Think your headlines are bad? At least you don't live in Gotham City.

Batman #120, December 1958

They saved the elephant, but Batman had to be put down.

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Slate.com's culture blog, Brow Beat, has published a satirical article that is too perfect. (I'm so jealous. I wish I'd thought of it first.) I'm reposting just the start to whet your appetite.

Don't Prosecute Gotham's Supervillains for Their Latest Scheme

Any attempt to bring the Joker to justice is likely to fail or backfire.

By THE JOKER   JAN 12, 2021 · 7:47 AM

It's been a traumatizing couple of weeks in Gotham City, full of unthinkable violence and chaos. We've all seen the appalling footage: the exploding shark, the pier bombing, and the United World Organization building—until last week, a powerful symbol of the democratic hopes of the entire world—being invaded, vandalized, and defiled by the "United Underworld," an alliance of the city's most dastardly criminals: Catwoman, the Penguin, the Riddler, and even the Joker, the coolest supervillain of them all (although his role in the plot was very minor or maybe even nonexistent, from what I'm hearing). People across Gotham are frustrated and angered, and the vicious, unwarranted vigilante attack launched by so-called crime fighters Batman and Robin against the crew of a whimsically decorated Navy surplus submarine in Gotham Harbor did nothing to lower the emotional temperature.

Now it appears that Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara are planning to bring criminal charges against the ringleaders of the United Underworld. This is a grave mistake. Our great city should be looking forward right now, not dwelling on the past. A trial would only dredge up traumatic memories and evidence of the terror unleashed by the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, and possibly others. Criminal trials should not occur in the heat of the moment, if ever, and I fear that investigating this shameful incident any further would only be inflammatory and incriminating.

...

Read the rest at
https://slate.com/culture/2021/01/impeachment-prosecution-batman-joker-penguin-catwoman-riddler-united-underworld-kidnapping.html

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from DC Special Series #6 (1977)

I might have watched that Gotham television show if there had been a greater emphasis on giant props. Or *any* emphasis on giant props.

(Also in that issue: Captain Comet cures his own concussion with telepathy, Wonder Woman saves the U.N. building with her lasso and invisible jet, and Green Lantern quotes Rhett Butler. Because comics are awesome.)

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Friend Chad recently asked me if I had any interest in the upcoming Joker movie. You know the one. It just won the Golden Lion award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. My answer, in short, was no. In long, it was *hell* no.

As a longtime reader of comics, I have a well-established mental image of what I expect from Batman and his rogues gallery. As a general rule, I don't enjoy films about gangsters (which Joker was in the 40s) or films about serial killers (which Joker has been since the 80s). I've seen both Bonnie and Clyde and Natural Born Killers exactly once, and that's each one time too many.

My biggest problem with the film is that the Joker is unequivocally a villain. Pure capital-E Evil. However, a story's protagonist has to be relatable to its audience. Just as the short-lived Joker comic series of the mid-70s focused on its eponymous star's zany antics (and minimized the collateral damage), to put the character at the center of a film it becomes necessary to humanize him, to turn him from villain to anti-hero. No, thank you.

Call me a prude, but I don't see any reason to make a film exploring how someone becomes a narcissistic, mass-murdering sociopath on the scale of the Joker. In fiction, the Joker has beaten a child to death with a crowbar, slaughtered an entire talk show audience on camera, and gassed the United Nations General Assembly. All for giggles. If such a monster existed in the real world — an Osama bin Laden-squared — would you pay to see that person's biography on the big screen?

Joker works best in comics as a larger-than-life malevolent force of nature, the personification of the chaos that Batman strives to eliminate from the world. That's exactly how "Why so serious" Heath Ledger played him (and "This town needs an enema" Jack Nicholson before that). If you insist on reinventing the character, I'd say making him mortal is the wrong direction to go. Forget realism for a character that is inherently unreal. Give us a film about how Cesar Romero's wacky Joker earned his place as Gotham City's Clown Prince of Crime with a painted-over mustache (the anti-Groucho Marx!). Or choose to elaborate on any random Joker entry from silly The Super Dictionary.

But don't try to remake Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy with a super-villain behind the greasepaint. Once was enough for that one, too.

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It snowed today. In December. In Georgia.

I was looking for some way to commemorate the event here on the blog when I stumbled across this in my collection:

"Where Walks a Snowman" in Batman #337 (July 1981) begins as "a typical evening in Gotham City; under a sky heavy with the threat of snow, the city sparkles...". But the story isn't about snow. That probably would have been a better story.

Odd events during a smash-and-grab at a sporting goods store soon convince Batman that albino Olympic skier Klaus Kristin is involved. There's no chain of evidence, but Batman's got a hunch. So he steals Kristin's mother's diary and discovers that she had sex with a yeti. (Are all albinos yetis, or is Batman just racist?)

Being the offspring of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed hottie and a "mythical creature of the Himalayan peaks" has endowed Kristin with the ability to transform himself into an abomination that can project sub-zero temperatures from his fingertips. Calling himself "Snowman" (probably because he was a big Smokey and the Bandit fan), Kristin uses these abilities to rob sporting goods stores.

Uh, yeah, ok. I think that will hold up in court.

Anyway, Batman brings Kristin to justice by startling him off a cliff. Don't call it murder, though. As Batman points out, Kristin let him "get close." So it was all his fault. Again, I'm sure that would hold up in court, too.

Fortunately for Batman's ethics, Kristin wasn't dead. He survived his fall and went into peaceful, penitent seclusion in remote parts of the Himalayas. Peaceful, at least, until Batman tracks him down in "Snow Blind" (Detective Comics #552, January 1983). Justice will be served!

Despite being pursued to the literal ends of the earth, Kristin saves Batman's life and for his trouble is shot by the Chinese Sherpa he calls "Chi." (Apparently Batman is racist.)

Kristin chooses death and is carried off into the sunset by his father. Aw. Kristin finds his daddy, and Batman gets his Justice. How's that for a happy ending?

So next time it snows in December in Georgia, remember the sad tale of the Snowman. Stay inside reading comic books. That's what I do.

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I just got my hands on BATMAN 1 BATMAN DAY SPECIAL EDITION: DIRECT MARKET EDITION. Yes, that is its actual title (a reprint of June's BATMAN #1), and it's every bit as stupid as the comic itself.

The entire issue, all 20 pages of it, is devoted to Batman's attempt to save a 747 from crashing into Gotham City. That's not what's stupid. That's noble, and writer Tom King is trying to demonstrate Batman's heroic nature in the struggle. What's stupid is that Batman tries to save this plane by riding it like a cowboy.

To sum up, Batman sees a plane get hit by a missile, then plots a course to intercept using the Batmobile's ejector seat. (The Batmobile is destroyed in the process, not because of the ejector seat, but because Batman drives it off a bridge before ejecting.) In midair, Batman removes the rockets from the ejector seat so that when he lands on the plane, he can attach them to the underside of the wings. (Because Batman can stick to planes.) Batman then has his trusty butler Alfred remotely control the power to the thrusters to provide lift for the plane. (Ignore that there's no explanation for how these Batmobile ejector seat thrusters have enough fuel or power to lift a 747 despite needing Batman to put the Batmobile in the ocean to get him to the plane.) Meanwhile, Batman rides on top of the plane with a rope... for no apparent reason.

Proud to be stupid.

No, seriously. Why is Batman committing suicide by riding the top of the plane, Dr. Strangelove-style? Batman isn't steering, Alfred is. Via remote control! Batman is just standing there giving Alfred hyper-specific commands ("Give me eighty-two percent starboard, seventeen port."), something he definitely doesn't have to be doing from the top of the plane.

Mr. King, if the point is to demonstrate Batman doing something self-sacrificingly heroic, have him try to stop a runaway train or take a bullet meant for an innocent. Don't go out of your way to showcase how rich and resourceful Batman is only to have him die doing something completely pointless. That's stupid.

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Batman isn't the only one in Gotham City with cool toys.

In "The Three Eccentrics" (Batman #21, 1944), Penguin uses a miniaturized motion picture camera hidden in the handle of his umbrella to spy on the safe of the world's richest man. Penguin's scheme is well described. Less clear is how Penguin's mark got to be the world's richest man when he's stupid enough to keep all his money inside a safe in plain sight of a first floor window.

Miniaturized cameras were hidden in the handles of canes as early as the 1920s, so Penguin's technology in this issue isn't as outlandish as, say, a bat-shaped propeller airplane that can hover in one place on autopilot. In comics the villains tend to be more realistic than the heroes. If your hero is a millionaire who dresses like a bat to fight crime in his free time, I guess they'd have to be.

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What with the rampant street crime, organized gangs of psychotics, and corrupt officials, no one in their right mind would want want to live in Gotham City.

"The Lawmen of the Sea," Batman #20, 1943

Three suicide attempts a week? That seems like a lot, even for New York Gotham City. What does the internet have to say about that?

From www.nj.com: The three jumps [from the George Washington Bridge] in less than a week's time [week of June 18, 2012] is not typical, [Port Authority Spokesman] Della Fave said. "It's been a tough year on the bridge," he said.

Overall, the New York City Department of Health and Human Hygiene reports that the city's suicide rate was 6 in 100,000 citizens in 2011. Compare that to the national average of 12 in 100,000. The city with the highest rate is flat, dry Las Vegas, with 35 in 100,000.

It sounds like if Batman is really interested in making a difference, he should spend some time in Sin City.

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In honor of Black Friday, I present the first appearance of an African-American in Gotham City in Batman #13 (1942). Batman had been on the scene for over three years before he encountered this fellow, but that's not to say that he had never interacted with minorities before. Batman had already battled several Chinamen, all of whom were intrinsically evil yellow monsters with limited magical abilities in as true a case of art imitating life as you're apt to find. It should be noted that this large-lipped, bug-eyed fellow is a porter on a passenger train traveling between Gotham City's Grand Central Station and California. Therefore, he's several steps better off than most of the jobless, cut-throat Caucasians that fill Batman's exploits. And he is aware that something strange is afoot on the train, making him far cleverer than his clueless boss: the bumbling, white conductor.

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CSI: Gotham City.

This process is called infrared luminescence photography and is still in use today. These days scientists rarely need to use any "newly discovered chemical" because of advancements in infrared imaging, still a relatively new and delicate process in the 1930s.

Thank you, Batman, for putting me one step closer to the perfect crime.

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