Comics Recap #4: Batman/Superman Origins

To go out on a limb, I'd wager that of all the superheroes in the known universe, Batman, Superman, and Wolverine have had their origin story rewritten, rebooted, reimagined, and reconstituted more than anyone else.  In the last couple of months I had a chance to read some of the Batman and Superman origin stories.

I have actually read the original Batman origin story from way back in 1939.  The Dark Knight's career begins with Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon pretty much sitting around the parlor smoking cigars and drinking brandy until Gordon asks, "Hey Bruce, wanna see a dead body?"  Which struck me as hilarious because I doubt even in 1939 the cops would let a civilian onto a crime scene, especially a civilian who has no real credentials.  But it was a long time ago, so maybe they did.

That wasn't an actual origin story.  That came later, after Batman became more popular and got his own title.  That origin pretty much stayed intact until the whole Crisis on Infinite Earths shake-up in 1985.  Then they decided Batman needed a new, grittier origin and who better to do it than Frank Miller, author of The Dark Knight Returns?  I didn't like that book or pretty much anything else by Miller I've read, but Batman: Year One was actually good.  I think mostly because Miller doesn't let things spiral out of control into camp and silliness like TDKR.  There's no Reagan or Letterman or Superman to muck things up.

It's a noir-ish story that splits its time between Bruce Wayne/Batman and Jim Gordon, who has just arrived in town from Cleveland.  The animated version actually seems to spend more of its time on Gordon, which I figured was because they paid Bryan Cranston (Heisenberg and future Lex Luthor) to voice Gordon while Batman was some dude I hadn't ever heard of.  It's more balanced in the book.  It starts with Bruce's first fumbling attempt to find out about crime in Gotham, which leads to a run-in with Selina Kyle, the future Catwoman.  It's after this where Bruce realizes he needs to be more than just some guy punching people.  The weakest link in the story is probably how he gets the idea to dress as a bat.  Meanwhile Gordon deals with a pregnant wife, a failing marriage, a hot chick in his department, and the ire of his coworkers on top of trying to track down a guy who dresses up like a bat.  If you watched Batman Begins then you can spot some of the material they lifted, like when Batman calls on the bats from the cave to escape from the cops. There are some holes in Batman's origin, such as where he was after his parents died and how he learned to fight and all that stuff.

The Long Halloween isn't really a Batman origin story.  It's more of an attempt to pick up after Year One to show how Gotham developed from the noir-ish city run by the mob into a city dominated by freaks in costumes.  In particular it's a Two-Face origin story; if you watched The Dark Knight then the tale of Harvey Dent's downfall into Two-Face should be somewhat familiar.  I liked this less than Year One.  It took 12-13 issues and after a while just seemed to wear on a little too long.  Plus the "solution" at the end isn't all that satisfying.

Batman Earth One is a rewrite of Batman's origin story.  The main difference is that Alfred instead of being a butler is a former Royal Marine who teaches Bruce how to fight and stuff.  This is an idea being used in the new Beware the Batman TV show/comic.  I read the first issue of that comic since it was free and really in both cases the Alfred thing just strikes me as wrong.  It seems like the kind of lazy thing I do where I don't want to introduce a butler and a ninja master, so why not make one character:  a ninja master butler!  It makes Batman more like The Green Hornet, who was created by the same people as the campy 60s Batman TV show--they even guest starred on the show!  It also borrows elements from previous movies/comics, like Bruce taking stuff from Lucius Fox's lab to make his bat suit and such.  Anyway, this really has no reason to exist because it doesn't add anything of substance to Batman's origin.

Back in November I also read the novel Wayne of Gotham, which isn't an origin for Batman, but is more of an origin of Batman's parents.  Which really Thomas and Martha Wayne have probably more different backstories than their son.  In all cases Thomas is a doctor and in many Martha is some kind of socialite activist.  I think it was the Earth One book where Martha is related to the Arkhams and lived in what would become Arkham Asylum.  In the New 52 Batman as backup features during the Court of Owls storyline there's a story about Alfred's father, the previous Wayne butler and events leading up to Thomas and Martha being killed, for what largely seems like Martha making some enemies by trying to institute some reforms.  In the novel Thomas and Martha are childhood best friends and while Thomas would like them to be more, Martha is more interested in someone else, until things change.  The book alternates between Thomas and Martha in the 50s and Bruce in "present day."  There are some things that didn't seem right, like how Bruce makes Alfred his press agent and then is constantly getting pissed at him.  His body armor seems more like Iron Man's than what you traditionally see in the comics or movies.  But this isn't official canon; it's more of a curiosity--or Elseworlds tale in DC parlance. 

If all that isn't enough just in the last year the Batman comic book series had a "Zero Year" arc and the video game Arkham Origins was released, both again focusing on Bruce Wayne becoming Batman.  And I guess now there's also going to be a TV series called "Gotham" that is basically "Smallville" only with Bruce Wayne instead of Clark Kent.

For the most part, though, all these origin stories seem to do is rearrange the furniture a bit.  The basic framework has always been that Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered and so years later he dresses up like a bat to beat up criminals.  You have to wonder why we're so fascinated in retelling this story time and again.  With the exception of Batman Year One, I don't think any of these really add much, if anything to our understanding of the character.  But I suppose like the point behind Year One, the idea is every generation needs the story updated to fit within its time period.

And the same holds true for Superman.  As with Batman, an actual "origin" story didn't occur until after his debut, once he took the world by storm.  That's when we first heard about Krypton and being sent through space and all that.  Again in the mid-80s there was a reboot from John Byrne, which I read a while ago and found chock full of 80s corniness.  And since that time there have been other attempts to retell the story.  I read Jeph Loeb's Superman for All Seasons, which was better just because it didn't have the 80s cheese but was otherwise the same story.  For the New 52, Grant Morrison used most of his Action Comics run to introduce a young Superman just starting his career, which I mostly enjoyed.  In 2013 of course we had "Man of Steel" with its overly complicated, sometimes head-scratchingly dumb origin for Superman.

J. Michael Stracyzinski (creator of Babylon 5) chimed in with Superman: Earth One.  A lot of it is pretty similar to Man of Steel, though slightly less convoluted.  Krypton is destroyed and some aliens try to track down the last survivor, who is of course Clark Kent, who at the time is trying to decide what he should do after two years in junior college.  If they'd stuck to this the movie would have been better.  And it also lacks the 80s cheesiness of the Byrne reboot, so that's nice.

Basically if there is a point to this it's that while some things change, the substance of Batman and Superman's origins remain the same and will for perhaps another 75 years.