Batman: Ghosts

[cyberghostface]

Disclaimer: This is 1/3 of a 48 page story.

The night before Halloween, Batman returns home after a lengthy fight with the Penguin. He feels something is strange. That night, he wakes to a presence in his room.





Thomas tells Bruce that he will be visited by three spirits. Later that night the clock strikes for the first itme and he awakes to find Poison Ivy in his room. Batman assumes that this is because of her.



They go back to a Halloween from Bruce's childhood, where his father had to work late and couldn't take him trick or treating.





She takes him to see the first time he met Lucius Fox, before he was Batman. Lucius is being mugged and Bruce stops the thieves. Lucius offers to work together with Bruce, but Bruce turns him down. Ivy asks Batman if this was how he honors his parents, and Batman responds that he made a promise to stop crime and that she wouldn't understand.

In his bed again, Bruce awakes to the clock striking a second time. He hears laughter in the halls and knows it can only belong to one person:





















"The spirits have done it al in one night."

Later that day, he meets Lucius Fox and makes a business proposal to help the less fortunate. 

That night...

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

This was the first example of "Young Bruce Wayne didn't have friends" even before he had to focus on THE MISSION. I mentioned how Young Clark Kent was also made into a friendless outcast, and I griped that Bruce and Clark don't have to be Peter Parker.

And even "Peter has no friends" was dropped when Romita took over the art.

[silverhammerman]

I definitely agree that the way Clark Kent has been retrofitted into an ersatz Peter Parker growing up doesn't really work. But the whole friendless thing actually fits pretty well with the more obsessive version of Batman that's prevailed for most of the modern era, provided that this characterization is shown to result from his parent's death.

What's your point about the Romita shift in Spider-Man? Because I'd argued that while it's incredibly abrupt, it actually works really well as character development, and the idea that Spider-Man used to be a bit of a self centered shithead is an important part of the character.

[starwolf_oakley]

What's your point about the Romita shift in Spider-Man? Because I'd argued that while it's incredibly abrupt, it actually works really well as character development, and the idea that Spider-Man used to be a bit of a self centered shithead is an important part of the character.

My point is that the "Peter Parker was a friendless outcast" element was dropped after a while, at least when they got a new artist. And it is abrupt. Gwen says to Flash, "Remember, we are going to be nice to Peter!" A funny podcast review from Spider-Man Classics joked about the issue.

[silverhammerman]

Well yeah, it's dropped as a part of the ongoing status quo, but my point is that it's still a really important part of the character's backstory. The modern Spider-Man might not be written as the quasi-Objectivist misanthrope of the Ditko era, but he's still very much characterized as a dorky nerd who made good.

As to the abruptness, for me it rings true. I'll also note that even in the Ditko issues, it's kind of a running "thing" during Peter's college days that other characters do try to reach out to him, only to get brushed off because Peter is 1) self centered and oblivious, and 2) legitimately overwhelmed with Spider-Man drama. There's actually one particular sequence in the first Romita issue that always sticks out to me as the big turning point for Peter's characterization, and it's when he notices that Harry is upset and decides to actually go talk with the guy. I dunno, I guess the experience of waking up one day to realize that you've been an ass and other people have problems too is one that I connect to pretty deeply. So for me it reads as a moment of epiphany, rather than just a shift in narrative style.

But now we're into the realm of subjectivity.

[lucean]

One of the things I've always found facinating about Bruce is that he is without a doubt one of the greatest heroes the world has ever seen, his parents would be horrified to see what he became. I just can't really think of another big superhero, with the possible exception of Hulk, who is similar in that regard.

Out of all the ghost Wayne's, though, my favorite was the Grayson sequence.

[starwolf_oakley]

I like to think Thomas and Martha would be more "I understand the mission, the mask, I even understand the bat. I don't understand why you think you don't deserve to be even a little bit happy."

[lucean]

I don't actually agree, because I don't think the mask and the mission can be separated from that. Batman is a creature of tragedy, and thus the mask and the mission are born of tragedy. To see that Bruce is someone who carries a violent war on the dark side of the city while being a creature of fear is probaboly not something most parents want for their children.

[starwolf_oakley]

Good point. There's a difference between wanting to make Gotham City better and punching criminals in the face. Plus they would probably be annoyed by Bruce constantly coming up with plans to "incapacitate" the Justice League is they ever "cross the line."

"Can't you come up with a better way to incapacitate J'Onn J'Onzz than setting him on fire, Bruce?"

[jeremyp]

Along the same lines, I often think about what Bruce and his billions could have accomplished if he had focused on more conventional efforts to make the world a better place. The Wayne Foundation is often portrayed as addressing those issues, but imagine if all the time, effort and money he put into being the bat was devoted to social issues.

Of course, a comic book about super philanthropy guy might not be as exciting as "deeply disturbed guy punching criminals"...

[silverhammerman]

There's also the nature of the DCU to be considered. Sure if Bruce Wayne didn't bother with the Batman stuff he could (debatably, depending on who's writing him) devote more time to fighting social issues, but then he wouldn't be around to stop Ra's Al Ghul or whoever from killing literally everyone.

[beardedjellybean]

The idea is looked through Death and the Maidens, where Thomas Wayne appears to be particularly disgusted that he has spent his talents as a brutal vigilante and Martha bemoans that Bruce could have even been President.

[bradygirl_12]

The Grayson ghostly sequence? That sounds interesting!

[skinrash]

Did Batman just try to bash Joker's skull in with a poker? And what's up with Joker's teeth? In the closeups it looks like he's got a mouth full of broken glass.

[mrstatham]

Sale always draws the characters like this, very heavily stylised.

[bradygirl_12]

Leave it to Bruce to experience his change of heart on Halloween instead of Christmas. :)