Batman has become one of the most popular fictional characters, well, ever, honestly. Batman spawned legions of imitators, and that’s before you get to the legacy characters that Batman comics have introduced. Batman wasn’t the first tragic rich person to throw themselves into a war against evil, but he has been the one primarily scratching that itch for decades. DC has built the Batman mythos into a quasi-mini-universe of its own (kind of like Marvel did with the X-Men), and there have been times when the publisher went a little too far with publishing Batman comics, and that’s part of the problem with the Batman mythos currently. Batman is no longer the most important part.
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Batman has an entire Bat-Family that DC has put attention on, and fans miss them. There are surprisingly few books starring members of the main Bat-Family right now — just Nightwing, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy, and those last three are only nominally members of the Bat-Family. The latest Batman relaunch was more exciting for the news that Tim Drake was going to be Robin than anything else. On top of that Batman has a legion of supervillains who fans love. Batman is starting to become an also-ran in his own mythos, and it was kind of always going to happen this way.
DC Has Built the Bat-Family Into a Group Fans Want to Follow
The ’90s were something of a golden age of books related to Batman that weren’t actually Batman books. There were four mainline Batman books, but there was also Nightwing, Catwoman, Azrael, and Robin, and they were only the beginning. Harley Quinn would get her own comic, the Birds of Prey was Batman adjacent because of Oracle, and the ’00s and ’10s would bring us Gotham City Sirens, Batwoman, Batgirl, Red Hood, Batwing, and more. DC has done so much work building up the Bat-Family that fans want more of them. Most Batman fans want to read about the other members of the Bat-Family because they’ve become such a massive part of the Batman mythos.
Even villains get comics; Joker and Two-Face have each had their own series in the last five years, and we had a whole series of one-shots — the One Bad Day series — about them. We’ve seen Azrael replace Batman, and Dick Grayson has been Batman. These characters have become favorites, and fans read Batman books just as much to see all of these characters and their lives as much as they do to see Batman. There’s a reason for this, and it’s one that has become a problem for comics in general. Batman is only a symptom.
When was the last time something really interesting happened with Batman? The death of Alfred? The end of his relationship with Catwoman? The loss of Wayne Manor and his fortune? One of the biggest problems with comics nowadays is catering to new readers. Every creative run gets wrapped into a neat little bow, and most of the time, the huge developments in these runs are reverted to the status quo by the time the run ends. Nothing interesting happens to Batman anymore, and we know that the vast majority of happenings in every run are going to be ignored in the next one. However, you know who does get to change? The other members of the Bat-Family.
Since they aren’t as important as Batman, with a few exceptions like Nightwing, the big things that happen to them have more of a chance to stay around. If something happens to Damian Wayne or Tim Drake or Cassie, there’s a good chance that it’s going to stay if it fans like it. Batman is kept in a state of equilibrium, and that means reading about him isn’t as exciting. I know who Batman is, and that rarely changes. DC has shot itself in the foot with Batman. They’ve given readers what they want by expanding on the Bat-Family and its villains, but they’ve kept the Dark Knight himself static. One of the best parts about Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez’s Batman (Vol. 4) #1 is that it felt like Batman was turning a corner in the issue. However, I have no idea if that change is going to stay turned or if it’s all going to be forgotten down the road.
The Only Way to Make Batman Vital Again Is to Embrace Change
There are always great Batman stories somewhere. There will always be Batman books that fans want to read. However, most of the time, we aren’t reading them for Batman. We’re reading them for the characters that might appear in them. We want to know what happened to Tim, Cassie, Steph, Damian, Joker, Two-Face, Bullock, Montoya, Gordon… see where I’m going with this? DC has built a Batman universe and then contracted that universe. So, now, we read Batman comics to see the characters we aren’t seeing anywhere else. Batman is just there.
It especially doesn’t help that DC is keeping Batman static. This is just the way comics work nowadays — Marvel and DC want to keep things static for new readers — but it’s hurt Batman because most of the time, the most interesting changes happen to other characters. When you’ve been reading Batman for any period of time, reading the same character over and over again is boring unless the creator is amazing. DC needs to figure out a way to make the Batman books exciting for Batman as a character, and readers will want him more than they do now.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
