Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Do you think people will stop supporting the comic?
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There will be some, always will be some and not all of them for bigoted reasons (I know plenty who stopped reading when Gordon took up the “cowl”). Others may try it out but put it down after a few issues (see half of the All-New - All-Different Marvel line-up), and still others who will decry it as a gimmick and then feel justified when Bruce or Dick (or maybe even Tim at this point) take the cowl back up in a year or two.
The only part of me that would find this ok would be if it actually stuck for like several years. We had Dick and then Gordon and now whoever this ends up being. It just comes off as throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks but in this case nothing has. At least Wally had a few decades before DC brought back Barry Allen.
I wish DC would confirm and announce who it will be so we can shift the discussion from “What do you think of a black Batman?” to “What do you think of _________ becoming the next Batman?”
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If I went that way, I would probably do an original character. My only issue, the same with Captain America, is they’ve pulled this move “someone else under the mask” not just multiple times but also recently, it’s always and will always be a temp move, and none of the replacements can ever hope to truly replace the original.
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While I’m not very familiar with Luke Fox, he seems like the most likely candidate; he’s a known member of Batman’s organization and by now is trusted enough to take the mantel, for however long it lasts. I don’t think Bats new Jean-Paul that well before asking him to fill in for a while.
In any case, I don’t trust anyone at DC to handle this the best way. Nickweiser’s remark about the wall? Yeah, that’s basically Dan Didio’s entire strategy at this point. It feels like writers today are willing to take characters, even ones they say they “love”, and completely upend them for their own sense of entitlement, what they think is poetry, or a message that, while possibly important, isn’t done very well. If the stories are told poorly or contradictory to the characters, that somehow doesn’t matter. Standards were dragged out back and shot years ago, so I have no faith that this isn’t some publicity stunt, that, should it fail, will be blamed on the readers and not themselves (because we shouldn’t blame bad writers, editors, and leadership for bad stories, for some reason).
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Absolutely sick of replacement Batmen.
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Mr_Morbach, you’re dead on.
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As long as they know Coville’s laws they should be good.
“Whenever thou alterst tradition, do not do so for sake of change alone. Deliverth better, not worse than what cameth before, or righteous judgment awaits in the raging tweets of grognards, whose hearts are bound to history and whose love hath put food on thy table.”
“Writing your own new thing is wise. Changing the beloved is folly. The wise doth well to pay heed to history. For wisdom is found in the tales of New Coke, Highlander 2 and Thundercats Go.”
“There’s also Miles Morales. Like, if thou writeth as good shit as Into the Spiderverse, nothing is holy.”
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I think it works if someone is dawning the cowl for the first time in years their earths history.
Someone, anyoneN ightwing, Gordon, etc) “taking over” from Bruce is a hard sell. I don’t see any existing Bat family character with the damaged OCD psyche of Bruce, regardless of age, gender, race, orientation. Maybe this is the Batman. Of Earth 27, and tell Bruce/Batman stories from that new perspectives. The same profile as Earth-Prime, the same type of trauma back story. Keep the characters fundamental psychology, than the other changes are what modify change the perspective of the character.
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Bruce Wayne is so integral to who Batman is, I never like it when they change who is Batman. Batman exists because a young man saw his parents murdered in front of him. He dedicated his life to study and training to achieve human perfection in order to carry out his vengeance. That compelling narrative is what has carried the character for 80 years. Whenever you remove Bruce Wayne from the equation Batman loses that dynamic. I would rather they ret-con Bruce Wayne into a black man then change who it is under the cowl.
Coville,
That’s actually a pretty good law. I didn’t realize it was your user name at first and was thinking, “Who is this Coville guy. I need to look him up.”
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I think they should just use an existing character like Luke, so that a pre-existing connection to the character is already there, people will be mostly familiar with the story, and he is a character that people will like.
That would be easier than creating and entirely new character and hoping someone will like them.
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