Several Comic book characters I can’t stand. And here’s why…
So I was hoping to postpone this one for a little bit, but it’s surprisingly hard to come up with legitimate reasons to hate the most beloved comic book characters because they generally are written well. Or at least, written well enough. But there is one…ONE character I can’t stand. One character that I think is bullshit. So who am I talking about?
Batman. I hate this guy. When I say hate, I mean HAAAAAAATE. This character is bullshit through and through. Now, before I get into the hate speech, I will say this. 1989, Michael Keaton, good movie. I liked it. He was good at playing Wayne, showed the brainer side of the character, and aside from that, Keaton is fucking awesome anyways. Also, the car looked really cool. After that, they kept making the car look more and more ridiculous. No idea why. Whatever. Last side note…Nicholson was great as The Joker. Yes, Heath was good as well, but Nicholson was better in my opinion. Made him a bit funnier. Kinda thought that was the whole point of the character.
Anywho, back to the berating. Batman is a bitch. He lacks any and all conviction. Now, how old was he when his parents were killed? Roughly 8. Something like that. He goes ON and ON about his parents being killed. I mean, this is like his favorite fucking subject to talk about. Here’s the thing, though. He’s about my age in the comics, I’m 36 now. He’s roughly that age, give or take a year. If you haven’t gotten over something like that, after 30 FUCKING YEARS…Kill yourself. I’m not saying that as a joke, I mean it. If you can not get past something like that after 3 decades, kill yourself. The reason is, it will NEVER get any better for you. This is the ONLY thing this asshole thinks about, and he’s had 30 years to move on from it. He has billions of dollars, he could do ANYTHING he wants. So what does he do? He dresses up, goes out and fights bad guys all night, all the while he’s crying about mommy and daddy. For fuck’s sake man, GROW a pair.
Bruce Wayne has no conflict. I know I said this about Superman before, then kinda reneged on it, but this guy really has no conflict. There’s NO reason for him to be doing what he’s doing. He could hang it all up one day and just say “Fuck it. I’m moving to Tahiti”. And ya know what? That would be perfectly viable. There’s no reason for him to do what he does. He doesn’t solve any problems. He’s basically a cop with a different uniform. It may not look like that right off the bat, but bear with me. You’ll see.
Bruce Wayne lacks conviction. He’s committed to his cause, but only so far. How many times has The Joker threatened to kill half the population of Gotham? Too many. How many times have other characters threatened to kill hundreds of thousands of its’ citizens? TOO MANY. What does he do about it? He beats up the bad guy, beats up their goons, they all get sent to prison or Arkham, and then what? They get out next week. He lacks conviction to his own cause. Now, as far as my friends and family go, they all know I’m a huge fan of Marvel characters, and I detest DC characters. DC doesn’t write characters well, in my opinion. Marvel does it better. But I’ll compare him to some Marvel characters that also don’t END their enemies, then show you the difference.
3 of the more currently popular Marvel guys: Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Cap. None of these guys take matters into their own hands and end people. Hell, only 1 of them actually has any powers, and Spidey pulls all his punches against non-super powered threats. But there’s a difference between these 3 guys and the Bat. Batman wants to be the SCARY guy. He’s not. He thinks he is, but he’s not. See, if you want to scare someone, they have to realize there’s consequences to their actions. Batman beats people up, they get sent to the hospital, then prison, then they’re out within a month. WHERE’S THE FUCKING CONSEQUENCES?!!!
Short answer: There are none. He lacks conviction to his cause. Now, look at someone on Marvel’s side that does what the Bat does: The Punisher. Are there consequences to going up against him? YEAH. YOU BETCHA. He will END you. He will kill the SHIT outta you. What does that ultimately mean? Well, that means that whoever it was that was just threatening the general public WILL NOT DO IT ANYMORE. EVER. THAT is conviction to a cause. And here’s something better about Castle (for those that don’t know, The Punisher’s name is Frank Castle), he had his whole family killed in front of him, like Wayne, but it wasn’t his parents. It was his wife and CHILDREN. THAT…wow. That’s something like a game changer. For a man, losing your wife AND children…that just makes you a whole ‘nother beast. And that’s what happened to Castle. He reacted the way he should have. KILL THE FUCK OUTTA EVERYTHING.
Batman lacks any and all conviction. For some stupid-ass reason, he thinks if he arrests his “super villains” enough, (most of his bad guys don’t have any real powers, so they aren’t really “super” in any way) things will get better. If he actually nutted up for once, and killed one of them, *maybe* some of the others would take notice and move to a new town. But he doesn’t, so why should they? He’s a bitch, and the worst part of it is his enemies know it. Batman…You AREN’T scary. Stop trying to be.
Now I shudder to think what your opinion of Arrow is.
OMG, I had this feeling after ur last blog that Batman was going to be next… I was right.
Alright so I feel like I am going to regret paying devils advocate here but I had a few questions as to your thought process on why Batman should be over the death of his parents from thirty years before, enough that he, or anyone else, should kill themselves if not over such a tragedy.
Now, Im sure we don’t read the same books or watch the same movies or shows but let me pop out some examples for you.
Law and Order SVU: Detective Benson is in this particular unit and joined the police force due to being the product of a violent rape of her mother.
Dexter: Kills bad guys due to seeing his mother being brutally murdered before him. It is important enough to be mentioned every season.
Anita Blake Vampire Hunter: Mother killed in violent car crash. It is brought up in every book as a main reason for her being the way she is, though it is nearly fifteen years later.
Quinn Legacy: Character Anna becomes social worker which comes from a horrible night twenty years prior to the rape of her and her mother, who died in front of her.
Lucky Number Slevin. Main character hatches elaborate scheme of murder years after to mob bosses kill his parents.
Castle: Dectevive Beckett joins the police force in order to stop crime and find the murderer of her mother. Again years later.
And I cant believe I am going to say this one but in Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian Grey is the way he is due to his hooker mother being killed in front of him while he was four. The book is also placed at least twenty years after that.
Supernatural: The Winchesters are hunters due to the fact that their mother was killed by a demon when they were very young. In fact the father spent at least twenty years search for the thing that killed her, whilst taking out any harmful entity that he came across.
I can think of many examples of characters who even twenty to thirty, to fifty years later use a tragedy as a driving force for what they do, whether it be revenge or making a difference in the world.
So my questions are:
Do you object to the time period between the traumatic event to where the character is in their life?
Is it only that he is a “hero” vigilante as opposed to a character who uses similar tragedies to shape their life in a helpful to society way?
Is it that he has no real powers and just wicked cool toys to fight crime with?
And would you ever tell someone you met in real life who was say a lawyer, a cop, a psychiatrist, a social worker, volunteer, and so forth who experienced say the exact if not similar situation in their lifetime that they should kill themselves for not getting over it thirty years down the line?
Is it not true that experiences in our lives, whether good or tragic shape the way we are as adults, whether it be running around like a bat (Which has personal issues written all over it) or working in your own way to try to prevent something that happened to you from happening to others? Even if it is thirty years down the line.
Also, does it have to be a particular type of tragedy? Batman had his parents killed in front of him and becomes a vigilante in the streets of Gotham. Joe Blow’s parents are killed in front of him by a drunk driver and he dedicates his life to raise awareness and so forth in their name. So is it what they do with tragedy that bugs you or is it just an irritating character?
And yes, Batman would be so much cooler if he killed people instead of throwing them in jail.
Laurel Hamilton is one of my favorite authors so i git mad hyped when i noticed you mentioned Anita Blake 😀
I think the real point I was trying to get at wasn’t “Just get over it or kill yourself”. I was really trying to point out that there’s two options you could go with when a loved one dies:
1. Grit your teeth, and get through it. It’s gonna be painful as hell, for sure, but you can deal with it and move on. You can go on to become a normal , healthy member of society. Sure, it’ll still be painful to think about, but you can come to grips with it and progress as a person.
2. You can hide yourself away in a cave, cut yourself off from the real world and focus purely on the person’s death. Mentally and personally you will never develop into a normal adult, and you’ll really evolve as a person. In essence, you’re dead inside.
Anybody wanna guess which way Wayne went? I’m mean, I was bringing up the cave as a metaphor, but he LITERALLY has one. He takes time to bring up or think about his parents CONSTANTLY. The truly defining aspect of the character is that his parents are dead. Now, I don’t read Batman comics because I think he’s a douche, but Josh, my artist likes Batman a lot. When we were having this very discussion some time ago, he pointed out to me that at one point, in one of the Batman storylines, Wayne has a kid. I can’t remember whether it was a boy or girl, but I think Josh mentioned it was a son. Anywho, the kid gets killed. Now THAT should be something that Wayne never gets over. Losing a child is the greatest hell you can put a parent through, assuming they’re a loving mom or dad. Josh then pointed out to me that Bruce Wayne was still more upset and distraught over his parents’ deaths than he was over his own kid dying.
This character is a piece of shit and needs to die permanently. If what Josh told me was right, that he was more broken up over his parents dying than his child, he’s the biggest piece of shit character I’ve ever heard of.
My whole point before was that if you have no intention whatsoever to get over the loss of a loved one, you’re life is pretty much over where it is. Hopefully that got my point across a little clearer.
Crystal clear, thank you
Yeah they are great. Ever read the mortal instruments Sonya?