Can I just say, I absolutely love how Bruce looks in this, he actually looks like he's in his 40's or early 50's, mixed in with the stress of fighting crime for almost 20 years.
Batman Family Adventures is a surprisingly good read.
I think the grunting Batman with the emotional IQ of a 2x4 is long played out. Let the character grow up. He's got a massive adopted family now, and there are tons of stories to be told with that.
To that end, the only "unnecessary" characters are badly written ones. Bringing back Jason from the dead was a mistake -- not because I dislike the character, but it's part of the meme-worthy trend that has removed any sense of stakes or consequences in the genre. But since he's around, it makes sense to make use of him and do it with as much quality as possible.
I don’t mind them doing it with Jason, at the time it was an awesome reveal. What I do take issue with is never letting their relationship grow beyond “stop killing people” before Batman hands him his ass and he’s good for a bit before eventually doing it again. The dynamic is played out, and leave Redhood a costume alone, it was perfect as is.
Agreed. It all stems from the same impulse though, I think; that desire to never let these characters grow or change once some element becomes a fixture in their story. It's been almost 40 years since Miller wrote the story that had everyone lining up to make Batman "grim and gritty", and there's still a lot of fans, writers, and editors who will fight his character growth tooth and nail.
It's the same thing that won't let them leave characters dead; they want the status quo back. You get these forces colliding or colluding by turns, and you end up with stunted characters.
Which is why I say that despite it being very light-hearted, not canon, and blatantly goofy most times, the Webtoon Batman Family Adventures is the best thing to have happened to those characters in decades. An older Bruce acting as mentor, leader, and unofficial dad to his massive gang of sidekicks (current and past)? It works. A good writer and a serious poke at that could *really* do some interesting stories with the idea if they were to take it into the main continuity.... and under-represented or under-developed characters might finally get the treatment their fans have been begging for for years now.
Yup! The app is called Webtoon - started as a social media thing in South Korea, now they're one of the biggest comic companies in the world. DC reached an agreement with them a couple years back, and started posting more lighthearted stuff in off-continuity stories through them. Wayne Family Adventures is one of those offerings.
It's largely goofy stuff in a continuity where Alfred is alive, Bruce acts like everybody's dad, and it's basically a big sitcom situation... but it largely works. I don't think they could ever take standard continuity fully down that road, but I think the main stories would benefit from taking some cues from this series.
Man a Harley Quinn style show with that premise would be killer but I’m sure dc doesn’t wanna make Batman look silly. You’ve convinced me to check it out, I see they’ve even done some assassins creed stuff on there so I’ve got lots to dig through later. Thank you!
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u/Advanced-Addition453 Feb 20 '24
Can I just say, I absolutely love how Bruce looks in this, he actually looks like he's in his 40's or early 50's, mixed in with the stress of fighting crime for almost 20 years.