Batman Year Zero

[the_lassiter.insanejournal.com]

An alternate Batman career brought to you by  JLA #37 (1965)

Comments

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Bwah-ha-ha! Love it! :)

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Hee! Does Thunderbolt change everybody else in the JLA's career path, or just Batman's?

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

This looks like Earth-2 Batman.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

He does have big ears, but it's Batman from his first appearance in 1939. The art's really dead-on.

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Isn't this how Earth-2 Batman started out?

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't know, but it's definitely how regular Batman started out. Detective #27, almost the same exact panels.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

This is pre Crisis and has the Thunderbolt, which was unique to Earth-2, so yes, it would have to be.

[rab62.insanejournal.com]

But this story is about the Earth-One counterpart of Johnny Thunder, a petty crook who orders the Thunderbolt to go back in time and prevent the JLA from ever forming (see above) thereby creating a divergent Earth-One dubbed in the story as "Earth-A" -- which then gains evil counterparts of the JLA called the Lawless League.

The above was written from memory. My entire life has been a waste.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Oh. You don't mean 'Tec 27. You mean the JLA story? I've not read the JLA story.

But here's the matching panel from Detective 27, with Regular, Earth 1 Batman.

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

I love this so much I want to buy it flowers. I mean, both panels.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

I know! Go "Bat-Man" !!! When not decking people as the "Bat-Man", Bruce Wayne smokes a pipe and is filled with put-upon ennui. It's terrific.

[tacobob.insanejournal.com]

That is correct "Mystery-Fan". I shall read that "funny book" and then enjoy a delicious strawberry phosphate! Yum!

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

That sounds delightful, "Taco-Bob". I shall do this same. After which I'll send a telegram to Constantinople. Or perhaps a letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail.

[tacobob.insanejournal.com]

That sounds like a gay-time to have! Just as long as you do not involve your-self in any horse-play with those jackanapes!

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

I shall only involve my-self in horse-play for the cause of crime-fighting those rag-a-muffins!

[lieut_kettch.insanejournal.com]

Tut-tut. The Ottomans shan't like it if you continue to refer to their city as Constantinople. It behooves you to use its proper name, Istambul, lest we are assaulted by a mob of infuriated Asiatics!

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Hee! Nice work, there!

[(Anonymous)]

He changes everyone's, as the Earth 1 Johnny Thunder (who's a 'hey youse mugs' type thug) told him to make sure the JLA never came to be.

One dissonance cited by other folks is that T-Bolt changes Krypton's core to inert lead, rather than the supercritical Uranium mass it was, meaning, Kal-El lives on a living Krypton with the other Kryptonians. So at the end of the story, 'setting things right' means the extinction of millions...

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

I was just reading about that story, with the extinction of millions. It was a discussion of like, 'Which hero's killed the most people'?

Thanks for the info!

[jkcarrier.insanejournal.com]

I suppose that's why they had Thunderbolt interfering with Batman's first case, rather than having him save the Waynes...in that case it would've been even more in-your-face obvious that "putting things right" = "killing innocents".

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

Batman: "Ouch! People are hitting me! That's it, I'm done. My dead parents can suck it."

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Yeah it's very much "Wait? People can hit BACK? Screw this lark!"

[tacobob.insanejournal.com]

Ah, the good ol' days of being a super-hero. When you can fight evil by standing in place with your hands on your hips.

[darkknightjrk.insanejournal.com]

And we thought Deadpool was the first to manipulate the past in such a way. :O

[freddylloyd.insanejournal.com]

Playboys are a cowardly and superstitious lot.

[tacobob.insanejournal.com]

WAAAAH! That Batman face on your avatar is HORRIBLE! I'm gonna go hide under my bed or chubby-faced Batman will eat me!

[freddylloyd.insanejournal.com]

Wildly cheerful blue word balloons are a cowardly and superstitious lot.

[faythalie.insanejournal.com]

At first I read: "I'm going back to read Playboy." 0_O

[sianmink.insanejournal.com]

This is canon in my head now.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Being the nerd that I am, I can't help but nitpick here - this was not Batman's first case. It was his first APPEARANCE in actual comics, yes, but he had cases before that. For one thing, in the first panel of this story where idle pipe-smoking Bruce is talking to Commissioner Gordon, Gordon mentions how "this fellow they call the "Bat-Man" puzzles me!" That would seem to be a pretty clear implication that Batman has had at least one or two other cases already. Also, I'm pretty sure there was a later Sprang-era story talking about 'Batman's first case'.

[the_lassiter.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, we know this isn't his first case. That is what the Batman Year One (48 years later) story is all about.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

That's post-Crisis continuity; I'm talking pre-Crisis, when this was written.

[lawrence_live.insanejournal.com]

Ahh, hey! I never noticed that! Yay nitpicking nerds!

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

We make the world more complicated! Gloriously so! Disturbing yet magnificent!