Thomas Wayne acting like a jerk

[whitesycamore]

A recent post sparked some comments on the role of good and bad parents in the bat mythos, and how Thomas and Martha Wayne are almost always shown as damn near perfect. I thought I'd post a few scans from Batman 430 (an issue about a rooftop sniper about to go on a killing-spree) which contains a flashback to Bruce's childhood and casts the Waynes in a different light.



This issue immediately followed Death In The Family, but there's no mention of Jason apart from one page. Thematically though, this story is all about anger, death and guilt.























I'm conflicted about this. It's pretty horrible to see Thomas Wayne backhand Bruce, but I do like the idea that Bruce's memories of his idyllic happy childhood might not quite match the reality. In particular I like the contrast between Bruce's memories of being "very, very rich" and money being zero concern, and Thomas' financial worries.








I can't imagine that Bruce would ever say " I don't love him no more". It's not just the sentiment, it's the grammar, damn it! But the brattiness and the anger over his father's rejection is all very reminiscent of the conflict between Bruce and Jason only a few issues before.













I've noticed that Starlin's Batman stories tend to have everyone acting more dickish than they do usually. Still, I really like the subtext that the events of DITF have caused Bruce to revisit his relationship with his own father and possibly to understand him better. Thomas Wayne is portrayed less than favourably here, but he's also a bit more human and fallible than he's usually shown.



Suggested tags

title: batman, char: batman/bruce wayne, char: jim gordon, char: thomas wayne, char: martha wayne, creator: jim starlin, creator: jim aparo

Comments

[thosefew]

The last week of the Wayne family must have been the busiest week ever. I have difficulty keeping track of all that happened.

Does anyone know all the stuff that happened? I know he was pulled out of school from Gothic, and the Hush stuff happened around that time, but I know there's lots more.

[whitesycamore]

God, yes. The "and on that VERY SAME NIGHT, my parents were killed" trope is getting way overused.

I think the most egregious example is in Fortunate Son, where Bruce mentions that the one, single time he listened to rock music was the same night his parents were killed. This is used to explain Bruce's pathological aversion to rock music.

[thokstar]

Hey, don't forget that Christmas was earlier that week (if you keep Batman: Brave and the Bold in canon.)

According to Morrison everything happened, but some of those stories were drug induced hallucinations childhood daydreams.

[arysteia]

I'm sorry, the fact that this was the same night as Zorro makes this ridiculous for me, just robs it of any power it might have had if the writer could have resisted temptation and just had it end with the apology. The grammar, as you point out, also tosses it unequivocally into an AU.

[whitesycamore]

It is kind of excruciating, isn't it? Bruce's characterisation also bothers me here - it doesn't take into account that Bruce has always been written as exceptionally mature and emotionally controlled, even as a young child.

I kind of posted this because I thought it had some interesting ideas buried in there, not because I thought they were well-executed.

[seriousfic]

I think it might've been better if Thomas had just snapped at him. That's bad enough to be jarring, while being less... melodramatic?

[whitesycamore]

Starlin also wrote a part in DITF where Bruce grabs Jason by the collar of his cape and starts shaking him around. That always jarred with me, because I can't see Bruce using physical violence to establish his authority. It completely contradicts the attitude he normally has towards violence.

[freddylloyd]

True, but part of comics being a visual medium is that emotions are acted out physically as well as verbally.

And, as you note, the superhero genre is melodramatic, so those emotions are at the TOP LEVEL almost ALL OF THE TIME!!!

[icon_uk]

As noted, not keen on the story, but Aparo is firing on all cylinders here and the colourist is to be commended too, especially given this is well over 20 years ago now so the computer colour options were limited, if available at all.

[whitesycamore]

No doubt. I really like the panel on page 13 of Bruce climbing onto the roof - there's some palpable menace there.

[sleepymax]

From what I can remeber, Aparo's artwork doesn't look good when digitally colored. I remember reading No Man's Land and thinking "How could you make Aparo's pencil's look so bad?"

[cmdr_zoom]

Motto.
It helps that Aparo's style was the Batman I knew as a kid.

[insectposse]

Oh, Bruce... you were too young to realize it, but scotch doesn't smell foul. It smells AMAZING. Especially the stuff your dad could afford to drink.

[skjam]

Your mileage may vary. Scotch smells foul to me, as do all other alcoholic drinks--Bruce may have the same genetic quirk.

[sistermagpie]

Ugh, I hated this flashback. I think it's ridiculous--particularly with the "and that very night..." thing. The Waynes can be imperfect without Thomas melodramatically smacking an adolescent-looking Bruce for wanting to play catch with him.

[alienist]

Definitely too heavy-handed. It might have worked better if they were actually...having an argument, or something.

[punishermax]

THIS FLASHBACK PRESENTED IN FABULOUS URINE VISION!

[whitesycamore]

Dude, I always relive my traumatic memories through a sickly yellow haze. THAT'S NORMAL.

[alienist]

"I don't love him no more" - I agree on the grammar, but I don't mind the sentiment. At that very moment? You're not feeling all the love you have your parent. You're feeling fury and betrayal. I certainly wouldn't call it brattiness.

[mr_neutron]

It's ham-handed in typically Starlin style, but still, anything is preferable to the idea of Bruce's parents as a pair of plaster saints. And the idea of Bruce wishing his Dad dead, as many kids do without really meaning it, and having that wish come true right when he no longer desires it, is appropriately horrible.

[twigcollins]

Retconning decent people into jerks is what you do when you're a total hack. So even if the Waynes were more complicated than their usual one-dimensional portrayal, this just looks like Desperate Attempt by Writer to Become Part of Canon.

[jlroberson]

I remember this and found myself touched despite that it was Starlin.

Lots forget how good Aparo was at emotion and letting his characters act. One of the best at that. This, if I recall, was some of his last good art before the inkers started genericizing him.

[elf]

It's shadows. I know it's shadows. Bruce is *not* wearing fishnet stockings & a garter belt on that last page.

Please, someone tell me it's shadows.

[kamino_neko]

It's shadows. Clearly, since if Bruce WERE wearing fishnet thigh highs, he'd have the tops lined up properly, or at least askew in an aesthetic way.

[kirke_novak]

Wait, so his daddy bitchslapped him for wanting to spend time with his, mommy told him it's because daddy is stressed out... yeah... um... why are we all ignoring this? Or is it a case ot The Times! They are a-changing!

[mad]

Can we avoid terms like "bitchslapped", please?

[mad]

I can't imagine that Bruce would ever say " I don't love him no more". It's not just the sentiment, it's the grammar, damn it! But the brattiness and the anger over his father's rejection is all very reminiscent of the conflict between Bruce and Jason only a few issues before.

I'm with you on this. I can't imagine Bruce ever using bad grammar. It just doesn't work for me. (But then, they used to have all kids/babies using baby-grammar "Me Superboy!")

This is an interesting take on Bruce and his dad. Because I always see Bruce as being very protective of kids in general, and he usually has a special place in hell for people who hurt kids in any way. But he's also very devoted to the concept of family.

I suppose this story is kind of a relic in terms of how attitudes towards parents hitting children has been changing over time. I can't really see DC publishing this story today and still painting Thomas in a sympathetic light.

(Also, I gotta wonder if that Batman: The Brave and the Bold Christmas episode was inspired by this. It has Bruce saying something mean to his parents right before they died, too.)

[ar_feiniel]

While I'm all for showing that the Wayne family had it's imperfections, that backhanded slap just spoils it for me. I get that it's different times and all and that we're not meant to think of Thomas Wayne as a violent unhinged man, but he's almost knocking Bruce over with that slap and it's hard to unsee it.

[jaybee3]

Maybe it's just me but based on current continuity, the line that seems to most off to me is the part about lil' Bruce having a lot of friends. Which I've never seen any evidence of - apart from retcons like Thomas Elliot and Zatanna (who I never even thought of as Bruce's age before Dini made it so).

And I can't really see Thomas Wayne worrying about money much either. He was a full-time doctor and the running of Wayne Enterprises didn't seem pressing to him (also he had maybe retconned out brother, Phillip Wayne, to take care of that).

[halloweenjack]

Sometimes Starlin can be a bit sledgehammery in his character work. (See Willow from Dreadstar, who unlocked her psychic powers and went psychosomatically blind after remembering What Daddy Did To Her.) But the main distraction here is, I think, the fact that Aparo gave Thomas Wayne and Jim Gordon handlebar mustaches. Why not put both of them in seersucker suits and straw boaters while he's at it?

[aaron_bourque]

I've noticed that Starlin's Batman stories tend to have everyone acting more dickish than they do usually.

Yeah . . . . there's usually a lot of good writing in there that can muddy it and distract you from the dickish behavior, but reading it all together, yeah.

But this isn't so bad. It sometimes gets shown that Bruce was a bit of a spoiled twit before his parents' deaths.