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I have two of his books after I reading in the Fortean Times about his inciting the moral panic over comics in the 1950s. I noticed that one of them even had a reference to James Bond in it.
Interesting, @Dragonpol! What can you tell me about those books? Worth my time, or am I going to be doing weeks of hate-reading? ;-)
Batman pretty much stopped being a dark character after 1940, when Robin came along ("You can't have a kid named Robin, with a colorful Robin Hood costume, running around in the night shadows; somehow it doesn't jibe"). The pulp influence over the character waned because comics in the Golden and Silver ages had a target audience of children. Not until the 60s, when adolescents took to Marvel, did that fundamentally change. After the TV had run its course there was no option left but to Marvelize Batman.
Finger's thoughts about Wertham are also interesting:
"Wertham was a first-rate psychiatrist and a good man in his field. However, he was like the old maid always looking for somebody under the bed. He saw sex and violence in everything. Also he was astute enough to cash in on it... I know a couple of students in his class at NYU [New York University] and they admitted to me that he was a kind of nutty character. I remember one story he had an objection to [that] I think I wrote: Superboy is jumping up a tree to get an apple for somebody and Wertham saw this as a sexual symbol. The tree was a phallus and the apple, balls.
"...I knew many homosexuals but I certainly didn't think of Batman in those terms. I thought of it in terms of Frank Wharton, and Frank Merriwell and Dick Merriwell, his half-brother, who was the kid he was taking care of. Wertham got his views on the homosexuality of male heroes in popular culture from Gershon Legman's book, Love and Death, and he extended this analysis to literary characters like Ishmael and Queequeg in Moby Dick.
"This is nonsense, really. In America we always talk about the Western hero and the pioneer kind of man—the Davy Crockett-types—as being loners. They're never really. They always have a sidekick. In all your Westerns you have a Gabby Hayes, or whatever. Certainly there's no homosexual relationship. It's just part of the American syndrome."
@DarthDimi: I was looking on one of my bookshelves and found my first edition ex-library copy of Frederic Wertham's A Sign for Cain: An Exploration of Human Violence (1966). To be honest I've only really flicked through it but it certainly looks interesting enough. I'm interested in the treatment of violence in popular culture and this book covers that and more. No doubt nowadays he'd be called a reactionary but at the time I'm sure he was writing about the contemporary fears as regards violence. I think I also have his book The Show of Violence too somewhere.
I suppose that you could say that's he's the comic book equivalent of how the late Paul Johnson was with his critique of Fleming and Bond. In his brief passing reference to James Bond in the first book mentioned above, Wertham even references the same sex, snobbery and sadism line of attack.
Honestly I think Mad Hatter and Hugo Strange would be perfect
...but speaking of The Batman 2, I've been meaning to post all this for those who are interested :)
I agree, I think more than enough time has passed since B&R to bring these characters back and give them the respect they deserve.
I am not familiar with the source material, the first thing that came to mind was Kevin Conroy when I heard the Bruce/Batman voice actor.
Please explain: Did Kevin Conroy do the voice work for this one before he passed ? Will this be his last Bruce/Batman performance ?
No it was a different voice actor for BATMAN: The Doom That Came to Gotham
No the movie continuity is as such
Batman 1989 - Batman & robin is technically one continuity
The dark knight trilogy is a different continuity
Batman v Superman - Justice league 2021 is a different continuity
The Batman is a different continuity
@Risico007 ok kind like bond sort of?
Nah, absolutely not. Bond is far more cohesive than the Batman film series.
I suppose with Bond there's really only been two continuities so far - the classic era of 1962-2002 and the reboot era of 2006-2021.
Yes, well some fans here have said that there were soft reboots in the past each time that there was a change of actor in the lead role. You're right though in that there's a big jump in age between Moore and Dalton (about 19 years or so). I suppose it all ties in with the oroginal idea for TLD to have a reboot at that time with a younger Bond moving from the Royal Navy into the British Secret Service.
Yes, and the entire Bruce Timm universe is something else too. It shares nothing with Burton's Batman except part of the opening theme of TAS. Then there's EARTH-31's The Dark Knight Returns and Year One, also animated. We also have a few animated Elseworlds stories. And so on.
Proof that various iterations of Batman exist. The cinematic world of Bond has, perhaps 2, although I will continue to insist that there's hardly any serious continuity at all before the Craig years.
@Risico ok kind like bond sort of?
Yeah I guess they mention Tracy so there is some connection.
I think lip service was given to continuity in the Bond film series, at least historically, with just enough linkages to show that it's meant to be the same person throughout.
Played by, of course, Michael G Wilson's dad.
Yeah I meant to call that out as well @mtm. The first on-screen Batman.
I am excited