Alright so this post will be about the man who gave us the Dark Knight, Bob Kane. Bob was another one of those guys who was probably only in his late teens or early 20's when the superhero comic books burst onto the scene. Suddenly, guys who didn't think they had any future career in sight were suddenly being paid big money to do what they did best, use their imaginations. Drawing from pulp heroes like the Shadow, and movies including Douglas Fairbanks The Mark of Zorro, Bob created a man with no powers, yet hunted down criminals using his crime-fighting and detective skills. He created the Bat-Man (later changed to Batman). First appearing in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939, the character became a hit, soon dominating the cover of the magazine and soon began appearing in a comic that featured all Batman stories. The first issue of Batman #1 introduced the lovely thief Catwoman and one of the most despicable and feared villains in comics, the Joker. Bob continued to work in comics until his death in 1998.
I wonder what you think about all the reboots and different versions of various characters over the years in comic books and movies. Once characters got away from their original creators, they seemed to take on multiple personalities, identities, artists and media (film, TV, novels, etc). Even in some of the other franchises you mention, like Star Trek or Star Wars, there are multiple renditions of the same characters. My basic question: is this good, bad, or ugly, in your opinion. How does one make sense of this trend.
ReplyDeleteInformative and interesting!
ReplyDeleteDavid sorry it has taken this long to comment back, school has been nuts. To answer you question I don't find this bad, or good or ugly at all. To me its the characters just changing they way people do in the real world. For example, the DC book franchise known as Elseworlds. At the beginning of of each comic or trade paperback with the Elseworlds logo, they always print this message "In Elseworlds, super-heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places - some that have existed, and others that can't, couldn't or shouldn't exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow."
ReplyDeleteSo you see, to me it doesn't matter if characters take on so many changes, I will still read them, or watch them because to me, they will be timeless, no matter who writes/draws/acts out that character.