Shortpacked! is going to run M-W-F for a week or two while I finish off my Joyce & Walky! subscription strip storyline. In the meantime, enjoy some Batman jokes!
(Why is Shortpacked!‘s update schedule being limited rather than Dumbing of Age‘s? Well, I’m up into October’s strips with DoA, so you wouldn’t even notice I’m taking a break with it until next month.)
LOL! You nailed the look and attitude of ’40s Batman!
Definitely the attitude, seeing as how those are quotes from Detective Comics #29.
I always forget how much of a dick early Batman was.
Robin was tossing mofos off of sky scrapers left and right back then too…
Which is probably why the thugs get nervous when being dangled over the rooftop ledges- that fucker’s done it before!
Ha, i remember when you posted this scene on the blog.
Wait, that comment should have started with “Ha! Ha! Oh– Ha-Ha-Ha–”
I was a little surprised when i saw an old cover with Batman wielding a gun.
Boy usta pack.
Ha! Oh early Batman, you are an asshole.
i’m pretty sure he’s transcended “asshole” there.
He trained to be the best at everything. Even being an asshole.
(Mike vs. Batman… the world will end.)
I picked up an archives volume of the first Batman stories. Jesus…Golden Age Batman is a man you DON’T fuck around with.
So was Superman…despite what some modern readers think, the Golden Age was not a happy shiny no-kill zone. A lot of the early stuff, and even some stuff closer to, and even during, the interregnum, was actually pretty brutal.
Batman, Superman, the Spectre…all were nasty pieces of work in their earliest stories. Fletcher Hanks’s infamous creations (Stardust the Super Wizard, Phantomah) were simply those tendencies taken to their logical extreme.
Whoa, D00d- I’m pretty sure if you use “Fletcher Hanks” and “logical” in the same sentence you get audited by the IRS. Guy was bent.
Yeah, things didn’t really get sanitized until the Silver Age. Blame Wertham.
So why is the Batman design from 20 years ago being used to represent the Batman of ‘today?’
When did Mike get super-strength? I was reading some archive stuff and noticed he didn’t have it when Walky almost beat him to death. Did Mike get strong from his mysterious resurrection?
I think the answer here is “Walky is actually just that much stronger,” but someone can correct me because I’m not positive.
“Today’s Batman,” super Timm-influenced as he is, is just how I draw Batman by default. Whoops.
Mike’s superstrength is how he didn’t DIE when Walky beat him to hell. He just didn’t fight back.
But in the proceeding crossover with whatisname Walky specifically says everyone on his team except himself and Joyce has human-level strength.
*folds fingers dramatically*
Your move Willis.
Of course he’s going to lower expectations for his team. (This was something T and I talked about at the time.)
…so he’s deliberately underselling Mike, which Mike then backs up (possibly unintentionally) by taking a fall to the bruiser so Dinah can get her genetic sample off his bruises?
…and how Walky’s team manages to trounce their unprepared opponents later, right. Tony had super-strength too, didn’t he? And Walky said he had human-level strength too.
…well played Willis. You win this round.
In the comic you linked, Walky lists himself and Tony as being able to lift cars, with Joyce ranked in strength somewhere between “lift cars” and “human level.”
In previous strips, Mike had been shown doing stronger-than-human things, such as being able to throw bodies 20 feet into the air. Also, jump off tall rooftops without any trouble.
I find it awesome we are discussing Walky Canon. -XD
We always forget the simplest explanation for conflicting information given by different characters: characters sometimes lie.
Hey, hey, hey.
They age and are forgetful too.
Jackie Chan can do all those things– while holding a baby– and he is allegedly human!
(The baby is not human. It is made of latex and neoprene.)
Lets all not forget also: Super strong, does not necessarily mean super tough!
And even if it does (as it apparently does in the Walkyverse). it doesn’t mean that the toughness is even proportional to the strength, and even a 1 for 1″ tough points” to “strength points” ratio woulds still allow for a super strong individual to beat up another.
Akshully, it was mentioned very early on that the abductees had heightened endurance as well as super strength. Sal and walky are just super duper strong and durable because they are also part martian
i totally dig the fact that “present Batman” is the Bruce Timm Batman.
Is there any other worthy of the name?
(Batman will probably always sound like Conroy to me.)
Conroy /is/ Batman, for all practical purposes. There’s no other voice for him.
LIES! There is no other voice for Batman than Adam West, old chum!
(yes, yes, you’re talking animated)
Christian Bale?
He’s more Bateman than Batman.
There are NO other Batmen in existance.
And here I was looking forward to an epic “I’m Batman” duel, when both sides have a legitimate claim! Oh well, maybe next time.
The only difference between the two is that one Batman is willing to set the other on fire and watch him burn to death. The other Batman is not stupid.
Two words:
FRANK. MILLE -
*is slaughtered in graphic and amusing fashion by a fanhorde*
The best part of this comic is that the first Batman is completely unaware to the fact that he is in fact standing behind himself there. I also want to see the earlier Batman use a gun in front of the later one. Would the later one go nuts or would he be smart enough to realize that the other Batman would probably shoot HIM for complaining about it… then probably set him in fire just for kicks afterward.
and then have Robin throw him off a building…
If you want an “Im Batman” duel then watch the ep of Batman Brave and the Bold where Diedrich Bader Batman meets Kevin Conroy Batman… “Im Batman!” “No! Im Batman!” *lol* Sure in this case Kevin Conroy is voicing alien Batman of Zur En Arr but it’s still cool…
Yeaaaaaah, that’s gotta be awkward.
Yea early superheros was jerks. Superman would be willing to make you life a living hell and then run you over with a truck just to teach you a life lesson. And the lesson is like how you should open the door for someone carrying a package or someother stupid thing. I think there a whole web site dedicated to that.
my English fails at 2 am…
early Superman was pretty much exactly what you’d expect if two bookish kids got together and imagined someone strong and tough enough to beat up anyone who did stuff they didn’t like. The first dozen issues or so are Revenge Fantasies On Parade, with a side of If I Ran The World…
That was Silver Age (’60s-’70s) Superman. The original Superman was known to beat up crooked bankers for not lending to the poor…
For those curious, this is the website in question.
ahahhaa I would be surprised to see this day batman scared shitless of his earlier being.
You know, this lends itself to a whole set of comparison pieces. You could have new / old villains fighting or working together.
Or Gotham Gangster-land (innocent shopkeepers terrorized) melting into the Tim Burtonish “who cares if the public dies they’re all scum” Gotham.
Ooooh, and WTF would they all make of the Adam West universe dropping in! Ha aha ahahaha!
Sounds like you need to read Planetary/Batman – Night on Earth….
YES.
And then the rest of Planetary, because it’s all flipping awesome.
A completely off-topic question, posted here because I’m internet dumbas and don’t know how else to contact you.
Mr. Willis, since you know everything about tf toys, perhaps you know if they ever made a toy of diagnostic drone from Beast Machines? I weren’t able to find any definite information on that (see the ‘dumbas’ comment above).
geez, the avatar I got is amusingly appropriate.
They did not.
In retrospect it is kinda amazing Japan didn’t make a DD minicon for their Beast Machines line.
Dang. Looks like I’ll have to make one myself.
Thanks for replying!
Batman and Batman?
DREAMS DO COME TRUE
NOW KISS!
Ah, Batman Chronicles Volume 1.
My personal favorite part from that first story (At least I think it was the first story) was when he hangs a mutant off of the Batplane(!) and decides “Oh well, he’s better off this way.”
Forget Superman, Golden-Age Batman was THE comic book asshole. Not that I’m being original with this thought…but that doesn’t make it any less true.
You ARE going to revisit how ’30s Batman used to carry a gun and shoot people, right? Right?
“Don’t worry. Rubber bullets. Honest” (shuffles the bodies into an alleyway)
To be fair he only shot vampires.
Yes, it’s true. Batman has found someone more badass than himself… and it’s himself.
But the entire reason this Batman GOT stranded in time was because he was willing to shoot someone!
If shooting the God of Evil isn’t wrong, how is burning the Doctor of Death to… death… wrong?
If Batman hadn’t been immediately Omega Sanctioned upon shooting Darkseid, he would have been honorbound to drag Darkseid to a hospital. Unless, of course, Robin or Commissioner Gordon were also immediately in peril, forcing him to take them instead of Darkseid, leaving him to his fate.
Later, Darkseid is totally fine.
Yeah, I didn’t buy that Batman was actually going to die in Final Crisis either.
I remeber that TTT
Besides that Golden Age Batman ruled. He was such a prick. Just like Mike. Maybe Mike was Golden Age Batman back then.
Ooh, genius. £10 says the next strip has Pulp-Batman take off the cowl to reveal Mike…
And that the picture pans down to reveal your Mom.
http://lydeanwooster.com/comics/batman/DC029.shtml
I’m still waiting for the age/lack of aging realization to set in- dude is remarkably spry for a guy getting close to a century old, (given that Burn-Batman is at least in his twenties)
Willis had a strip a while back about how, if Batman is always a man in his thirties, and his stories are set in the present day relative to his comics’ publication, then the era in which his chilhood took place must always be moving forward through time. I recall that it seemed like a pointless strip, ’til the ignomity of the punchline hit me: If you were going to be killed in a dank alleyway, wouldn’t you at least liked to have seen a better film than Pokemon: The First GODDAMN Movie before you died?
That’s somewhat irrelevant- or maybe parodoxically the point. Modern Batman, coming face to face with Depression-Era Batman, might have some realizations beyond “what the fuck was wrong with me”- maybe along the lines of “am I dead because Darkseid didn’t take my head”
I remember that one, and found it funny at the time. But I just looked up when the 1st Pokemon movie came out. It was 1999 in the US. Same year as the Matrix, Phantom Menace, The Iron Giant as well as several other rather good and many really really bad movies (Dudley Doright). I’m thinking a 7 or 8 year old Bruce Wayne would have been as stoked as everyone else was to see Phantom Matrix, and his parents, being about the right age to have seen eps 4-6 as teens, would have wanted to go as well, so I’d bet they’d see that before Pokemon. Or the South Park Movie. Whichever wasn’t sold out.
It is always Zoro. So at some point Batman was inspired by the Gay Blade with starring George Hamilton right before his parents died.
It’s not always Zorro. Sometimes it’s the Gray Ghost!
I’m dreading the day that Thomas and Martha Wayne are killed after watching the Hopkins/Bandaras Zorro movie. Then I’ll really feel old.
It brings into question the whole Red Hood thing. Red Hood hates Batman because he didn’t kill the Joker for killing him. But the old Batman killed people all the time. So is the Red Hood more like the original Batman than Batman.
not killing the Joker is dumb but so is setting bad guys on fire (unless that’s the only way to stop them)
why can’t we just have a happy medium between the stupid extremes?
Batman didn’t set Doctor Death on fire – he just let him die in the fire.
During the Golden Age, when villains were put in life-threatening situations, heroes usually didn’t even try to save them. That’s why Golden Age didn’t have that many recurring villains.
He killed the henchman and in the next issue he broke some guys neck by swinging into him. It was more then just not saving the bad guy. Batman Killed People.
Yeah. Kill them, THEN set them on fire.
I just thought it was pertinent that I say this. I’m not Demoncat_4. I’m just having fun. I have no clue what the fuck that guy’s problem is.
If you’re posting here then you’re obviously not him/her. He/she only trolls TNI.
I like the Gray Ghost espisode in Batman The Animated series. It was Adam West at his best going a voice role for a cool charater that worked with Batman
Besides that Dr Death deserved to die.
The Golden Age comics expecially from DC were also very prejudice back then as well. Then again different time era.
Even Bruce Wayne smoked a pipe back then.
I come here on tuesday and go “Where the Hell is the comic!?” when you already said it’s gonna be M-W-F. I feel so slow…
http://www.shotglassescomic.com/
I love it.An extra day to comment on this strip.
Golden Batman may have been a jerk, but I love that classic look. Good on Willis for nailing both styles to a T!
I wonder if Alfred or Dick ever brought up this period in Batman’s history, whenever he started in on the whole “We don’t kill” stuff.
BATMAN: “Dick, we don’t kill. And we never use guns. EVER.”
ROBIN: “Oh yeah… about that Bruce… didn’t Alfred tell me a story about how you used to carry a handgun around with you back when you started out. And while we’re on the subject of killing, didn’t you let Doctor Death-.”
BATMAN: “Both of them got better! It doesn’t count! …I’m Batman.”
Damn it. I remember reading this comic months ago. I was linked to it from some other webpage. Yet I never thought of checking out the rest of the comic. I can’t believe how dumb that was, I could have been reading Shortpacked since a long time ago.