Batman: Year One - Part 1

[history79]

The A.V. Club: So you actually consciously set out to change things in the comics industry?

Frank Miller: Well, I set out to remark upon them. And seeing how all these heroes had been castrated since the 1950s, and just how pointless they seemed to be... In this perfect world of comic books, which was what it was back then, why would people dress up in tights to fight crime?

The A.V. Club: Because there wasn't anything bad enough going on back then to justify that extremism?

Frank Miller: It was just a bunch of goofy villains. It was 1985 when I started working on this, and I thought, "What kind of world would be scary enough for Batman?" And I looked out my window.

Comments

[janegray]

To be fair, superheroes don't just fight "street crime," they also fight insanely dangerous supervillains that cops can't deal with.

Heck, in their first confrontation Joker was about to poison Gotham's water supply. Wayne Foundation can't help the city if everybody is dead.

[jeremyp]

I totally agree that when super villians are introduced, super heroes make more sense.The interesting thing for me is that, usually, Bruce Wayne's decision to become batman isn't about super villians, its a response to his parents being killed in a random murder. So he wasn't thinking "I need all this training and equipment to fight super villians." He was thinking he needed it to address street crime. This story follows that same idea - he's not thinking about fighting super villians, he's just  walking around beating up criminals.  Of course, it leads to stories that people enjoy reading, but it always seems odd to me.