"Batman: Year One" (Frank Miller)

[Abishai100]

This semi-novelized introduction into the world of the caped crusader Batman (DC Comics) offers readers a glimpse into the psychological angst that drives Gotham City's most prominent businessman and socialite Bruce Wayne to tackle modern urban life's most challenging criminally insane terrorists.

The illustrations by David Mazzucchelli and coloring by Richmond Lewis and lettering by Todd Klein bring to life the offbeat urban sensibilities that create modern perceptions of evil and terror.

The story presents the beginnings of Bruce Wayne as Batman, journeying to lands and training in skills to hone his interest for vigilantism. He meets the new Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon and forms an unlikely friendship.

"On a surveillance mission to the seedy East End, a disguised Bruce is propositioned by teenaged prostitute Holly Robinson. He is reluctantly drawn into a brawl with her violent pimp and is attacked by several prostitutes, including dominatrix Selina Kyle. Two police officers shoot and take him in their squad car, but a dazed and bleeding Bruce breaks his handcuffs and causes a crash, dragging the police to a safe distance before fleeing. He reaches Wayne Manor barely alive and sits before his father’s bust, requesting guidance in his war on crime. A bat crashes through a window and settles on the bust, giving him the inspiration to become a bat" (source of brief: Wikipedia).

Batman bursts into a dinner party hosted by Gotham City's corrupt politicians and crime bosses and announces his intentions to restore civility and order. Meanwhile, the sneaky Selina Kyle (future semi-friend of Batman) dons a cat costume and decides to pursue an offbeat life of crime-engagement of her own (eventually calling herself Catwoman).

Assistant district attorney Harvey Dent becomes a semi-ally of Batman, though Dent will someday become the emotionally rageful terrorist Two-Face.

"In the final scenes of the comic, Gordon is promoted to captain and stands on the rooftop waiting to meet Batman to discuss somebody called The Joker, who is plotting to poison the reservoir" (source of brief: Wikipedia).

This Frank Miller work is well-composed and we can see how it motivated film-makers to adapt it into animated features; successful Batman film-maker Christopher Nolan infers inspiration from it as well, and the recent praised Batman adapted television series "Gotham" (Fox TV), which presents stories of a young Bruce Wayne coping with grief and contemplating vigilantism as a young Jim Gordon deals with Gotham City's developing nemeses such as Penguin, also seem to draw inspiration from Miller's story arc.


"Batman: Year One" (Frank Miller) offers comic book fans a portrait of America's most popular urban vigilante and presents psychological insights into the mania and meditation involved with the caped crusader's understanding of the street-chaos forces in modern urban life that create claustrophobic criminality.

The work is satisfying and comprises another trophy in the treasure chest of American comic book fanfare surrounding modern age vigilantism hysteria. The only criticism I have is that the overall complexity of the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman poses a serious challenge for Frank Miller; like other handlers of the Batman stories, Miller seems a bit nervous about dealing with criminality mania, and so the storyboards come across as somewhat pedestrian. Nevertheless, it is successful in merging police/detective stories with vigilantism intrigue.






Batman Year One - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I spent all of 2 or 3 seconds fighting the urge to post this.

 

[Pennywise]

Frank Miller is a smart and very nice man. One of a very few willing to speak his mind as it frequently goes against the tide of artist political correctness. A free-thinking and bold commentator on politics and issues - a devote`of the greatest president ever, Thomas Jefferson.

 

[Abishai100]

Gotham Grates

I think one reason that "Batman: Year One" (Frank Miller) stands out amidst all the Batman literature out there is that it explores the psychological motivations of the caped crusader within the theme of 'mania development.'

If you look at other 'system paranoia' themed comic books such as X-Men (Marvel Comics), you do find stories that investigate the social symbolic significance of turbulence/terrorism development.

"Batman: Year One" (Frank Miller) reads as a sort of artistic 'manual' for understanding the impact of crime-mania developing in a hypothetical city (Gotham) seething with unrest and corruption.

It's no wonder we like to make pedestrian jokes about the caped crusader doing 'silly' things with his ace-sidekick Robin.

Imagine the following alternate Batman development story:

"Bruce Wayne dons the cape of Batman to tackle a new nemesis in Gotham City named Bane, whose strange biochemical apparatus affords him the ability to willfully boost his own strength to fearful levels.

While Gotham does not see the rise of any crime-warlock comparable to Bane, there have been reports of a rogue female criminal psychologist named Dr. Harleen Quinzel supposedly experimenting with a strange new laughter-inducing drug."


Mostly, I like the nice complementation of straightforward drawings and gritty dialogue in "Batman: Year One" (Frank Miller), and it fits nicely into the Batman compendium of 'infrastructure-themed literature/media.'



Gotham (TV Series)

 

[Abishai100]

Multi-Villain Detective: Urban Umbrella

One thing I really like about Batman (DC Comics) stories is that they present multi-villain arrays:

1. Riddler - puts hallucinogens in Gotham's water reservoir
2. Penguin - uses a charity event to smoke-screen a robbery
3. Joker and Harley Quinn - kidnap the mayor's daughter
4. Scarecrow - hires henchmen to drive mock painted cop cars
5. Red Hood - robs the Gotham treasury

Batman deals with all this madness by using Wayne Enterprises to fund the distribution of new high-tech police cars.

Yes, Batman is America's version of Sherlock Holmes. Frank Miller does a nice job in portraying how Catwoman accents Gotham City's general seething criminality, compelling Bruce Wayne to seek her special brand of counseling.

 

[Abishai100]

Mad Hatter Origin Story: Detective Fiction Gelatin


I'm going to re-posit a Batman origins story, this time pitting the young pensive Bruce Wayne (considering becoming the Dark Knight) against the rising Gotham City villain the Mad Hatter.

The standard portrait of the Mad Hatter is of an emotionally awkward mad scientist named Dr. Jervis Tetch who decides to become outlandish and maniacal and fashion himself after the logic-trickster character from the iconic puzzle-fantasy novel "Alice in Wonderland" (Lewis Carroll).

I'll keep the same name of the Mad Hatter, Jervis Tetch, but instead of making him a scientist, we will make him a journalist:

"Bruce is traveling all around the Far East, learning of the ways of the ninja in order to better understand muscular and stealthy engagement with elusive nemeses. Meanwhile, a young reporter named Jervis Tetch is moonlighting in Gotham City as a pizza delivery boy with a spooky motive --- Tetch knocks on doors of houses that did not order pizzas and says, 'Oh, sorry I have the wrong address. Can I please use your phone?' Once invited inside the homes, he kills the inhabitants with a hammer he keeps tucked in his pants.

Bruce returns to Gotham and learns of the killing spree of this mysterious pizza delivery boy and begins to investigate. Meanwhile, he meets a young woman named Selina Kyle who is also interested in urban crime. Bruce considers fashioning some urban incognito outfit fashioned after a bat, since bats represent nocturnal sensitivity.

Jervis has now committed a dozen murders and has fashioned his own outfit --- a bizarre fluffy trench-coat and an over-sized plaid top-hat. He is calling himself the Mad Hatter, frustrated with Gotham City's apparent lack of respect towards pedestrianism hygiene. Jervis sends photos of his tailor-made outfit to the Gotham City newspaper he works for and in encrypted handwriting writes, 'Discover the wearer of this Mad Hatter Lewis Carroll outfit, and you will find the elusive pizza delivery boy killer.'

Bruce/Batman reads of this submission to the Gotham newspaper and considers the possibility that Jervis may be an employee of the newspaper."


The whole point of the "Batman: Year One" (Frank Miller) novel is to engage fans of detective fiction and Batman (DC Comics) stories with a portrait of a young Bruce Wayne developing criminal psychology and vigilante skills while Gotham's eerie criminality gives way to super-villains such as Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter.

In fact, Miller has accomplished the feat of creating intrigue about detective motivations in a pulp fiction format so as to better cast Batman (DC Comics) as America's pedestrian version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

Unlike Doyle's stories however, Miller and Kane's Batman seems to haunt us with the populism profiles of the imaginative super-criminals themselves.






Mad Hatter (Batman Wiki)