Batman is Stalking Me

He is.

I'm quite enjoying it though. I love Batman.

The concept of him is superb. He has no powers. He just trains like hell and plans for any eventuality. And he didn't come from another planet or magically gain abilities. His parents were gunned down in front of him. So he decided to do something about it.

In the hands of a good writer, Batman has unbelievable story-telling power.

Which is not always the case. Fortunately for me, my recent exposures to him have been of the good kind.

First off, the Batman RIP story-arc running through his main comic, written by my favorite scribe Grant Morrison. Grant is a mad Scottish guy who's like the indie film-maker of the comic world. He can take any old, cheesy comic character and thrust him into a real world setting, psychologically deconstruct him, and entertain the holy hell out of the reader, all at the same time. Those who scoff at the comic book medium have obviously never read anything he's written. Grant Morrison is comic books on crack. I quite love his work.

And he's a bit of a comic book character himself, practicing chaos magick or some such thing. Whatever, if it keeps him pumping out stellar renditions of the Joker and stories about occult terrorists and cyborg house pets, I'll still be here.

But I digress. Back to the Bat. So yeah, Batman RIP sort of kills the character, but not like you think. First, his entire history was compressed throughout Grant Morrison's run, so one can make sense of why we had Angry Batman, Campy Batman, Grim-and-Gritty Batman, all the various renditions of him throughout the years that didn't really make sense toegther. Grant shows how it is possible for one person to be all this. Then he shows how this can totally fuck up someone's head. And we see Batman pushed to the limit by the only baddies who can take him on: baddies who attack him in the way he thinks. Baddies as smart as him. That's what "kills" him.

Cryptic much? But why should I spoil a good story here for lazy bastards. Go read it.

Of course, once I was done with that, the Bat started turning up everywhere. First HBO has been showing my favorite Batman movie on a loop, Batman Returns. You gotta love Tim Burton; his scenes may be unbelievably camp, but they manage to be unbelievably goth and crazy at the same time. I love his anarchic, fucked-up villains. None of them want to steal or take over the world or such shit. They just want to Blow Things Up Real Good. Danny DeVito's eloquent monster of a Penguin was super-entertaining. And until Heath Ledger's Joker, Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman was my hands-down favorite, and I still like her just as much as Heath's Joker. Come on, she was off the scale! She managed to be sexy, funny and dangerous, all while her head was out to lunch. I loved the part where she becomes Catwoman and makes her suit. So disturbing. It kills me that people will remember the super-shit Halle Berry Catwoman and not this one.

This movie shows you why the Bat-baddies are so dangerous. Not because they have powers (most of them don't), or because they have cool tech. It's because they're fried. And the only way Batman can keep up with them is if he's fried a little too.

And how do you follow that up? Why with Batman graphic novels of course!

My dad didn't want to buy me Christmas gifts he wasn't sure I'd like. So he took me to Fully Booked to pick my own out. Now I'm not really much for sappy Christmas gestures. I like to think I'm pragmatic and efficient. So this gift-buying technique appeals to me.

Anyway, I was wondering what to get when they suddenly glowed at me, calling to me: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller (he of Sin City and 300), and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (by Grant Morrison, of course). Both written in the '80s, both highly acclaimed. The Dark Knight Returns was what returned credibility to the Bat-books in the '80s and started the movie franchise (and by extension, all other superhero movies of the '90s and the 2000s.) Of course, the god-awful Batman and Robin killed the franchise, but then I suppose we wouldn't have gotten Christopher Nolan's stellar opuses if that first franchise hadn't died. I haven't started it yet; I went for Grant's book first.

Arkham Asylum was written in 1989 and is the best-selling American graphic novel of all time (and written by a Scottish writer at that). It follows Batman having to enter Arkham after all the prisoners have escaped and rioted, in exchange for them releasing their hostages. This isn't some ass-kicking, gadget-throwing she-bang. This is Batman being taken apart by a psychiatrist, running through mazes, crazy stuff. My favorite line so far? One inmate demands that they take Batman's mask off. "I want to see his real face," he declares. "That is his real face!" declares the Joker, "And I want to go so much deeper than than!"

And that's the thing about Batman. His enemies and him have a special relationship. Even they understand him. He kind of is the mask, the bat. And that's his appeal. We all go to a place where we're strong, where we can do things, help people. We project masks and capes that let us move around and give us strength.

But we're never sure if its healthy. If we're normal. We could be just as mad as all the other people around us.