from doing that thing—which is an assumption about capital firms completely in keeping with Batman's 1930s origins, not our own time. They're really true to the urban universe of that period which where light industry and manufacturing really were central, before financialisation. Even the insurance and banking companies are retail. None of them are derivative finance, I can't see any brokerages, obviously there's no Wayne hedge fund, I can't see any companies obviously pumped-to-grow before a public offering, and where's the IP or real estate holding companies? Why didn't Bruce Wayne lose his shirt in the 00s backing Wayne Pets Dot Com?
It's not just that the firms do good things, it's that they do things at all. It's a wish-fulfilment fantasy about capital firms and what they're *for* and I'm kind of affected by it.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:52 PM on October 5, 2021 [18 favorites]
It's not just that the firms do good things, it's that they do things at all. It's a wish-fulfilment fantasy about capital firms and what they're *for* and I'm kind of affected by it.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:52 PM on October 5, 2021 [18 favorites]
Yes Batman exists in a fantasy world where his toxic behavior is justified and virtuous. That’s how they sell fascism to the masses. Worship the strong man who sits above the law — watch him torture his way through “bad guys” dangling them off buildings or otherwise assaulting them go get information — it gets results so all is forgiven.
posted by interogative mood at 5:37 PM on October 5, 2021
posted by interogative mood at 5:37 PM on October 5, 2021
No, it's not all forgiven, and even if it were, it's the equivalent of coming into a post shouting "YOUR FAVOURITE BAND SUCKS!"
Look we get it, we've heard this argument every time a comic character is brought up. Fine, you don't like traditional American superheroes. Great. Your disapproval has been noted. The horse is dead, so there is no need to keep beating it. It's not taking you anywhere.
posted by sardonyx at 5:43 PM on October 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
Look we get it, we've heard this argument every time a comic character is brought up. Fine, you don't like traditional American superheroes. Great. Your disapproval has been noted. The horse is dead, so there is no need to keep beating it. It's not taking you anywhere.
posted by sardonyx at 5:43 PM on October 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think it depends on the on the band and the message in their lyrics. You want to talk about the band; talk about the band. Hard to talk separate a group like Rage Against the Machine or Public Enemy from their politics. And if some one brings up their left wing views that isn’t the same as saying “your band sucks” comment just because you or the commenter happen to disagree with their political message.
posted by interogative mood at 6:21 PM on October 5, 2021
posted by interogative mood at 6:21 PM on October 5, 2021
The thing is, that line of criticism is just tired and lazy at this point. As noted by Halloween Jack above, Watchmen already pretty definitively laid it all out 35 years ago, and there have been decades of comics since exploring it from other angles.
Again: yes, of course, in real life someone engaging in comic superheroics would at best be a sad loser and at worst a dangerous psychopath. Actual billionaires in real life are not only not good people, the existence of billionaires at all is not a good thing. This isn't some shocking truth bomb for comics readers. At this point it's like someone smirking and telling wrestling fans that the matches aren't actually real fights.
Because guess what? To quote that Sims article I linked above: "if you want to read about a guy dressed as Dracula who drives around in a rocket car getting into fistfights with people who rob banks with laughing gas and crossword puzzles, you're just going to have to accept that you're reading about a world that's not quite real."
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:31 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
Again: yes, of course, in real life someone engaging in comic superheroics would at best be a sad loser and at worst a dangerous psychopath. Actual billionaires in real life are not only not good people, the existence of billionaires at all is not a good thing. This isn't some shocking truth bomb for comics readers. At this point it's like someone smirking and telling wrestling fans that the matches aren't actually real fights.
Because guess what? To quote that Sims article I linked above: "if you want to read about a guy dressed as Dracula who drives around in a rocket car getting into fistfights with people who rob banks with laughing gas and crossword puzzles, you're just going to have to accept that you're reading about a world that's not quite real."
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:31 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
I love this!
(Though this remains in my mind the best and final word on Batman.)
posted by Wretch729 at 6:44 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
(Though this remains in my mind the best and final word on Batman.)
posted by Wretch729 at 6:44 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I like to hope that we will see org charts for LexCorp, Stark Industries, Oliver Queen's business...
I suppose if people want something nerdy, I could post my carefully researched dossier on Pentex Holdings and their IRL analogues. But that's just for Werewolf: the Apocalypse nerds, so might be a bit niche and tangential...
posted by LeRoienJaune at 6:52 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I suppose if people want something nerdy, I could post my carefully researched dossier on Pentex Holdings and their IRL analogues. But that's just for Werewolf: the Apocalypse nerds, so might be a bit niche and tangential...
posted by LeRoienJaune at 6:52 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I understand both sides of this argument. Yes it's fiction, and people should be about to write literally anything they please. But, I also seen an awful lot of pop culture worship of Batman and other superheroes, and the nuances of the fictional-universe argument are lost in large part on the people idolizing these extremely fictional, unlikely, impossible people. There are whole documentaries about people stylizing themselves as real-world superheroes.
I don't think the problem is people writing about superheroes as much as the gigantic media empires pushing these characters into our brains all the time. Superhero media forms a large portion of our entertainment landscape, it's inescapable, even things that don't look like superhero properties turn out to be kind of are. I don't think the content directly influences behavior, just like video games don't make people go out and shoot up their neighbors, but the assumptions of their worlds, unchallenged, go into that vast body of context out there, where they go to construct the models people use to explain to themselves how the world works. The actual people in tights going out and having colorful adventures are obviously fictional, but the world that justifies them is not questioned nearly as often.
Hence: crime is down, but our media is full of people fighting crime, not just superhero shows but cop shows and true crime shows, which gives people the impression that crime is still high. Viewers don't see that part of these shows as fictional, and they should be challenged on that.
posted by JHarris at 7:34 PM on October 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I don't think the problem is people writing about superheroes as much as the gigantic media empires pushing these characters into our brains all the time. Superhero media forms a large portion of our entertainment landscape, it's inescapable, even things that don't look like superhero properties turn out to be kind of are. I don't think the content directly influences behavior, just like video games don't make people go out and shoot up their neighbors, but the assumptions of their worlds, unchallenged, go into that vast body of context out there, where they go to construct the models people use to explain to themselves how the world works. The actual people in tights going out and having colorful adventures are obviously fictional, but the world that justifies them is not questioned nearly as often.
Hence: crime is down, but our media is full of people fighting crime, not just superhero shows but cop shows and true crime shows, which gives people the impression that crime is still high. Viewers don't see that part of these shows as fictional, and they should be challenged on that.
posted by JHarris at 7:34 PM on October 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's not even forgiven in the comics themselves. There are plenty of issues where characters (including Bruce's own kids) point out the problems with Batman specifically, with vigilantes in general, with overall Gotham society, with rich people, with rich people throwing money at things (especially things they don't understand), etc. There have also been plenty of arcs where the business has been in financial jeopardy, where the family has lost control of the business, where the business has done more harm then good, and so on.
So, no, I'm not buying any political musical criticism analogy, especially since it doesn't seem to be engaged with in good faith.
Look, I get it. People can decide certain media properties aren't for them. That's fine. If the characters, the message, the style, the genre, etc. don't work for a person, they don't work. It's also perfectly acceptable to have opinions about why they don't work. And to share those opinions. In fact, I encourage people to go make their own posts expressing those opinions. But popping into a thread to do nothing but shit all over it saying "the property is nothing but evil crap and everything associated with it, including works of fan fiction" which this thread is actually discussing, is nothing but an exaggerated form of "YOUR FAVOURITE BAND SUCKS."
posted by sardonyx at 7:40 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
So, no, I'm not buying any political musical criticism analogy, especially since it doesn't seem to be engaged with in good faith.
Look, I get it. People can decide certain media properties aren't for them. That's fine. If the characters, the message, the style, the genre, etc. don't work for a person, they don't work. It's also perfectly acceptable to have opinions about why they don't work. And to share those opinions. In fact, I encourage people to go make their own posts expressing those opinions. But popping into a thread to do nothing but shit all over it saying "the property is nothing but evil crap and everything associated with it, including works of fan fiction" which this thread is actually discussing, is nothing but an exaggerated form of "YOUR FAVOURITE BAND SUCKS."
posted by sardonyx at 7:40 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
Just realizing that the dates here imply that Martha & Thomas Wayne died in the mid-late 1990s, which, wow. I guess for Batman to be ~30 today that’s what has to be, but for the retcon treadmill to peg the time I first started reading comic books distant past is a new feeling for me.
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:47 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:47 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Now that I've got time to read the actual link (meaning I'm not on the clock at work), I'll say
a) Unpretty must be young enough that that tiny font doesn't bother her aging eyes.
b) It's always a shock to watch these characters get younger by the decade as we get older. There are certainly points in time where, in my personal history, Bruce was in charge of the company but by Unpretty's timeline, Bruce wasn't even born yet, and it was his grandfather or father who made acquisitions or founded divisions.
c) It's fascinating to watch how people world-build and what people emphasize and what they leave out, especially when they really put the time and effort into being thorough.
posted by sardonyx at 7:48 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
a) Unpretty must be young enough that that tiny font doesn't bother her aging eyes.
b) It's always a shock to watch these characters get younger by the decade as we get older. There are certainly points in time where, in my personal history, Bruce was in charge of the company but by Unpretty's timeline, Bruce wasn't even born yet, and it was his grandfather or father who made acquisitions or founded divisions.
c) It's fascinating to watch how people world-build and what people emphasize and what they leave out, especially when they really put the time and effort into being thorough.
posted by sardonyx at 7:48 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
I like to hope that we will see org charts for LexCorp, Stark Industries, Oliver Queen's business...
How the fuck does Barry Allen keep the lights on at STAR Labs anyway? And they haven't fixed the hole in the tower for 7 years.
posted by mikelieman at 7:53 PM on October 5, 2021
How the fuck does Barry Allen keep the lights on at STAR Labs anyway? And they haven't fixed the hole in the tower for 7 years.
posted by mikelieman at 7:53 PM on October 5, 2021
There are whole documentaries about people stylizing themselves as real-world superheroes.
The quote-endquote real life superhero fad seems to have faded out pretty fast. (The parallel plotline in Watchmen would be the Minutemen, who largely died or gave it up within a decade; Doctor Manhattan later characterizes the remaining few as "friendly middle-aged men who like to dress up.") I guess Phoenix Jones is still plugging away, although generally people seem to be a bit more skeptical about his self-reported "crimefighting" and it seems to have been a way for him to promote his MMA career.
Hence: crime is down, but our media is full of people fighting crime, not just superhero shows but cop shows and true crime shows, which gives people the impression that crime is still high. Viewers don't see that part of these shows as fictional, and they should be challenged on that.
That's conflating some very different things. I really don't think that people think of something like the latest example of Missing White Woman Syndrome in the same way that they do a movie about a Queens teenager spraying crooks with adhesive from his gloves. (The first movie of the latest iteration of Spider-Man even gave a nod to the improbability of the superhero street crimefighting paradigm with his being unable to find any crime to fight in his own neighborhood, following his adventure in Berlin which had superheroes fighting each other.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:02 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
The quote-endquote real life superhero fad seems to have faded out pretty fast. (The parallel plotline in Watchmen would be the Minutemen, who largely died or gave it up within a decade; Doctor Manhattan later characterizes the remaining few as "friendly middle-aged men who like to dress up.") I guess Phoenix Jones is still plugging away, although generally people seem to be a bit more skeptical about his self-reported "crimefighting" and it seems to have been a way for him to promote his MMA career.
Hence: crime is down, but our media is full of people fighting crime, not just superhero shows but cop shows and true crime shows, which gives people the impression that crime is still high. Viewers don't see that part of these shows as fictional, and they should be challenged on that.
That's conflating some very different things. I really don't think that people think of something like the latest example of Missing White Woman Syndrome in the same way that they do a movie about a Queens teenager spraying crooks with adhesive from his gloves. (The first movie of the latest iteration of Spider-Man even gave a nod to the improbability of the superhero street crimefighting paradigm with his being unable to find any crime to fight in his own neighborhood, following his adventure in Berlin which had superheroes fighting each other.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:02 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
How the fuck does Barry Allen keep the lights on at STAR Labs anyway?
He writes grant applications really quickly.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:44 PM on October 5, 2021 [8 favorites]
He writes grant applications really quickly.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:44 PM on October 5, 2021 [8 favorites]
Also from Unpretty's excellent Bruce Wayne fanfic:
Bruce's snort was a humorless sort of amusement. "I have more money than God."posted by straight at 9:00 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
"Does God have a lot of money?" Tara asked.
"No. He's not a capitalist. That's the other guy."
"Do you have more money than the devil?"
"Not yet, but I'm working on it. That's what the violin is for."
Go and reread Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns series. It is pure right wing, fascist fantasy. Old Batman must save us from imaginary liberal straw men. When the power goes out form an EMP, the world descends immediately into chaos, and only his army of brown shirted “Mutants” can restore order. The mutants who Batman comes to lead by beating up their leader. The new female police commissioner is helpless and incompetent to stop them previously and in the crisis from the EMP.
posted by interogative mood at 9:15 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by interogative mood at 9:15 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
"If you want to read about a guy dressed as Dracula who drives around in a rocket car getting into fistfights with people who rob banks with laughing gas and crossword puzzles, you're just going to have to accept that you're reading about a world that's not quite real."
Sure, but I think it think it's worth considering whether the desire to read and writes such stories is a good thing or not, for us personally and for how those kinds of stories shape our culture. Nolan's Dark Knight largely broke the concept of Batman for me. I can't read stories about "heroes" using "enhanced interrogation" without thinking, "This is not the sort of story we should be telling ourselves."
posted by straight at 9:21 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sure, but I think it think it's worth considering whether the desire to read and writes such stories is a good thing or not, for us personally and for how those kinds of stories shape our culture. Nolan's Dark Knight largely broke the concept of Batman for me. I can't read stories about "heroes" using "enhanced interrogation" without thinking, "This is not the sort of story we should be telling ourselves."
posted by straight at 9:21 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's very obvious—because of the success of the character beyond the ownership of any corporation or author—that Batman is a literary figure a good deal larger than his DC canon. This is a character who can exist simultaneously as a Frank Miller vigilante, Adam West camp underpants Batusi-dancer, barely concealed 50s gay-subtext comic book Daddy-to-Robin, Val Kilmer cheesecake, and Michael Keaton plain weird unit. If you like or dislike superego figures of heroism, he's preceded by far more epic ones; Gilgamesh isn't exactly a democratic figure, Sun Wukong isn't a paragon of consultative teamwork, the Greek and Roman pantheon are just plain freaky. Arguing over the politics of figures like these isn't wrong, it's not even wrong, it's misunderstanding what the characters do in a literary culture.
As a general point, this on Batman is an argument that's evidence itself of a strange North American literalism, that only a text itself can be a valid interpretation of a work, and removes any sense of context or history or meaning in use. If Batman acts as a bad man it must be because the literature is bad, or good if good, and no more can be taken from the text; and that well-trodden metaphorical techniques are one-to-one surface analogies. It's getting to the point where non-North Americans do need to know when we come on here to comment, to be careful that writing a thing, or writing about a thing, or writing around a thing, or writing a different thing that depends on knowledge of the thing, will mean people assume you believe the thing, even that you are the thing. Alfred, have we tested the Bat-Critic yet?
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:38 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
As a general point, this on Batman is an argument that's evidence itself of a strange North American literalism, that only a text itself can be a valid interpretation of a work, and removes any sense of context or history or meaning in use. If Batman acts as a bad man it must be because the literature is bad, or good if good, and no more can be taken from the text; and that well-trodden metaphorical techniques are one-to-one surface analogies. It's getting to the point where non-North Americans do need to know when we come on here to comment, to be careful that writing a thing, or writing about a thing, or writing around a thing, or writing a different thing that depends on knowledge of the thing, will mean people assume you believe the thing, even that you are the thing. Alfred, have we tested the Bat-Critic yet?
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:38 PM on October 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ha ha, Batfans! You've fallen into my trap!
The whole thread is filling with my new Thermian Argument Gas as we speak!
posted by bartleby at 12:32 AM on October 6, 2021 [10 favorites]
The whole thread is filling with my new Thermian Argument Gas as we speak!
posted by bartleby at 12:32 AM on October 6, 2021 [10 favorites]
How the fuck does Barry Allen keep the lights on at STAR Labs anyway?
Human-scale hamster wheel hooked to an ultra-high frequency turbine generator charging a massive battery bank? Couple of minutes of full tilt run juices 'em right up with a month's worth of power. As for the other bills, what Kadin2048 said.
posted by radwolf76 at 3:06 AM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Human-scale hamster wheel hooked to an ultra-high frequency turbine generator charging a massive battery bank? Couple of minutes of full tilt run juices 'em right up with a month's worth of power. As for the other bills, what Kadin2048 said.
posted by radwolf76 at 3:06 AM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Barry Allen uses the flash force to engage in high frequency trading and front running of the market whenever STAR Labs’ gets low on cash.
posted by interogative mood at 3:54 AM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 3:54 AM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I wouldn't argue that anyone's particular view of Batman is incorrect, even if it's based on a limited number of the many, many stories published about that character. Disliking the character based on his portrayal in The Dark Knight Returns can't be dismissed, especially because that particular work was very popular and affected not only the subsequent portrayal of the character but comics in general to an enormous degree. Ditto for the Nolan movies. Or, of course, you can just dislike the whole idea of Batman in general.
What I'd push against is the idea that Batman essentially is a fascist, or essentially is a completely benevolent billionaire who takes in fellow orphans and helps them deal with their traumas via a more action-oriented version of Camp Good Grief, or essentialy is just a furry who likes fast cars and utility-belt-sized gadgets. There are texts that support all of these, and more. In fact, there are at least a couple of Batman stories that show the different versions--in at least one, they get to meet each other--as if they were the Batmen of alternate universes, instead of successive versions in the same universe, more or less. I think that arguing for the primacy of one over the others is a mug's game. (Even Miller's version, as popular as it was, has been reconsidered critically and often, especially given Miller's own becoming more obviously and unabashedly right-wing. This led, maybe inevitably, to DC Comics rejecting Miller's latest Batman work, Holy Terror, in which he fights Muslim terrorists, as too extreme, and Miller subsequently de-Batmanizing the character so that he could publish it with someone else.) At this point, Batman, and many if not most of the legacy comics superheroes, is a quantum superposition, to borrow the application of that concept that Alan Moore used in his commentary at the end of From Hell.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:06 AM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
What I'd push against is the idea that Batman essentially is a fascist, or essentially is a completely benevolent billionaire who takes in fellow orphans and helps them deal with their traumas via a more action-oriented version of Camp Good Grief, or essentialy is just a furry who likes fast cars and utility-belt-sized gadgets. There are texts that support all of these, and more. In fact, there are at least a couple of Batman stories that show the different versions--in at least one, they get to meet each other--as if they were the Batmen of alternate universes, instead of successive versions in the same universe, more or less. I think that arguing for the primacy of one over the others is a mug's game. (Even Miller's version, as popular as it was, has been reconsidered critically and often, especially given Miller's own becoming more obviously and unabashedly right-wing. This led, maybe inevitably, to DC Comics rejecting Miller's latest Batman work, Holy Terror, in which he fights Muslim terrorists, as too extreme, and Miller subsequently de-Batmanizing the character so that he could publish it with someone else.) At this point, Batman, and many if not most of the legacy comics superheroes, is a quantum superposition, to borrow the application of that concept that Alan Moore used in his commentary at the end of From Hell.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:06 AM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Just realizing that the dates here imply that Martha & Thomas Wayne died in the mid-late 1990s, which, wow. I guess for Batman to be ~30 today that’s what has to be, but for the retcon treadmill to peg the time I first started reading comic books distant past is a new feeling for me.
Honestly, I'm sort of... ok with imagining Martha and Thomas dying during the "superpredator!!!!!" crime scares of the 90s. Makes it feel extra-plausible for a young Bruce to see his own loss as part of a bigger trend that requires him to Take Action to Stop Crime.
posted by Tomorrowful at 9:51 AM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Honestly, I'm sort of... ok with imagining Martha and Thomas dying during the "superpredator!!!!!" crime scares of the 90s. Makes it feel extra-plausible for a young Bruce to see his own loss as part of a bigger trend that requires him to Take Action to Stop Crime.
posted by Tomorrowful at 9:51 AM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm rather enjoying the back-catalog of "Batman Black and White," which is a series that has been going on for a few decades now. It's nothing but one-shot Batman comics, each self-contained, with a separate artist, author, inker, etc. Some are good, some are bad, but each is very, very different. If you're not liking the Batman as portrayed by Hollywood, it's a good way to find one you do like, and maybe explore more of that artistic team's work.
posted by Blackanvil at 6:56 PM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Blackanvil at 6:56 PM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
The super hero characters who are super rich like Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne can be co-opted easily to promote some political views that I find uncomfortable. It concerns me that people like Elon Musk use those characters as templates for the PR image they try to create about themselves.
I don’t see any solution to this; not am I proposing we cancel the characters . I feel grumpy about it though.
posted by interogative mood at 3:35 PM on October 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I don’t see any solution to this; not am I proposing we cancel the characters . I feel grumpy about it though.
posted by interogative mood at 3:35 PM on October 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
« Older "Do writers not care about my kidney donation?" | Someone Not Mentioned On This List From a Country... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Ipsifendus at 10:32 AM on October 5, 2021 [6 favorites]