Amazing no one post this yet, BATMAN HAS A NEW THEME SONG AND ITS DARK!!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lKy5Z9HAaw

Thank you for this! =D

The one nice thing about batman is that it can be used very different ways. From gothic to campy to gritty-pseudo-realistic to straightforward fascist. It's always a bit nice and interesting to see another, very different, implementation of the same trope. I find a way to like each one of them. Except maybe the base comics, because, really, god, superherocomics are shitty (I can only take so much heavy-dialogued fight scenes with pseudo-philosophical monologues, and by so much I mean practically zero). And crowded. Movies tend to keep it with one costumed weirdo plus a couple of baddies. Comics turn everything into Alan Moore's Top10 without the self-awareness.

So, in a way, I may be simply disliking batman enough to appreciate each movie incarnation without considering that they fail at being anything specific. In comparison, other superheroes keep being incarnated the same way, so, beh. Not much room nor Burtonism, Nollanism, or Adamwestism variations in wonderwosuperspiderman.

That being said

Well, his BSDM wear gets torn. A bit.

I tried to get into comics as a teenager and never could get fully engrossed in those long saga as they felt extremely repetitive and superficial. They tended to have a couple of good idea at the beginning and then what followed was mostly cliches and convention.

The commercial feel of franchises like Spiderman or X-men spanning endless sagas that got rewritten multiple time didn't help either.

On the big screen, it makes for cool action movies, though I must admit the lack of meaningful character development in many superhero movies is starting to get to me a little. It became most obvious when watching Avengers and Captain America: Winter Soldier. A lot of people were raving about those movies, but my feeling was that not much happened in terms of real storytelling.

Notable exceptions of this trend for me were Watchmen and Kick-ass (well, I saw/read the first, apparently the second installment was not as good). Watchmen is the best "super"hero comic/movie ever in my book, bar none.

I can't consider it as such. These Moore stories tend to subvert superhero themes more than implement them. They sarcastically turn around everything I hate about superheroes. I take them more as satires or parodies, which would explain why I like them while superhero comics bore me to death.

Come on people, who didn't like this stuff as a kid!
Even for kids, it's easy to understand that 'good guys' and 'bad guys' is just a tag so you can have two opposing teams. Peaceful cooperation and coexistence is boring in child's play and makes for a poor narrative in my experience. My little sister used to invite me over to her room so my stuffed animals can have tea with her stuffed animals. It was real boring until I kidnapped some of her little ponies. Technically, that makes me 'Team Evil' but as I said, it's all just a tag so you can have discernible teams. Playing one side or the other is equal fun, but without opposition there is no fun narrative. It's not about morals, not the least bit.

Each to their own but I just can't take them seriously. I remember loving the Adam West and Burt Ward versions of Batman and Robin. Oddly, they had repeats a few months ago and they had a brilliant retro-humour that holds strong today.

HUMOR!?
A dolphin sacrificing itself to keep Batman and Robin from being blown to bits by a torpedo isn't humorous! It's valiant! It's uplifting! It's.......really messy.

:)

Another ridiculous thing is how they milk the franchise and do experimental things with their heroes – crossovers, alternate timelines and similar drivel. I'm sure Mark Twain never considered writing a novel titled "Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn Meet the Prince and the Pauper". My friend once told me there was a comic with Batman as a vampire. I though he was pulling my leg until I looked it up online.

a) Are you comparing high literature to friggin' Batman? O.o
b) Vast majority of comic books do NOT have a single author, it's actually a massive mix of them, so there's very little artistic integrity to damage
c) Many experiments may turn out to be awesome. See Aliens vs. Predator.

That one happens to mesh well because the concept is easily translatable into a computer game, so that you effectively have three "classes" with vastly different abilities. And because Predators never really had a developed backstory. They're just alien beings who come from far, far away to hunt other species and collect their skulls. As such, they feel at home in any SF setting. With Aliens you have to be more careful not to spoil the lore. The games were awesome. The movies were...not so good.

But the worst thing is how contrived this whole marriage of different universes is. It doesn't speak of inspiration, it doesn't bring anything new to the table, except to see different superheroes duke it out. That way you can pair anyone with anyone else. Why not My Little Pony & the South Park kids against the evil villains of the Simpsons and Flintstones combined? I don't think that sounds fun. I'd rather watch the Flintstones on their own.

At least someone other than TinyE gets it. Superhero comics being owned by companies rather than single minded individuals have no set end. it's a curse because there is little long term change and a blessing in that it means anything is on the table short term rather than being restrained by being "serious" and "realistic".

This hardly something unique to superhero fiction. This holds true of things like TV cartoons/ animated shows, anything owned by Hasbro, Star Trek, Sitcoms, a lot of horror franchises, the Sherlock Holms stories, James Bond, Warhammer 40k (and Fantasy), a lot of European comics, Doctor Who, and most long running video game franchise. Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Metroid, Castlevainia, Borderlands, Unreal (what story it had) The Elder Scrolls, Duke Nukem, Even Ultima all seem to exist in a limbo where time and change seem to be abstraction than facts of life.
It's because they are owned by corporations who don't want to see tied up after six episodes just to make who ever was writing that week feel special.

It doesn't suit every thing but it's what has let pop-culture become what it is today. Ask anyone on the street who Batman and superman are and they will know. Ask about Silk spectre and Night Owl and most people will give you a blank stare. And people can cry Alan Moore's praises till the sky falls, but without the comic book industry there'd be no Watchmen to loftily lord above fun comics. I like creator owned comics like Flight, Hellboy, Ronin, Pride of Bagdad, When the Wind Blows, M, Contract With God and Bone But I like superhero fiction too.

Reading the comments round here's a little depressing. Seems you can't enjoy the sceptical of a god, a super spy, a monster and Wizard fight aliens on a flying whale no more. And certainly not if it's a crossover :(

These Honest Trailers more or less agree with me about the Batman movies.

The dark knight

The dark knight rises

Batman &amp; Robin <-- =P