How to create a great Batman story
These are the elements to any great Batman story.
1. Must have a scene where he is brooding in the Batcave. Bonus points if he is also solving a mystery.
2. Have you ever met a professional rugby player? Average height 6'3", weight 230lb. While football and hockey players are just as huge, covered up in pads and helmets, they do not tower like a flanker or centre does.
Batman should dwarf the mere mortal, and many comic book artists cannot do perspective correctly. Tim Sale does it perfectly in series of panels with Catwoman:
3. Beat up the supercriminals, finesse the regular ones.
Yes, yes, Batman can trash henchman by the dozen. But it is way cool to see a high tech device in action, one of the many reasons why Batman has endured for 70 years.
But there has to be some creativity lest you fall into the campy bat-belt cliché. I just read No Man's Land, and Batman threatened to destroy the Penguin's generators with a micro electromagnetic pulse device. He was bluffing though; it was actually just a portable alarm clock, but the reader could easily believe Wayne R & D had built one.
The real creativity is when Batman takes on a super-powered criminal. The cop-out solution is the armored suit, especially since the story always resolves by Batman finishing his foe after the suit fails.
I enjoyed reading Batman's encounter with Artemis, the Amazonian, in Superman/Batman: Supergirl. He is forced to take on a much stronger opponent but one as skilled as he is. In a chilling moment, Batman never wavers against a superior fighter, and beats her when he feints defeat to open her to a poisoned dart.
4. Batman as a medium for societal ills. I am not longer as well versed in comic lore like I was when I was a teenager, but most comic book heroes were created to fight outer space aliens, genius masterminds, or some other fanciful gimmick. Batman was spawn after a random shooting of his family. There is nothing as reality-based as that.
5. Never say "I am the goddamn Batman".
1. Must have a scene where he is brooding in the Batcave. Bonus points if he is also solving a mystery.
2. Have you ever met a professional rugby player? Average height 6'3", weight 230lb. While football and hockey players are just as huge, covered up in pads and helmets, they do not tower like a flanker or centre does.
Batman should dwarf the mere mortal, and many comic book artists cannot do perspective correctly. Tim Sale does it perfectly in series of panels with Catwoman:
3. Beat up the supercriminals, finesse the regular ones.
Yes, yes, Batman can trash henchman by the dozen. But it is way cool to see a high tech device in action, one of the many reasons why Batman has endured for 70 years.
But there has to be some creativity lest you fall into the campy bat-belt cliché. I just read No Man's Land, and Batman threatened to destroy the Penguin's generators with a micro electromagnetic pulse device. He was bluffing though; it was actually just a portable alarm clock, but the reader could easily believe Wayne R & D had built one.
The real creativity is when Batman takes on a super-powered criminal. The cop-out solution is the armored suit, especially since the story always resolves by Batman finishing his foe after the suit fails.
I enjoyed reading Batman's encounter with Artemis, the Amazonian, in Superman/Batman: Supergirl. He is forced to take on a much stronger opponent but one as skilled as he is. In a chilling moment, Batman never wavers against a superior fighter, and beats her when he feints defeat to open her to a poisoned dart.
4. Batman as a medium for societal ills. I am not longer as well versed in comic lore like I was when I was a teenager, but most comic book heroes were created to fight outer space aliens, genius masterminds, or some other fanciful gimmick. Batman was spawn after a random shooting of his family. There is nothing as reality-based as that.
5. Never say "I am the goddamn Batman".
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