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scans_daily2011-09-04 07:03 pm
icon_uk) wrote in scans_daily2011-09-04 07:03 pm
BTAS - When "noir" became "pitch black"
Batman Adventures Annual #1 features five short stories by Paul Dini, about various Batman villains trying to go straight and how and why they fail (mostly)
One of the beauties of Batman: The Animated Series, was that it could handle the light and it could handle the dark.
Now the series, in the early years, was limited by what was permitted to be shown in cartoons at the time (Which is why, for example, the Joker never killed anyone in the early episodes). The comics, however were not. They didn't go to the "grim" often, which made the times it did all the more powerful.
Please be warned, this post contains material that may be triggering for rape or sexual assault.
Batman is pondering how even some of his villains feel the need for some normalcy in their lives, to retire and withdraw from the insanity of supervillainy, but don't always choose the best method of trying it...
In full Scarecrow gear, Crane promises to make the course as interesting as possible for Mr Bromley, a captive audience and the only one in attendance at this unplanned night class.
Fear can be triggered by many things, and the Scarecrow has specialised in developing chemicals which trigger hyper-specific results... And he wants Bromley to know absolute fear, so is prepared to run the gamut, starting with an obvious one...
But why has the Scarecrow picked on this guy?
The Scarecrow had been in Arkham, pondering the dead-end future that being a supervillain was. What would happen when he got too old to challenge Batman regularly, or if he won sometime, what would he do then? He'd been a teacher once, and often thought about returning to that life (Remember that this Scarecrow is a scrawny little weed of a man, a book-loving former professor, not the seven foot tall corpselike thing he was redesigned to be later in the series (a redesign I never liked I might add))
So, escaping from Arkham, he created a new identity for himself as Irving Deidrich, a professor of English Literature, and gained a job as a lecturer at a small college near Gotham. His students were, in his mind, a bunch of slack jawed, mouth-breathing illiterates, but he found he was enjoying the work, it was what he had trained for his whole life though, and there was one exception to the rule that made it worthwhile...
Please note there's no suggestion that Crane's interest was anything other than that of a professor for a student, he genuinely liked this girl in as close to a normal manner as he probably knows how.
She taught herself to play Bach, because she loved his music so much. But Crane notes that Bromley never took the time to know the REAL Molly, he simply saw her as another pretty face, another evening's entertainment... (He says, whilst dousing Bromley in a drug which induces arachnaphobia, with no real effect, but Crane is determined to see that look of fear...)
And Molly came to see her counselor after her "date" with Bromley. (Klaus Janson really captures this next moment well I think)
That look of appalled horror, moving to the single eye panel and then the shadows falling across Cranes face speak volumes. You know EXACTLY what he's thinking because, let's be honest here, a lot of us would be thinking exactly the same thing in this situation, though we would never go to Crane's lengths. The darkness is coming, and he's going to embrace it willingly.
Next fear-triggering compound out is not an obvious one, but as it turns out, an effective (and apt) one...
At this point, Batman appears, he's been aware of Crane's new identity all along, and at first thought it was part of some scheme, but since his reform seemed genuine, he was prepared to cut him some slack as long as he stayed being a teacher and never became the Scarecrow again. That option no longer exists. We don't know how long Batman has been observing the situation, and it's perhaps better not to ask, but he won't allow Crane to murder anyone.
The end of the fight is inevitable of course, but as the story ends, Batman ponders Crane's motivations..
I like the fact that some villains have their own moral codes, even in the midst of their own madness.
Joker reacting like this wouldn't work, but with Scarecrow it does work, and at a certain visceral level, we might, even for a moment, agree with his plan... up to a point.
One of the beauties of Batman: The Animated Series, was that it could handle the light and it could handle the dark.
Now the series, in the early years, was limited by what was permitted to be shown in cartoons at the time (Which is why, for example, the Joker never killed anyone in the early episodes). The comics, however were not. They didn't go to the "grim" often, which made the times it did all the more powerful.
Please be warned, this post contains material that may be triggering for rape or sexual assault.
Batman is pondering how even some of his villains feel the need for some normalcy in their lives, to retire and withdraw from the insanity of supervillainy, but don't always choose the best method of trying it...
In full Scarecrow gear, Crane promises to make the course as interesting as possible for Mr Bromley, a captive audience and the only one in attendance at this unplanned night class.
Fear can be triggered by many things, and the Scarecrow has specialised in developing chemicals which trigger hyper-specific results... And he wants Bromley to know absolute fear, so is prepared to run the gamut, starting with an obvious one...
But why has the Scarecrow picked on this guy?
The Scarecrow had been in Arkham, pondering the dead-end future that being a supervillain was. What would happen when he got too old to challenge Batman regularly, or if he won sometime, what would he do then? He'd been a teacher once, and often thought about returning to that life (Remember that this Scarecrow is a scrawny little weed of a man, a book-loving former professor, not the seven foot tall corpselike thing he was redesigned to be later in the series (a redesign I never liked I might add))
So, escaping from Arkham, he created a new identity for himself as Irving Deidrich, a professor of English Literature, and gained a job as a lecturer at a small college near Gotham. His students were, in his mind, a bunch of slack jawed, mouth-breathing illiterates, but he found he was enjoying the work, it was what he had trained for his whole life though, and there was one exception to the rule that made it worthwhile...
Please note there's no suggestion that Crane's interest was anything other than that of a professor for a student, he genuinely liked this girl in as close to a normal manner as he probably knows how.
She taught herself to play Bach, because she loved his music so much. But Crane notes that Bromley never took the time to know the REAL Molly, he simply saw her as another pretty face, another evening's entertainment... (He says, whilst dousing Bromley in a drug which induces arachnaphobia, with no real effect, but Crane is determined to see that look of fear...)
And Molly came to see her counselor after her "date" with Bromley. (Klaus Janson really captures this next moment well I think)
That look of appalled horror, moving to the single eye panel and then the shadows falling across Cranes face speak volumes. You know EXACTLY what he's thinking because, let's be honest here, a lot of us would be thinking exactly the same thing in this situation, though we would never go to Crane's lengths. The darkness is coming, and he's going to embrace it willingly.
Next fear-triggering compound out is not an obvious one, but as it turns out, an effective (and apt) one...
At this point, Batman appears, he's been aware of Crane's new identity all along, and at first thought it was part of some scheme, but since his reform seemed genuine, he was prepared to cut him some slack as long as he stayed being a teacher and never became the Scarecrow again. That option no longer exists. We don't know how long Batman has been observing the situation, and it's perhaps better not to ask, but he won't allow Crane to murder anyone.
The end of the fight is inevitable of course, but as the story ends, Batman ponders Crane's motivations..
I like the fact that some villains have their own moral codes, even in the midst of their own madness.
Joker reacting like this wouldn't work, but with Scarecrow it does work, and at a certain visceral level, we might, even for a moment, agree with his plan... up to a point.
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Even the Joker has moments like this, like his possible backstory in The Killing Joke. And it always bugs me when DC decides to take Batman's rogues gallery and reduce them to one-note bad guys when almost every single one of them has greater potential, such as the Scarecrow's use here.
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In so many ways, Dini and the writers of TAS really understood what makes this characters better than many writers of the actual DC Comics. A damn shame that few have learned from the show, as evidenced by the fact that few have written any worthwhile stories with TAS greats like Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter.
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Also quite telling that the only other Hatter story in the DCU I like is that Wonderland Gang story by Dini.
But I definitely agree that BTAS produced some of the better interpretations of the characters, although I think the finest showing for Hamill's amazing Joker came with the Justice League two-parter where he had that realtime timer in the corner. Maybe that and his hilarious eulogy for Batman.
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Another story in the issue this Scarecrow tale came from has a night of the Joker wandering the streets of Gotham after a failed robbery spreading casual mayhem in his wake. The only part I didn't like was him getting donuts and giving the terrified clerk fake money impregnated with Joker venom killing him outfight.
As the clerk had actually been helpful, I'd have preferrred the Joker saying something like "Bob, you were terrific serving me tonight, and I want you to know that anytime I'm in the area I'll pop in for more donuts and if you're NOT the one to serve me, well, I won't be a happy customer. And after I've made my displeasure clear, I'll come looking for you to find out WHY you weren't there for your favourite customer" and let the poor guy live in fear for the rest of his life.
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Where's the fun in that? The goal shouldn't just be murder. The Joker should use more than just poison or guns or knives to murder someone - if he murders someone. My personal favourite Joker moment that scares me is what he does to the guy in Mask of the Phantasm - we don't even see it, but we can imagine that it is tortuous and terrifying. And it leaves his victim a laughing, broken wreck.
There needs to be some serious thought about how villains, and Joker especially, are employed. Instead of other villains being scared of him because he kills, why not have them afraid of him because he'll leave them broken and unstoppably laughing? Murder should be too easy, boring even, for Joker.
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Uh, if we're thinking of the same dude, the Joker poisons him, that's it.
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2. Pffft, follow up comic.
Anyway my point is that he is a laughing wreck solely because of the toxin. I'm sure the Joker did other nasty things to him, but that's not why he can't stop laughing.
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