Batman The Digital Age 2000 - 2012 - Geek History Lesson

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Over the course of our exploration of Batman. During today's episode,
we are going to build what will become known as
the Batman Family. Okay, since Batman was an orphan, was
the Batman Family an inevitability?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Jason? Was he always going to build himself a new family?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, he builds himself a family before this era quite
a bit. Actually, yeah, of course he does. So. Yeah,
it's interesting that you're calling this the Batman Family era.
I'm already confused. I thought this is the Batman the
digital age that we were getting into, like Batman hacking
mainframes and use an AOL disc to fight crime. That's
all very true, Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
But this is the era where the Batman Family really explodes.
Dare I say, we have a plethora of Robin's, We
have a plethora of this is bat girls. All of
my faves are going to show up in this era.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
With the bad files and the malware on my crappy
Dell laptop. We're going to get multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple robins.
That's going to get a big, big misunderstood your point,
But now I understand the point, And maybe this is
probably the wrong time to reveal this to you. Ashley
at the beginning of this podcast, but I'm bringing in

(01:15):
a new host to Geek History Lesson, Ashley too.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Is this the one that has red hair but you
made her dye her hair brown so she would look
like me?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
And she has big green glasses and it's gonna be
great showed up. The next episode is gonna be fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Can't wait to meet her and then to sword fight
her over who gets to be who gets to wear
the Ashley crest.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Of course, yes, we're iconically not gonna have battle for
the microphone show up soon. Battle for the plattle for
the microphone, that's what we call it.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
When intern cat Brago doesn't leave the seat that I
said on when we record Geekinster Lessons, maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
We should glick off this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Before we confuse the listen time that we say hello
and welcome to Geek History Lesson.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I am Ashley Victoria Robinson.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
I'm Jason Inman. Welcome to the Mine University. That is
what we call this podcast where one comic book writer
from kindaa n one TV writer from Kansas tell you
everything you need to know a little bit in less
than an hour. That doesn't make sense, we tell you
everything you need to know about one subject and a
little bit less than an hour. Welcome friends, and today
we are talking about Batman in the digital age. What

(02:15):
does that mean? Well, we'll tell you in a second.
Settled down. I know we're in a digital age and
everything is now, now, now, now, now, But you need
to relax and just ease into this podcast because.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
You know, Batman a character famous for self control.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, he's a very relaxing He's a very relaxed character, calm,
you know.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Very like neurotypical kind of guy.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
You know, they always say when you need to chill
out nowadays, you put on a Batman movie. That's what
they tell you.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
They tell you to put on a cowl.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, The Dark Knight's a very relaxing movie.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
If you're not watching The Dark Knight wearing your Michael
Keaton or a Batman cowl?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Are you even watching Batman?

Speaker 3 (02:51):
But we're gonna explain what that means. We've We've done
several Ashley has been kicking off this series. We've been
doing this series for years now.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
You know, we were in the one hundredth.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Oh wow, that's so about every one hundred episodes we do.
We have that we have a bunch of you know,
there's Batman, the Golden Age, Batman, the Silver Ray I.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Got, I got the I'm episodes. Don't even worry about it.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
I'm sorry. I'm just the psychic here, everybody.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Sorry, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're the Robin.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Now, I am the Robin here, I'm the Robin. Which one?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
I mean? You're obviously Dick Grayson.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I think I'm also sure. We've had eight.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Versions of the discussion We've had, We've we've had multiple versions. Yeah,
you're you're you're the Dick Grayson of this universe. Okay,
So okay, bat Robinson take my hand. Uh, let's grapple
hook to the next roof. What's the best way to
tackle this this subject. I'm gonna tell you about the ages, Okay,
just to make that really really clear. And if this
is your first episode, give you like a little bit
of comic book history.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, and we should also talk about that we are
now in this period where, look, there are people out
there that call themselves comic book historians. Right, it's not
an official job title, but there are those people.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
And frankly, I think it's a little bit disrespectful because
to be a historian, you have to.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Earn a degree. Oh okay, And I think.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Calling yourself a historian because you have expertise on something
is it would be like me calling myself a doctor
because I know a lot about plants, a lot of
plant doctor.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
There are learned men out there who know a lot
about comic books and women who know a lot about combooks,
and they probably earned the title, but yeah, there's no
official You're right. We got a comic book history degree,
so you can look at this thing. And there are
like these periods of time in various comic books, and
there are sort of delineation points, but nobody quite agrees
on what these delineation points are. If you go back

(04:31):
and listen to our previous episodes, we sort of very
early on when we made this made are delineategy and
we explain to.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
You why we're going look and look. We break from
them too when we have to, and we try very
hard to follow them.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
And we should flag right now that the period of
time we're in right now for this episode is sort
of a non agreed time and everybody on the internet
doesn't agree. So we just kind of just.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Jason and I agreed on it. We put a flag.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
We put a flag on Mars like Ed Baldwin, and
for all mankind. That's a reference for all you, for
all mankind people out there, go love it out there.
Joe Kneman a good Batman? Yeah your name? What do
you think would he been a good Batman?

Speaker 2 (05:08):
I think he would have been a fine batman. He's
not Batman.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Okay, well, there you go. There's the bonus content you
guys come here for. But we put our flag down
about where we think the digital age is. And now
Ashley's gonna hold our hand because she's the Batman of
this episode. She has the Batpod in full control. And uh,
I gotta.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Drive so many vehicles.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
I don't want to drive, you do you gotta gotn't
realize the size of your garage is massive.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I don't want a garage. Here's this one.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
There's this one.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
It might be Batman.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Hush, there's this there's a Batman story where Batman runs
into the bat Cave and I remember Jim Lee. I
know it's Jim Lee drew this like sort of like
cyclopod thing. Yes, it's definitely hush yeah, and it has
like fifty balls and you're just like how does he
have the room down there?

Speaker 2 (05:49):
I I kind of like.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
When there are just these perfectly formed caves that each
car gets a little house in the in the bat cave.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, where does he get Where does he keep the
gas tanks to fill the say the jet Okay, if we're.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Really going to do this, you have to assume being
Batman is like running a cab company.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
In New York City. There are five gas stations.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
There are five petrol stations on the island of Manhattan
that are publicly available. So you have to assume that
everybody who runs buses, private cars, cabbys, et cetera, they
all have to have a small store of their own,
because you can't clog up the five gas stations for
all the normies.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
No, that's what I was saying. It's in it's buried
under the bat cave. Obviously. That's why I imagine the
fumes coming out of that cave.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Not even that, but that is that is why the
bat Cave is always exploding.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Burning everything to the ground, because it's it's basically jet.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Fuel under there.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
You know, when I when I rewatched Batman forever recently,
and this will make us sense to you A little later. Yeah, Well,
I always misunderstood how Jim Carrey's Riddler just pressed a
button on his cane and the Bad Cave exploded. And
now I understand that he lit that diesel fuel on.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
I think it was the size of Jim Carrey's delusions
that exploded that particular Yeah. Yeah, anyway, that's a discussion
for another time.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Let's explain.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Let me start with the Golden Age. The Golden Age
goes from.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Comic books of all things, just Batman.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
The gold Age of Batman.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
I would argue that, but we're going to talk about
is the Golden Age of Batman. The Golden Age of
comics is from nineteen thirty eight to nineteen fifty six.
It begins with the beginning of comic books in mass media.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
And it ends with the first appearance of Barry Allen.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
It's the Flash of Two Worlds covers you've seen in
a Millionaire.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
You're mixing two stories there. The Flash of Two Worlds
is where Barry meets Jake Gerrick. It's it's the first
appearance of Barry Ellen. That's what I said, which is
not the Flash of Two Worlds. Oh my bad.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, it ends with the first appearance of Barry Allen
Showcase number four. Sorry sorry, sorry, sorry in October of
nineteen fifty six.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
There's too many flashes. Actually just loves Multi versus Flash episode. Okay,
it actually just loves Multi Versus so much that she
just wanted to get to it. So Muick, we all know,
like every.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Cinematic you're if you're a die in the Molgi Hits
West Sery, I hate Barry Allen.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
So that's that's my excuse.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
You just love Multiverse, get hate.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
The Cilver Rage goes.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
From ninety fifty six to nineteen seventy, which is the
restricted storytelling era, the Comics Code Authority era. We got
a lot of very silly stories that we uh start
a meeting, but we start to see hints of more
depth coming in.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Narratively, the precipitating event is the creation of the Comics
Code Authority in the creation of Barry Allen.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
The Bronze Age goes from nineteen seventy to nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
It is precipitated by Jack Kirby leaving Marvel.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Some people like to credit also Gwen Stacy being kised
in Spider Man one seven. The Dark Age is from
a nineteen eighty five to two thousand. It's it's basically
everything that happens after Frank Miller.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
It's post Frank Miller posts Allen Moore World. It's also
this is where the era we're starting in the thing
because there are some people out there that will call
from nineteen eighty five to now just the modern age, and.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's that's literally just too long in air.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
There's too many shifts, there's too many crazy.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
This is basically ninety the glory of nineties comics. When
you when you think about image, I got arm in.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
My hand and gritting my teeth.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Then and expanding characters like we're bringing in legacy characters,
so many, so.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Many variant covers on comic books.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Oh my god, the birth of image.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
And then the digital age, which if you're looking if
you're like a redditor or if you're looking around online,
you will sometimes see this referred to as the screen
age or the electrum age.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Is one that I see a lot.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Oh, I have heard that.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
I reject it.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
The digital age is much more straightforward, goes from two
thousand to I'm gonna say twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
For the sake of this particular episode, you can really
easily do it. Twenty eleven cut off with the new
fifty two.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yes, around that area. But but we picked this for
the digital age because this is where DC Comics started
making some forays and aol online web comic started showing up.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
And inter.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Inspiring what we were doing in mainstream comics. This is when,
like manga is much more mainstream.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
But it is this we're still in this era where
we're just the head. I know the Christopher Nolan Batman
trilogy is going to happen during this period, but we're
just ahead of the paradigm shift, which is the Marvel
Cinematic Universe one hundred percent, which exploded superheroes and comic
books into the mainstream.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Another reason I'm choosing to cut it off at twenty
twelve because it works narratively for Batman, but also because
that's Avengers.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah yeah, yeah, which is the built first billion dollar
the super domain, which you can.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
I love Phase one. I stand that Phase one is
the best phase we've ever phased.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
But actually, did the Dark Knight make a billion dollars?
I have no idea, but I'm gonna look it up.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
There you go, But Avengers really changed the playing field
left of that.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
So if you want to catch up on our previous
Batman episodes, we have episode one oh seven is Batman
the Golden Age, Episode three eighty three, which took a
long hiatus, is Batman the Silver Age, Episode four sixty
six is Batman the Bronze Age, and episode four ninety
four is Batman the Dark Age. We do also have
a mega episode that combines the first three, so gold Silver,

(11:08):
Bronze Age, the Listening and.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
If you dig these episodes, we also did Superman. Yeah,
we've done Superman a bunch of these, and we don't
want to recognizing. Just for clarification, I'm correcting myself. Dark
Knight did make a billion dollar, So it's the first
Marvel movie to make a billion dollar.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I think it was the at the time, it was
the fastest.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Ye. Sure, that's just too makes sense.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
But Jason tease a little bit of Batman Forever earlier.
Do you want to band on why you were teasing
Batman for Well, I'm teasing.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Batman Forever because you know, we just lost the late
great Val Kilmer, extraordinary actor, and we.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
The Mark Twain of his time.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, you could sit in part point of his time.
It's very true. And if you don't know that reference,
go look it up. But we are doing a sort
of live stream watching, not a watch along, but like
a live stream movie club about Batman Forever in honor
of Val Kilmer. And that's happening over our patriot at
patreon dot com slash John and that's jawii in. That's

(12:00):
happening on April twenty six, Saturday, April twenty six. I'm
not certain when you're hearing this, but like it might
have happened already. But we're gonna invite our awesome super
Frians over the Patreon to come join us live and
like have an actual discussion about Batman Forever and honor
of Val Kilmer, and then we're gonna take our movie club.
It's very cool. We're letting the fans vote on so
like on the future series and we're just gonna basically

(12:22):
follow series and we're gonna do live streams and commentary
stuff like that. I know the Chris rah Ree Superman
movies are up for contention, so are the Fantastic Four.
All the Fantastic Fours are up for contention, along with Frankenstein.
That's the one I want you, Yeah, frank Stein, Bride
of Frankenstein, all the stuff like that, and along with
the first Mission Impossible movie, Yeah, the first three trilogy, Yeah,
before they sort of shift into the like megafranchise that

(12:44):
they became. That's the one I want to do. But
it's very fun, it's very interactive. It's really cool because
we really enjoy talking to our audience and like there's
been this amazing book club that actually has been running
over our discord, So.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
We're just bringing the same vibes to Film Club.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Anything interesting. You come on over to patreon dot com
slash John when you're supporting the podcast. Not only you're
gonna get a Teen Titans podcast all our bonus Justice
League podcasts that we have over there, but you have
a chance to join the Movie Club tier, which I
think is gonna be a lot of fun. We're kicking
it off this month. So in the first movie is
Batman Forever you know we're we were You can always

(13:21):
watch Bell Kilmer, I think be a pretty good Batman.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
I'm actually excited to talk about this movie with you
because I think this movie has a lot going for it.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah, and it was really neat. It was made before
the Digital. A, Hey, this is the dark at Yeah,
it was made during Batman's dark As it was. Yeah,
everybody goofy movie or Batman's dark age someone.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Well, you could argue it's his dark age off the
Batman said about a career.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
He got his back broke, and then he immediately kissed
Nicole Kidman on screen.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
I mean, wouldn't you, of course back kiss.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Have you seen eysweat shut I'm just saying I have not.
Apparently she's in an who eyes White chut Remain. Apparently
she's in a new sexy movie. It's called like baby
Girl or something like that. I've heard, I've heard, thanks, Wow,
I heard there's I've heard there's a new sexy Nicole
Goodman movie. Or some might say doctor Chase Meridian. Yes,
let's talk about Batman's That is talking about Batman Doctor

(14:18):
Chase Meridian.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, but let's get off, let's get them, Let's let's
get off. Nicole Goodman, Hello, Mount Batman.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Don't think about that too much? Said Okay, all right, Batman,
take us through this. Let's we can't talk about your
ex girlfriends anymore. Okay, I mean I've got so many
of them. Something called Vesper. Let me let me tell you,
pet Angle, he knew what was what, he knew what
was going on. He was a talented gentleman.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
This era of Batman is about to become proliferated with reboots, events, amnesia,
and comic book storylines that reflected the stories that studios
were telling on television and in the movies. So gerger
Llin's Jason prepare the rec con alert?

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Would you would you say, oh, I didn't forget we
have a sounds fact. Yes, ghl, everybody, I was going
to say, you talked about the rebooting and stuff like that.
I always think about this era as sort of being
the periferation of just crossovers and events. Well, I also

(15:15):
said events, events, events, events.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Well, I think Jason, and I hope you'll be very
proud of me.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
We're talking about an alternate sequel boot to launch this.
To launch our discussion, I want to start with nineteen
niney nine's Batman Beyond. Okay, So nineteen ninety nine saw
the launch of Batman Beyond, which ran through two thousand
and one. So threw into really.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
Most of it was in this rir.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yes, Yes, it introduced.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Terry McGinnis to the expanse of Batman family.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
See we're already having another Robin Batman.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
He's not he's Batman.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Sure, I've watched like three episodes.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Can you tell look Batman beyond it? Let's just full
you know, if you don't know anything about it was
Actually Originally the whole idea was they were they had
just done Batman the Amien series the nineties and Superman
Amimen series, and they were kind of thinking about finishing it. Yeah,
Apparently a Warner Brothers executive came to them and said,
have you thought about doing a young Batman show? And

(16:12):
apparently Bruce tim and Alan Burnett and all the creatives
were just like, that sounds dumb. Let's not do that.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
I mean a young the idea of a young Batman
show does sound dumb.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
But then apparently they started like kicking it around and
they sort of came up with this idea of like, well,
what if we sort of made like sort of Batman
into Spider Man, where we get this young Batman who's
being trained by an old man Bruce Wayne, And then
what if it was set in Blade Runner times so
it's very punk. What if everyone is vaguely Asian? Because

(16:41):
the kids like anime. Now it's very anime comic legend.
Darwin Cook. Yeah, animated the opening credits, but I will
tell you I own the blu rays of Batman Beyond.
I think weirdly of this time, it is like one
of the few sort of Batman spin off that works.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
And then the fact that there we are twenty five
years from it and there's never been a live action
Batman Beyond blows my bond.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
I actually really agree with that.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
And his costume is fantastic. Yes, it's it's a very
cool casse, just black red bat That's all it is.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, and we've somehow never good kick off. I wouldn't
have thought.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
About to kick off Batman Beyond into this digital age.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
I also think I think Batman Beyond is Again I'm
not a fan, but I think Batman Beyond is easy
to dismiss because it is an animated show. But I
think to this day we are still seeing the echoes
of Batman Beyond. And it also like this era also
kicks off a bunch of additional young sidekicks, and it

(17:41):
kicks off Batman becoming increasingly more tech savvy and reliant
on technology. And I think Batman Beyond is such a
clear illustration of that.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
I will say, I think there is no Miles Morales
Spider Man without Terry McGinnis Batman.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
There's also no Terry McGinnis Batman without your other beloveds.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Who oh, spider Man twin Yeah, like Miguel Oh yeah yeah.
If you go watch Batman Beyond, you can see that
the Spider Man twentia and nine, which comes out in
nineteen ninety.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Two, it's a bit ora Boros, like Miguel existed so
that you can marry, could exist so that Miles could
exhibit it.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Right, Like you watch the Spider Verse movies, you can
see the influence of Batman Beyond absolutely, even even the
first one, even before Miguel even came really into the equation.
But it's just like they kind of took the i
want to say, the guardrails off, and they kind of
it's it was one of the first times I feel
like where they really like pushed on what could a

(18:38):
Batman story be? Yeah, and it was.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
There's a truly was there's a stork about active addiction? Yeah,
there was, there's truly like.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
It's just like this is the and this is one
of the arguments we made in this podcast several times
is most people nowadays just make Frank Miller Batman. Yeah,
that's all they do. And now that we've seen for
almost forty years of Frank Miller Batman.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
It's getting a little stale.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, And Batman Beyond is one of the few Batman
stories in this time period that is not.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Frank Miller rod not even remotely interested in being very
much is.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
In a lot of ways americanized anime. Batman. Yeah, and
it it's I don't know, I think it's good and
I actual think it really holds up.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
So two thousand and two, very next year saw an
epic Batman story, which we've recommended more often than any
other comic Geek history lesson Jason, what Batman story begins
in two thousand and.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Two, I'm going to guess it's the one I just referenced,
Batman Hush.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
That is correct, Batman Hush.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
The story depicts a mysterious stoker called Hush who seems
intent on sabotaging Batman from afar, and it includes guest
appearances from Batman's villains as well as various members of
the Batman family.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
It's almost every Batman character shows up in.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
This yes, which is why we consistently introduce it.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
So Hush is significant for a couple different in universe reasons.
It introduces Tommy Elliott and reveals that he is Hush.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
He's one of Bruce Wayne's childhood friends.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yep, it's a childhood friend of Bruce's that we'd never
met before. No.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
It introduces the idea that Jason Todd is not dead,
even though he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Officially come back, not in the story.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
And this story comes back in Under the Red Hood
by jud Wynick and Dug Monkey in two thousand and five,
three years later. But the seed is planted.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
And he's here dead. I'm since the late ladies, Yeah, dying.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
He's been down at least, like I'd say, like twelve years, yeah,
roughly roughly twelve long time.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
This series sets the groundwork between Batman and Catwoman, which
will follow the characters all the way through Tom King
and Joel Jones's wedding issue and Batman Volume three, number seven.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
This is the story where Catwoman learns Batman's secret identity and.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
He loves Storry to the Bat Cave and Jason and
I had a very long argument on a very early
episode of g Gussy.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Also, I love whether or not Batman should let her
in or not.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
And I was like, no, well, and then we should
also make this the whole reason the story happens is
because this is you want to get publication history. Yeah,
this is where Jim Lee I almost said late, great, but.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
That was my fact.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
My next question I was like, I was like, can
we talk about the cultural significance the culture drawing hot?

Speaker 3 (21:03):
So Jeff Low had done a couple of big Batman
stories at this time, Batman and Long Halloween and Batman
Dark Victory, which were huge with Tim Sale and my
favorite Batman stories ever told Christopher Nolan. Took a lot
of inspiration from those stories. But Jim Lee, famous artists
who had worked for a lot on X Men, drew.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
All the X Men nineties covers that you're imagining right now.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, he drew all those. And then he went and
founded this company called Image Yep, and he did Wildcats
and did a bunch of stuff. He said, break dance people,
they are he sold them. He sold his company to
d C. And when he came back to d C,
this is the first d C Comics book this is
the first time he'd ever driven drawn Batman. Yeah. Yeah,
and Jim Lee is still to this day a superstar

(21:47):
Batman and he's drawn were right literally at the time
of this recording. Hushed two Hush two Furious two Hush
too Furios Batman sequel to this, yeah, twenty years.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Later, even though there was a sequels called Heart of Us.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
He's written a Paulgy. Yes, there's already been a sequel published, right.
I actually think there have been like multiple sequels to Hunt.
So this is actually like Hush seven yea if you
want to get that. So you know, this is their
big kickoff, and it is like we always kind of
described it as it's we kind of joke about it
and that it's like kind of Michael Bay Batman, and

(22:21):
and by that it's not like like knocking down the
story because I actually think Hush is good.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
It's also not not knocking down what Michael Bay does
because when Michael Bay does what he does, well, it's
very satisfying.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
But it's it's big.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Actions, blockbust basting, summer.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Bobus romance, and it's everyone you know gets a moment.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
It's yeah, it's it's it's it's again. It's it's kind
of a great book to hand to somebody who's never
written Batman, because, like you, you you kind of get
soft introduced in the world where you're just like, oh,
he's had multiple Robins, and he's with Catwoman and and
here's every villain that Batman fights, ros O, Ghoul, Riddler,
all the villains.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Quinn makes her debut her debut after No Man's Land.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Uh yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
The story also sets the trend of DC comics childhood
friends becoming Batman villains.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
This is this is something that like.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
You can see carries all the way through Godspeed in
Flash Rebirth by Joshua Williams.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Like very soap opera, Yeah, but yes, it is.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
This is what popularizes that in DC comments.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
And I will tell you I actually think that this
is not the first instance of this in Batman, because
I actually think Jeff Loe got this idea from the
animated Batman Mask of the Phantasm, Oh for sure, where
Phantasm is secretly Andrea Beaumont Bruce Wayne's long lost teenage
love Yance.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Two thousand and two also saw two storylines that I
really loved and have.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Since grown out of love with over the years.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Bruce Wayne Murderer, Yeah, and Bruce Wayne Fugitive.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Those are long storylines. Yeah, they all went on for
so it was like a year, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, it was a fugitive for a long time.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, Jason, we've talked a lot about the viability of
is Batman actually able to take down anybody?

Speaker 3 (24:10):
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1 (24:11):
So there is this idea in DC comics that Batman
can take anyone down with the right amount of preparation.
I mean, and you and I go go back and forth,
mostly back, about whether or not we think that's possible.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
We've had that debate over and over and over and
over again.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
And in Bruce Wayne Murderer, Yes, sorry, my.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Page completely there's a long pause here.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yes, I think what we're I think what we're building
to is that I copied a note from an old
document that I didn't delete.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
But we're gonna talk about Bruce Wayne Murderer, Okay.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
In Bruce Wayne Murderer, Bruce Wayne is found with the
dead body of Vesper Fairchild. She's one of Bruce's many
girlfriends who you've probably never heard of before.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
By the time you read it.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
She was invented for the storyline, Yes, she was. Can
I also bring up an other fund So I don't
know if this was the first, but this in the
digital age of Batman. Around this time period in the
two thousands, all the comic publishers were doing these fun
things of ten cent or ninety nine cent issues. And
the kickoff issue of Bruce Wayne Murder is a ten

(25:28):
cent issue.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Oh, I didn't know.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
I'm showing you the cover.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
I know, I know what the cover and that's the
trade dress.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Fast four a couple of years later does like I
think Superman does a five cent So there was like
a weird rush to be like who could make the
cheapest single issue, and it was like this thing because
comics I think that this time costs three dollars or
two ninety nine or something like that. This is where
the start of two ninety nine. Yeah, and so everybody
was like, we got the one dollar issue to kick
off this event. And I also think that these are
the issues that led to basically the birth of free

(25:55):
comic book day. I could be wrong about that.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, now comics costs eight ninety nine.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
So Bruce was arrested for Vesper Fairchild's murder, not Batman.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Bruce wayn Yeah, he's the last person that has seen
his dead girlfriend alive.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
So looking to prove his innocence, Night Wing, Robin and
Batgirl quickly begin to investigate and discover who is the
true killer.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
So this is.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Another instance of uh, we're seeing all the Robins and
all the batgirls and all the oracles coming to the
forefront of a story that is ostensibly about centering Bruce
Wayne instead of Batman. Like, they have to have the
debate of do does somebody have to pretend to be Batman?

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Do you remember first job? You want to this is
really going to date this. Do you remember Vesper Fairchild's job?

Speaker 2 (26:33):
She radio? She's a radio host, she's like a radio person.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Out you tell Fraser was on the air at the point.
Oh my god, he was like the night DJ. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
And what's kind of unique about this story is a
lot of evidence comes out through the investigation of both
the GCPD and the Batman family that makes Bruce look really,
really guilty.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
I know, I remember that storyline is I get the
big part of it because we talk about there's a
term we throw out here because there's also bat God,
which is what you were talking about before.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Before your notes, right, I think I did was I
think I copied that and I was going to rephrase
it to talk.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
About super dick Batman.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah, and I never re wrote it. So this is
the period where like Batman started getting labeled as things,
so like in the previous period, he became bat God.
That's a year where Grant Morrison introduced the idea of like,
he can beat anybody if he just has enough time
to prep.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Well, because he's got to go toe to toe with Superman
and Wonder Woman, then yeah, but if he can just lay
enough traps, he can win.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
This is the storyline that kicks off this a period
of Batman that I really do not like, and we
call it bat Dick.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
And by the point is that Batman because the early
part of the storyline, it really looks like Bruce Wayne
did murder her. And most of the storyline, night Wing
and the other Robins and the back Girls are all like, Bruce,
tell us your alibi, where were you? Let us help you,
And for the entire storyline, Bruce is just like, go,
I don't need your help.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well, Bruce is also very much like if you trust me,
you will fall in line, and Dick's like, I'm a detective,
just talk to me.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, yeah, he won't.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
No, you won't.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
And to the to the point where during the events
of Bruce Wayne Fugitive, which is you can probably deduce
from the title, is when Bruce Wayne breaks out of
prison and goes to hide the bat Cave to hide
inside the guys of Batman doing that Hohle, So is
he Batman or is hey, Bruce Wayne.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
I don't need the Bruce Wayne identity Moore, I'm gonna
be fully Batman And Dick Grayson is like, that's insane
and Batman punches him face.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
In the face.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
It does eventually come out that Vespers true murderer was
the ever devious David Kane. Batgirl fans might recognize the
name Caine of Cassandra Cane.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
And that's why this and that's why I think the
storyline falls apart because it's this point of like it's
it was a very uninteresting reveal to find that out.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
I agree with you, But in the end, Bruce is
declared innocent. Jason, I want to ask.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
I thought you were going to say, Jason Todd.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
I'm sorry for me, Jason Inman, I would like to
ask you about the punch in fact, but I.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Think why punch my favorite? Let's go.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, but it's gotta be black because it's it's bat
Hawaiian punch.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
It's Hawaiian bat punch.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
There probably was a bad Hawaiian punch. I bet there was.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, So I'm gonna I'm gonna say that's where we're gonna.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Go to talk about the bat punch delicious and probably
has a BlackBerry flavor.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Once we've returned from having our bat punch. Okay, got it, ghl,
we're back. We're talking Batman the digital as we're talking
super Dick Batman.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
We're talking No, you said we were going to talk
about some delicious bat punch.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
We all know that a Kiss from the Fist is
better than that. I think is how that song lyric
goes very troubling. Don't let people hate you?

Speaker 3 (29:35):
What was this hilyric? Were trying to do the lyrics
and kiss from rose? No, no, no, there is a
song that's called a kiss, A kiss with the fist.
I didn't know that it's about.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Getting beat up by a guy.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Uh So for me, Jason and for you, and we
talked about this a little bit earlier. The defining moment
of all of the Bruce Wayne Murderer Fugitive arc is
when Batman punch is night Wing.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
I literally think it happens in the first issue of Batman. Fusure.
I like that, that's the switch.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
It's so upset.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
So even though the Digital Age comes after the Dark
Age and we are definitely still riding the waves of
Frank Miller's influence, is there any universe where you think
Bruce Wayne would punch Dick Grayson in the face.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
It it's here we go. Because I'm trying to try
to stay positive here.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Yeah, if you've listened to you know, I would say
the last you know, five or six years of Batman,
because we've covered so much Batman and because we've talked
about Batman and you know the world we're kind of
living in right now. Yeah, yeah, I very much. I'm
just putting my biases out on street front street here.

(30:41):
I very much don't think we should look at Batman
as a hero anymore. I just really don't. I agree,
I really don't. And this even though this happened, you know,
two thousand and two two thousand and three is you know,
almost twenty five years ago. This falls in line with
what I do not like as a character about Batman,
because I want to look Batman as a hero, and

(31:01):
I do not think a hero in any situation unless
here's the one situation if his adopted son is possessed
by a demon, which could happen in the very true
and is exploding the universe and the only even then,
I think Batman would pull his punches. I agree, Yeah,

(31:22):
I think he would do everything he could not to
punch his adopted son in the face.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Because I would also tell you that if you asked
me to rank the characters that Batman loves, I think
it's a debate between Dick and Alfred who's number one.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
And I also think it's just like anybody or any
real human relationship, It depends on your day, because I
bet some days Alfred irritates him and he calls up
Dick and is like, Dick, can't you belame what Alfred can.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Know what Dad's doing?

Speaker 3 (31:48):
And I guarantee you the very next day he's talking
to Alfred and be like, can you believe what date
did yesterday?

Speaker 2 (31:54):
God?

Speaker 3 (31:54):
And and and and Dick is doing the same thing
to the two of them, like they're sort of the.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
And then like texting Tim to be like, can you
believe dead?

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah? But I love Star trek Man. They are the
Kirk Spock and McCoy of this relationship. It is because
he's the original Robin and he is Batman's son. And
I think I'm sorry if you think the answer is
punching your son in the face. I do not like
you as a hero. Yeah, And this is a scenario
where this was completely unjustified. The entire I remember the

(32:25):
scene is very much like it is all the sidekicks
being like being like, are you crazy? You cannot get
rid of the Bruce Wayne identity? What happens to our identity?
But also but also like we love Bruce wayn and
there ye again, the entire scene is like they're being like,
we're trying to help you, yeah, and his answer is yeah,
like it makes no sense, all right? So well, I mean,

(32:48):
don't you feel the same way? Am I am? I am?
I you know, I don't know. I certain some fans
are like I love this moment, but I cannot stand
there would have.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Been a time where I would have defended this moment
where I thought this moment was like really powerful, and
I thought it said a lot about Dick that he
was able to overcome it and he was able to
like stick to the type of leadership that Batman had
modeled for it.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
And I think, if I remember right too, the setup
is something like, because I remember leading up to it,
it's like it's like Batman is trying to escape and
like Dick keeps getting in front of him and being like, no,
you're going to talk to us.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
And maybe I'm older and softer now, but like I
just I just think it's so unnecessarily cruel.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
It seems mentally unhinged.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Oh he is, He's Batman, I know, but it makes
me wonder what about the early aughts laid the groundwork
for such a violent and ugly story, and Batman can
tell violent and ugly stories justifiably, Like Batman, You're One,
especially from Selena's perspective, is a violent and ugly story,
but it's it's a great story that's weller.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
To bring some real world context into this, you have
to think about that this is the time period of
Grant Morrison's New X Men, where the X Men got
black coats and we boo up Genosha. This is the
era of Marvel Knight's Daredevil.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, there were Spider Man.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
We're like gangsters and King Ben are tough. This is
ultimate Spider Man, where like we're going to actually see
what Spider Man would be as a thirteenth So like
we are bringing a lot of into comic books. Because
also at the same time, you got to realize this
is the era of twenty four. This is a post
nine to eleven. This is the era of Battlestar Galactic
at the reboot. Yeah, so this is this is where

(34:21):
the storytelling is sort of coming into this thing of
like we're gonna make things dark, because storytelling all of
media post nine to eleven for about five years was
pretty dark.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Well, because another big event that happens in the latter
half of two thousand and four is Identity Crisis.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Which is a pretty dark event.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales and again, I think Identity
Crisis is better done because and we'll talk about it,
but when you read Identity.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
Crisis balls Batman pretty big.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
You can see how it's it's being planned and laid out.
It's whether or not you think it's justified or earned.
Your mileage may vary. Well, you're right, that's a great
I completely forgot about that story, and you're exactly right.
Because Identity Crisis all hinges on. We're going to take
this very real adult thing, and we're going to bring
this into the.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Goofyest, silliest comic book culture.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Comic characters we have. And so maybe I know ed
brew Baker, and I can't remember some of the other writers.
Are the writers responsible Batman Fugitive? Maybe they were looking
at this, but I gotta say, like, I just don't
think assaulting your child, yeah, was the right adult, real
moment to bring it to the story.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
I think I ultimately agree. And maybe we only know
that because we now have distance on it. Sure, but
I think it's okay to speak about it critically, and
I think we can say the same thing about identity Crisis,
which I do want.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
To talk about.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
I think I have almost the same feeling about identity crisis.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Because identity Crisis accomplishes a couple of things where Batman
is concerned. Of course, there.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Is Ralph and Sue Dibney's storyline.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Why identity Crisis, but.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Where Batman is concerned.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
It's a lot more to do with the with the
children again, because it's it's the death of Tim Drick's
father and Bruce having to deal with that and step
into that. But it's also the Batman gets his autonomy
taken away when they wipe his mind.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Yeah, so there's two kind of like assaults in And
you said essay earlier. I just wanted to make sure
before is it is Is it appropriate for me to
explain what essay means?

Speaker 1 (36:18):
I think it's appropriate, but I will say that if
you have young people, yes, maybe jump forward like five minutes, so.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
I'll just say it once. Yea, very simply this identity crisis,
because I think it is about there's a villain out
there that knows everybody's identity, yes, all the just like
we don't know how. And it reveals that doctor Light
this villain, this goofy villain, very goofy, apparently at one
time tried to Maybe he did, it's not quite clear.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
It's implicit that it was Yeah, successful.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Sexually assaulted Sue Didney, who is the wife of Elongated
band rapt Yeah rapedim me sorry, And the Justice League
make the decision that they're so shocked why this act.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
They love She's so innocent, she's so lovely to them.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
That they're like, we're gonna wipe the brain. We're gonna
make him basically an invalid. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Do you know who does the brain wiping?

Speaker 3 (37:09):
It's yeah, which I loves.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
That kind of hurts me. Now.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
The one point of this storyline that I really like
and I think is actually really smart writing by Brad Meltzer,
who wrote the storyline, who is a great writer. It
was a great writer. And it's the moment that also
when I tell you this moment, you all know it.
Probably you've read it, but it doesn't jive with the
storyline we.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Were just talking about.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Is that Batman sees them doing this and is like no, no, yeah,
no that and you're like, that's that's Batman, that's Batman.
She holds the moral high ground. Yeah, And so their
decision is, oh, we're gonna mind white Batman too, which.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Is also yeah, just to carry that metaphor forward is
a different type.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Of it's a different type of assault. So it's this again.
It's one of these things where like it's one of
these things where I'm like, I understand the impulse again,
we're bringing in vary issues into color com books.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, I just don't know.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
I do know if I want that, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
This room we talk about complicated things. I think you can't.
And it's one of the things that you and I
love a lot about Milestone. Milestone is like, We're going
to deal with gangs and teen pregnancy and drug use
and racist and systemic oppression.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
But I I.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Think we It's tough, and I've seen it not as
artfully done here.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
And maybe this is hindsight, you know, I'm want to
say about this identity crisis thinking about it, yea, you know,
almost twenty five years later, I think this might be
the clearest sign ever that this is where the comic
book reading audience is aging up.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Mmm. Interesting that this is.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
No longer we are no, we are no, we have
we have this? Is it like there are not kids
reading these comics because this is a Justice.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
League Yeah, normal title, main title. Because and you also
have to think this is too four.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
This is five.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Years from the beginning and three years from the end of.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Batman Beyond. Yeah, which is you can I think you
can show Batman.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
I wish Batman Beyond. When I was like six or
seven years old, like you.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Can show it to children. And again, think about this
storyline was also published. I think it was like four
I didn't chrisis. Oh yeah Junia December. Justice League animated
series is on the air right now. Yeah, so like
again to me, this is that I think this is
a little bit of DC being like we think our
audience is older. Yeah, we think the twenty and thirty
year olds are reading common Well, they're right, it's not

(39:36):
the ten year olds anymore.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
But I do think that maybe this is the beginning
of like some trends that we're seeing now that aren't
paying off as well.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
I agree. I agree.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Throughout the rest of the arts, Batman struggles with side
effects from this mind wipe.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Yeah, this carries on for a couple of years.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Brother ian Omac gets involved this real weird.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Oh because we also because we go, yes, that's right,
because identity crisis us right into infinite crisis.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Boy.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
But both in terms of being able to trust himself
and his memory and his abilities, and in terms of
his interpersonal relationship for example, Wally you aske the greatest
flash who ever flashed. It's very awkward around Batman for
a long time, because he was party to and signed
off on Batman's mindwipe, and he doesn't eventually apologize.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
No, No, I think I think it was Barry, But
I think you're I think it wasn't it that Wally. Remember,
Wally finds out about it. Wally would have been too
young when this happens two.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Thousand and four.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
No, no, the flash, I know, but I'm saying the identity
crisis thing, is this these era?

Speaker 2 (40:31):
No, No, you're right.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
So Wally finds out and he and yes, but he
does apologie didn't read like a journal of berries or
something like that. It's weird. I will tell you this weird.
This is going to date me quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
This is the.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
Time period when I'm buying the most comics. Is this
little like two to three year stretch, because I remember
reading this and this like the build up to Infinite Crisis,
and I remember being like, oh my god, like so
much of it is like very much, and you know,
might have been hut to kick me into this. I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
I mean, I know you love Infinite Crisis, so let's
talk about it now.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
It's a strong word, but I know.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
You've read Infinite Crisis own an infinite Crisis.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
I actually don't. Infinite Crisis is pretty good. I think
for an event, for a DC event, it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
The most important takeaway and I do not want to
explain Brother Eyes and Omax to you right now because
it's confusing to me.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
And I've read an Infinite Crisis.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Give it, I can do it one sentence.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Great.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
So Batman from this event, they put in this thing
that subconsciously Batman. They try to explain it's weird. They
try to explain that Batman knowing something is off, he
can't remember this event. This is supposed to be the
explanation for why he's bat dick.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Yes, and this is also the famous reveal that he
has a plan to kill every hero, even as close
as allies.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
He's got those file.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
It creates this artificial intelligence, a brother which is an
old reference to a Jack Kirby comp. He builds this
AI to basically watch all the superheroes. Yeah. Yes, and
this is the same time period where he like this
is based off of he has the plan to kill
all the heroes and d and so the AI goes
rogue because that's what AIS do, and it turns itself

(42:13):
into a bunch of robots called OMAX. Yeah, and the
OMAS basically are designed to kill all the superheroes, and that,
along with a couple other things, is basically like the
kickoff of Infinite Crisis.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Important question, Jason, Yeah, do you know what OMAX stands for?

Speaker 3 (42:27):
One Man Army Corps.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
That's very funny because according to the Internet, there's two
other options as what might that is the original definition.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Because the original one was it was one guy and
he was called OMAS.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
It's also it.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Also stands for observational meta human Activity construct. That's that's
what the robots are called.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
An omnimind and community. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, no, the original Jack Kirby is one Man Army.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah, because it's funny. I have them listed and I
was like, I don't I don't know if that's true.
Let's roll into two thousand and five, shall we done?
Identity he Infanite Crisis.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Two thousand and five is a huge year for Batman
for three reasons, Okay, in two different mediums.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
Do we want to do we want to save these
reasons for after the break?

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Maybe oh, I was going to do the break after
the reasons, but let's do that. Let's give Jason some
time to think.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Okay, I have three things I'll give you a give me.
One is Infinite Crisis. The three things that are big
for Batman. Three these are big for Batman in two
thousand and five. Infit Crisis. Well, you know what we
should talk about. One of the things I like about
Infinite Crisis is I think it has one of the
best Batman night Wing scenes of all time.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Oh which one?

Speaker 3 (43:37):
I'll tell you after the break for these bat messages fantastic.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
No no no no no no no no.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
G h welcome back, Same Bat Time, Same bat podcast.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
That's a definitely.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
I can't sing the Nolan songs for you, so we're singing.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
Done, done, done, something like that.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
We finally counting to.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
You know, two thousand and five is a big year
for Batman because I know that's the year that Batman
Begins comes out.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Correct, So we have Infinite Crisis, we have Batman Begins.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Jason, what other comic book Batman important thing happens that
I like?

Speaker 2 (44:14):
You like what?

Speaker 3 (44:15):
I didn't know that this was a qualifier on it.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
It's got to do with the Robin.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
It's five, the year of Batman beyond Return.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Of the Joker.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
No, I hate Return of the Joker. I don't know
what under the Red Hood. Oh that's oh, I didn't
realize that was happening in the same time as Infanty.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, and Batman Begins are credited with
stripping down the Batman mythos and grounding it in the
real world versus in silly mythology.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
To realize that this is the first Batman movie since
nineteen ninety seven's Batman and Robin, the movie that was
considered to have killed all comic book movies.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Since its release, Batman Begins has often been cited as
one of the most influential films of the early aughts.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
It's it's one of my favorite films of the earlier.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
It was credited with revitalizing the Batman character in pom
culture is shifting its tone towards a darker and more
serious tone and style. The film helps popularize the term
reboot in Holland.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Also, they have a lot of credit. A lot of
people give a lot of credit to Christopher Nolan, but
this film was written by David S. Koyer.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yes, a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
I think is a writer that gets dunked on way
more than he deserves. Also, this is my whole chest.
I met the man a couple times and he was
very nice too. He's a great writer. But he is
responsible for all for about fifty percent of the Dark
Knight trilogy, just like Justice christ Nolan is.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
He is responsible also for Krypton, like a lot of stuff.
Feel that we saw transition out of this period into
like the sort of age that we're in right now cinematic.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
So yeah, give give him some flower. He's doing just fun,
all right.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
So real quick Infinite Crisis because it's about a bunch
of multiversal shenanigans that it's basically a sequel to CHRISTI
in there is we don't need to go to that.
There's a lot of stuff that happens in that, but
Batman mainly deals with the Omax. Bloodhaven gets destroyed, doesn't
really deal with Batman that much. But there's a great
scene in it before they head to the big final
battle against two alternate Superman's that don't have anything to

(46:06):
do with Batman, and there's a scene in the bat
Cave where there it's kind of Batman has been like
I did all this stuff and blah, blah blah, because
he finds out eventually about that they took his memories
and stuff like that, and he kind of tries to
explain to Dick. He's like, this is why I did
this stuff like that, and the end of the scene
is is it's kind of one of the first stories too,

(46:28):
because they were gonna originally kill night Wing in the storyline,
and then apparently like every other person that worked at
dec Comics told editor in chief at the time, Dan
the Dio to be like, you cannot kill the original Robin.
Are you nuts? People will, right, but if you read
that storyline, you can sort of see that that is
those seeds are being planted, and then you can tell
about halfway through the storyline they change their mind. So
there's a scene where Batman looks at Dick. Dick has

(46:52):
this He's like, we're gonna go do this, and Batman's like,
you're right, that's exactly what we should do. And he's
about to leave and Batman is sort of stepped behind.
He's not moving, and Dick goes like, what's what's the deal?

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Mm hm.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Batman says, the old times, when it was just you
and me, they were good weren't they.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Oh yeah, I didn't see it, and Dick.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Goes they were the best, and you're like, yeah, because
they're the original Diamond dude, they're the no, no, no, no, no,
na many are they're those guys.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Like so that that I think is like one of
the best Batman and again it's why it's crazy. Then
somebody three years before that was like, yeah, this guy's
gonna punch his son in the face. Yeah, that's what
he's gonna do.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
You're like, no, not him. Well, we gotta get I.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Assume you want to talk about the other Jason Jason Todd.
I assume you want to talk about Enim the Red Hood.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
I I actually do want to ask you a little
bit about Batman Beyond or Batman Begins rather Sorry.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Yeah, let's do because we did a whole episode on
Batman Begins.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
We did. It's your favorite Batman movie.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
It is my favorite Batman movie.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Do you think it's fair to describe Batman Begins as
grounded or do they only feel like that because the
only Batman live action films up to this point, where
the Joel Schumacher era Batman sixty six.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Well, I will say this when you look at even
the Batman movies that have come after it. Yeah, it
is grounded compared to all of the Batman movies. Now,
is it really that grounded? No, it's comic book grounded.
But I think the reason why it's grounded is because
it is still to this day, and it's crazy that

(48:25):
we've had two other Batman since this movie. Yeah, is
the only Batman movie where you literally see him build
all the things that he has. He builds the batmobile,
he builds his suit, he builds his utility bell. He
he like kind of is like, Okay, I who do

(48:45):
I work with the police?

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (48:46):
It's this commissioner Gordon guy who's not commissioner.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
That is what.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
A lot of people think that like grounded is like
it has to be like real world, realistic. And I
think that when I think about grounded movies, it's that
you can see that in that world, the person is
thinking about things realistically. Yeah, so that when you compare
it to all the Batman movies, it is grounded. When

(49:11):
you compare it to other movies, it's not that grounded
when you when you compare it to like heat, or
you compare it to like you know, like movie set
in the real world. It's not that there's a microwave
omitter in the movie. Forgod, Yeah, it's like the difference.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
It's the difference when you're watching a spy movie and
watching a James Spawn movie and watching Tinker Taylor'sulter Spot.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
Like Tingker Taylor's old Spot is real smile, I would say,
is realistic. Yeah, But then when you think about like
it's like Casino Oreal Daniel Craig to Gold gold Finger
Gold and I Casino Real looks more grounded compared to
gold Finger Gold Knees. He also uses a cell phone,
but it's still pretty goofy. It's still pretty goofy in

(49:48):
the Miami Airport. So Batman begins as grounded compared to
the other Batman. I just the older I get, the funnier.
I find it where people like, oh, no, movies they're
so grounded, and I'm like, yeah, I mean he's still Batman. Look,
it's one of those things. It's one of those things
where like, I think it's more grounded when you even
compare it to the Matt Reeves the Batman, Oh yeah,
you know that, they're like.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
I also think it's more culturally sensitive.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Like, I mean, the only there's just things in that
where you're just like, well, yeah, he's working on a
subway thing and he paints his and you see the
eye makeup.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
But I do like the eye makeup thing.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
But beyond that, I don't really think it's that much
more grounded. Really, Yeah, those darker, those villains are pretty
Gotham is pretty cartoony in that movie.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
So the rat, flying rat, the rat with wings.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Let's talk about Redhood. I know you're dying. You're dying
to talk about your second favorite Jason, as written by
reality TV show phenom jud Winnick.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yeah, in a flat that's not a joke. If you
don't know that, you've googling to do.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
He's also a prolific uh and award winning child Combo Arthur.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Now, yeah, he's also a nice man, a nice guy.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
He's also you know what, good for God that he
wrote the animated script for the DC animated movie Under.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
The Red Hood, my favorite animated which is.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
A great animated movie.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
He's a great writer with a bunch of underrated voice Cassen.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Yeah, by the way, you know, if weird thing, I'm
actually shocked that we've never had Judt on this podcast.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Well let's try.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
I don't know. I've only right over there, I've I've one.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Oh, I've met a motion of times because he used
to shop the Cobooxtore that I worked at.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
He's a lovely man, a lovely man, a great writer,
and he wrote the storyline called all of the Red Head.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
In a flash. It's not a name Dropp, he wrote it.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
It's show what it grounded compared together comic writers. I
don't know, Yes, okay, sure I could.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I could name you fifteen men that he is more
grounded off the top of.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
What he punched it Grayson in the face as the
real No, don't.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
He brought Jason Todd Backto's Rafe In a flashback, young
Jason Todd is attempting to steal the wheels off the Batmobile,
and then we see him become the new Robin and
ascend to a life of trying to sync thank you
so much computer, ascend to a life of being Robin
and how amazing is that's all.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Stuff that happened before under the Red Hood though, yes,
but classic ja.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
It opens with a flash, I'm setting the mood.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Oh sorry sorry. Years later, after being make it more
grounded for me. Please.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
After being resurrected from his murder by the Joker due
to an overlap of hypertimelines, Jason Todd is institutionalized, escapes
and begins living on the streets.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Don't worry about it. He gets brought back to life,
and he's not comic doing well.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Comic book nonsense is how he's brought back.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
That's that.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
That's the all you need to learn.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Roso Gul and Talia, you may remember them as being
the Demon and daughter of the Demon, are.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Like, look at this sad little boy.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Let's throw him in a Lazarus pit. And as we
all know, throwing someone in a Lazarus.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Pit always goes well. It doesn't bring any of your
worst traits to bear, It doesn't make you violent. It's
not basically like taking hgh.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Here's where I'm going to raise the flag on the
storyline that I really like, sure, and this is something
that I love, mister Winnick, he corrected in his animated
script and the rewrite because in the comic book it
is such. He is resurrected by the multiversal timelines. Yeah,
stuff of infinite crisis editorial mandates, and then they also

(53:05):
throw him a Lazarus, which is the thing that resurrects
and in the movie they were just like, no, we
throw him Thelazer's pit. That's all it is, and that's
all it should have ever been, exactly, But this is like,
we're gonna resurrect him twice.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah, I guess they're not supposed to have cared that much.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
But Jason emerges stronger, older, and a more violent creature
than he's ever been before. And Talia is like, oh,
I like him now, and she takes him under her
wing and.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Some sorry line, she sleeps with him, which is real
weird that it'd be like sleeping with your dad stepmom. Yeah.
The Batman the Digital Age has a lot of like weird,
problematic stuff in it. I'm noticing.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Look, there's also there's also a fair criticism when you
look at the intertwine nature of the Batman family, to
be like, we're screoting incest at several all time.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
I mean, Batman back Girl threwoun.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
But Tali is like, I like him now that he's angry,
but we're not going to talk about the.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Last years, so we're gonna talk about under the red Head.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
So she brings him up and helps him hone his
anger and his fighting skills and his general assassin ness.
Smash cut two Gotham City, an ambiguous amount of time later.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
You have to assume it's like five years later, at least.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
At least because Jason Dodd looks like a man.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
He does not look like a young boy, So like
it's minimum five years.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
It's like all things Batman. Check out our Batman's timeline
episodes you just kind of got.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Because there's also again, like you, there's there's lots of
time in here where Batman is just like, Jason Dodd
is dead. Oh my god, I don't want to the
Robins because Jason Dodd is dead.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
And Tim's like, but I'm the best, and he's like,
you're right.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
I love you so much. I don't want to, Robin.
But do I want to put you in the face?

Speaker 2 (54:42):
No, No, you're too small. Smash cut to Gotham.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
There is a new crime guy who's messing up stuff
for Black Mask and his drug shipments.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
He's called the Red Hood, and he's called the Red Hood.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
And explain what the Red Hood is.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Hood is an alternate identity of the person who is
maybe the Joker.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
But it was even an identity before him. It was
there was like a gang and it was like supposed
to be led by the Red Hood. Yeah, and it's funny.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
But the most famous association now is that the guy he.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Was, the Joker, was the Red Hood. Yeah, uh huh.
But it's like a gang of people ran by this
guy who.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
All wore top hats.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
And it's weird that it was called the Red Hood
because it's like sort of like a red cylinder.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
It's a red that thing that mister Freeze wears on
top of his head, so red fish bowl.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Yeah, at dome, a bell jar.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
It's not a it's not a hood, I think red Hood.
We're going for Robin Hood. We're trying to do the
Batman sidekicks kind of metaphor. It's a little bit sloppy.
Through investigations and honestly, through a bit of Batman detective
y that I really like a little observation that can
only be made by someone of Batman's skilling caliber, we
deduced that the Red Hood can can be no one

(55:53):
else but Jason Todd, and then Dick Grayson and Bruce
Wayne are forced to confront with if Jason Todd is alive.
How long has he been alive? How have we not
known he's been alive? And what has happened to him
to get him to this place?

Speaker 3 (56:05):
And also it brings in this really interesting moral complexity
for Batman to be like, oh my god, One, I
already failed because this Robin died on my watch, in
my arms. Yeah, And but two he was out there
and I didn't find him. I didn't notice any signs.
That makes me feel even worse.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Well, then on top of that, Jason's basically on a
revenge fetch quest to get the Jokers, like I'm going
to kill the Joker, not I'm going to kill a Joker.
I'm gonna make Batman kill the Joker.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Because he's right, because he's like, he's like.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
You let me die and you know nothing about it.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
And actually in the movie, Jensen Ackles really delivered this. Yeah,
really he's one of the Supernatural Boys. I think he's
a fifty year old.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Most people would know him as Soldier Boy on The Boys,
not me. He's Jason Todm not Captain America on the Boy.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
It doesn't really really like he was like, but it
was me and you let this happen to me and
did nothing, and it really brings to bear the moral
quandary of like, should Batman kill no kill me?

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Does Batman have the authority to kill?

Speaker 1 (57:07):
And Jason Todd, also as Redhood, does his injury things
where he uses firearms and Batman is anti ardently anti firearms.
So it's a really interesting examination of what it means
to be Batman and a lot of these moral quandaries
that were explored in these other stories that we've talked about,
but I think in a less sophistic there's a much
more sophisticated way to wrap it up.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
In the Resurrection of Jason.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
I'm gonna plant my flag in right now. Yes, my
flag is this.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
There have been other Great Red Hood storylines after this
where he has been sort of an ally of Batman
and he read Hood in the Outlaws. There's a couple
of Great Red Hood and the Outlaws stories and stuff
like that. But I'm gonna say this, this storyline proved
to me that I like the villainous Redhood more than
the anti hero Redhood that he's become for the last

(57:55):
twenty five years. And I still think that the Red Hood,
as Jason Todd should have become like the Doctor Doom
of the DC universe. There should be, because again there's
something scarily inherent in the best villain in the DC
universe was trained by Batman.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
I also find it fascinating that you can tell this
is a pause in the evolution of super Dick Batman
because super Dick Batman would put Jason Todd down.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
He would have punched him in the face. We know
this for a fact. And he's not afraid of punching robins.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
And we now bend over backward to justify Jason Todd.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Jason do inclusion the guns, Yes, like this version from
under the Red Hood.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
And I think this is it's sort of a post
infinite crisis. This is a post and invent crisis. Yeah,
And that was supposed to be the storyline that we
put bat Dick to bed. But bat Dick would have
like choke holded this guy out or something.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
So let me ask you this, based on what we've
covered so far, is Bruce Wayne the worst dad in
the DC universe? Yes, punched Dick Grayson in the face,
let both of Tim Drake's parents die on his and
would not take revenge for Jason Todd.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
Yes, here's the real this is what everything tells you.
The real best parent in the DC universe is Alfred Pennwin. Absolutely, Now,
Bruce was already boned. Bruce was a lost cause. Some
people might put that on Thomas and Martha maybe, but uh,

(59:23):
you can look at all the kids posts that and
the reason why Dick Grayson is the way he is
is because of Alfred Penware.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yeah yeah, yeah. So basically from this point forward, red
Hood kom Jason Todd is.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Just around, is around, and uh and after the storyline
he becomes a good guy.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Weirdly, there there have been good Jason Todd stories. I
think this remains the best Jason I agree. Sorry, they've
never beat the storyline in twenty five times. Yeah, of
course it's possible. All things are possible, But like, I
just think it's still really deserves his fly. I think
a neighborhood doesn't get the flowers.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
Just it's a good storyline.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
I think it's a really really good storyline. So let's
see what they get up to now that Jason Todd
is back.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
In August of two thousand and six, there's a storyline
called Face the Face where Batman and Robin take a
year off from Gotham City.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
That's the part of fifty two that is the post
fifty two, the one year later storyline.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Yeah, and they are rebuilding Batman.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
This is where like, yeah, Batman post Infinite Crisis supposedly
took a year off and then he like re traveled
the world with Dick Grayson and Tim Drake and they
sort of like they they did his journey of like
training to be Batman again.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
And they did it for the other two boys as well.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Yes, and so the idea coming back from the storyline
is that they're like, they're like the best they've ever
been because they just spend a year like doing kung
Fu in the mountains and Nanda Power bat and all
that stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
But this is also the storyline where Tim Drake is
formally adopted and becomes Timothy Jackson Drake.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
Way he gets his black and red costume Jason's favorite,
which I really love. But this is under the Red
Hood takes place at the same time as Face the
Face sort of loosely yeah, yeah, yes, because we're in
this era.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Where everything is crossing over and you start getting more
and more editors notes, they're like we'll check out Infinite Crisis.
We'll check out Face the Face, We'll check out this.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Is also we're starting to enter. I know who's going
to show up here very quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Will you just stuff something in your bat hole because
we need to take another break before we talk about that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
We do just one.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Bat break, same bat break, same batpod. Okay, we'll beat sidekick. Well,
you're right back for the new batside.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
We're back on geek History lesson. We have introduced and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Upgraded three sidekicks for Batman. It's time to do one more.
My least favorite character in the DC universe, Grant Morrison,
genius Scott's Person, gets.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
His handsle Scott's person. What they're Scottish? Oh sorry, I
didn't understand that I heard, so I can't say Scott's men,
So Scott's I understand. I heard Scott's person, and I
was like, what Scott spurs and he belongs to Scott
the isle of Scott.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
That's the way I took it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Gets his hands on Batman and writes this grubby little
storyline called Batman and Son, wherein he introduces.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Damian Wayne.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Damian Wayne shows up the son of Batman and Tali
algoul Well, which is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Interesting because recording controversy with Batman in this episode the
very we don't have to linger on this too too long,
but the very conception of Damian Wayne is also ethically
gray because there is a you can read into this, however,
what you want, whether Batman consents to this or not,
and it evolves the creation of a child.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Yeah, because this is also there was This is based
on a story that I think happened in the late
eighties called Batman, Son of the Demon, which was a
one shot which, like Batman the Killing Joke, was always
meant to be an out of continuity storyline.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
In eighty seven Mike Barr and Jeremy Bam Yeah, in
this else World.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
And in that storyline, it is Batman and Talia are
are are very They're having a good date and they
I have no problem believing that Batman slept Talia al
gool Yes, I don't. You don't need it to be
you like my Batman, Like James Bond, he's a he's
a world travel Lucy Goosey, he's a playboy's a world travel.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
He likes Bean.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
He goes to Barbados whenever he wants to he likes
being Batman.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
He has been Batman long? You like adventure Batman?

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
Yes, I like adventure Batman, I will say, Grant Morris
and introduces this idea that maybe Talia slips roofied Batman
here and that's the reason this night of passionate.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Yeah, I don't love that. I don't either, I will say,
I in my head cannon.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Which no one has to describe subscribed to you, but
my head canon is that Talia did plan this, like
she planned getting pregnant, but there's no roof being involved.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Yeah. I also agree that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Because like it is very classically in Talia's character that
she has a mad crush for Bruce. She loves him,
and Bruce is kind of like, you're okay, I guess
you're also unwell. I'm unwell, you know, but she's a
good looking lady.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Yeah, But so we just keep courting controversy. Damian Wayne
shows up kind of out of nowhere.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Here's the other's a young man. I thought the controversy
you were going for, and this is something and I
will put this on DC Comics, right hmm okay, Ross
oh ghoul yeah means the demon's head.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Ross oh, Ghoul, I can tell you is supposed to
be Middle Eastern. Yeah, well Ratia where in the Middle
East or Africa. It's never quite confirmed because he's a
million years old or whatever. Talia is not white. No,
Demien's not white, Bingo, Damien is not white. And he's

(01:04:50):
going to tell you when they cast him in a movie,
it's gonna be a little white kid, and I'm gonna
be furious. And it depends on the colorist of the
issues about what skin colored Amien gets. But now most
of the time they just make Damien white.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Damien's not white. Damien's mixed race. You can Damien could
be lighter skinned than tall, like genetics or wild, but
like he's probably not fair.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
He is, it could be.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
But he's probably not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
And let's give some representation to anyone who wants to
be a bad kid.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Other than the light boy.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Exactly exactly. I mean, it's it's like I have, you know,
I have a friend from Syria and he is pretty light.
He's very fair, and he's very fair. But but yes,
Damien is vague.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
If rozel Gul is like a million million years old,
if he is from like the cradle of civilization, he's
from like Damascus or Mesopotamia or something.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like Damien, Damien is vaguely Middle Eastern somewhere.
I don't know what region, but he's vaguely Middle Eastern.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Yes, and uh and D look forward to the casting
directors fully embracing that because yeah, DC, DC waffle Wall
doesn't care.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
That's what it is. Right, hasn't picked a line because
they don't care.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Well, and yes that you want to track it, you know,
we'll keep going the movies. Even Christopher Nolan cast a
very French lady as tali All literally a french Man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Yeah, Marii Ancotiller, Yeah, who gives a wonderful performance.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
I think she's a great casting choice. But it is interesting,
you're like, hmmmm, you know, but Liam Neeson played Rosal ghoul.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Right when we literally had an Asian guy right there,
Ken wants nab It was.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Right there and would have made a great rodswel Goula
even in that time, and he.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Did for the brief moments when he.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Played the brief time he played fake from a movie
that I really like. And again it's very grounded, remember, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Grounded and realistic.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Damian Wayne becomes Robin simply for having the privileges sharing
Bruce Wayne's DNA and Rex havoc on the Batman family
dynamic for eighteen full months before a final crisis and
Batman Rip, also by Morrison, is there we do have
a full episode on Damien that people can go listen to.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
We do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Is there anything that you sort of want to add
to like Damian Wayne's introduction, I mean, you like this character.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
I don't, So I want to start.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
I want to more talk about Batman in this time period. Okay,
because this is the this is the run. I do
think this is the best Batman run of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Where it starts with Batman and Son and Grant Morrison
writes Batman and I will not spoil the other two
storylines that happened in this time period because I assume
you're gonna talk about him. Grant Morrison sort of has
this trilogy of Batman stories that are across three different titles,
and the first one is in the main Batman and
he sort of interjects this idea that I really like
a lot, where he kind of just says every Batman

(01:07:36):
storyline that has ever happened basically happens is canon.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Yeah, and where and when that happened?

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
Who cares? I mean, he's correct, But Batman did go
to the weird space Alien and.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
There were seven different colored Batman, there were multi.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Colored Batman's and there were all these kind of like
all those Silver Aged storylines, all those eighty story lines,
all those things happened. He did them and and you know,
and this is like sort of that idea. And and
it's interesting because he leads to the storyline called Batman Rap. Yeah,
and Batman Irap is very much the storyline of like
Batman having to confront all these different eras of his time,

(01:08:14):
Like they have this flashback to when he met Joe
Chill and they the costume they give him. Yeah, I
think it's wrong by Tony Daniel. Could be wrong? Is
Golden Age Batman.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
With the Purple Boss, because Tony Daniel drew like battle
for a lot of stuff around one of my favorite Batman.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
So it's very much this like celebration of all the
different eras of Batman and a lot of Grant Morrison
storyline is trying to make sense of like who is
this guy?

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
All this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):
Happened to him, which is kind of an interesting idea,
and it leads into this where like the it's not
quite understood or told, but you kind of get the
impression that the villain of Batman IRP is like the
devil himself.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Oh yeah, that's a Morrison thing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
It is very good because they I can't remember it's
his name, doctor Hurt. Yeah, it's like doctor Hurt, so like,
but they give you a lot of ideas that like, well,
of course the ultimate Batman villain that Batman has to
defeat is Satan, you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Know, well, I mean it's Batman himself and is he
not same?

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
But you can play like if you want to see
it as the devil, you can if you want to
see it as just it's just this weird guy called
doctor Hurt, then it's doctor Hurt.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Yeah, but you can definitely read as much a cult
into it as you all sort of cultimates into this
idea that like, Batman thinks he defeats doctor Hurt and
he doesn't because he's kind of the devil.

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
And it leads into Final Crisis. And there's not much
you need to say about Final Crisis except.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Like Dark Record Scratch, it's not the Final Crisis that
DC Comics will ever produce. The important thing about it
is the conclusion where Batman is concerned dark Side takes
over the Earth.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Yeah, and when dark s Eye takes over the Earth,
he captures Batman and he and he holds Batman captive
because he knows that Batman is a badass.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
And he shoot him with a gun that's not a gun.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
And so Batman fights dark Side in this and he
defeats dark Side by breaking his rule by firing a
like super ray gun. Oh, I think at dark Side
and says gotcha. Yeah, And I remember there was a
lot of controversy around this, but I like it because again,
it's like it was Grant Morrison being like, well, how
do you defeat like the ultimate bad guy the DC universe.

(01:10:08):
It's like, I think this would be the one time
that Batman would be like, it's okay to shoot this
guy and how do you?

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
Yeah, and how do you do it? If your Batman
would can't touch him?

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
This guy he's a super duper alien who would break
my hand the second I touched him.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
So and it results in Batman being sent back through
time along his family tree.

Speaker 3 (01:10:26):
But for the DC universe, uh, dark Side zaps some
of Omega Beams. It's a little confusing. It's Graham Morrison. Uh,
and everybody in the DC universe thinks he's dead. There's
a very famous cover where Superman is holding like the
corpse of Batman. It's the cover that they put on
Final Crisis. It's great trade dress now and everybody thinks
he's dead, but actually what he's doing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Tim Drack knows he's live. Tim Tricks the one person knows.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
His live, but Tim Grace and everybody thinks he's dead.
But Batman is like bouncing through time right now. And
it's interesting because at this very same exact time, almost
in the same year, Ed Brubaker, who Batman's gonna punch
it Grace in the face, did the same storyline with
Steve Rogers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Sure, Steve Rogers is dead.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Captain America is dead, but he is bouncing through time.
These storylines are happening at literally the same year.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
I mean, you're telling me that these two guys didn't
go get a whiskey or a tea, so of.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Course Persuayna is dead. Then what happens Actually Batman ri
Ip kind of deals with the fallout of that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
It deals with and it progresses into Battle for the Cowl,
which exists simultaneously and also as part of Batman ri
I p fun fact, I have an original page from
the Yes, Thank You Jason. It sees all the members
of the Batman family not only grieving the loss of
their father, but struggling physically and emotionally to decide.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Who's gonna take.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
He's gonna be Batman? Yeah, Like Jason Todd comes with
guns looking.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
Like as reel with these two massive guns, like it
being every male power fantasy.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
That's never him. Drake puts on a cost in that
doesn't fit him.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
You're also you're gonna try and then he fights it
Damien over who's going to be Robin? And Damian beats
him and I'm infuriated. This is also leads Tim to
take up the mantle of Red Robin when Nightwing is sitting.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
Right there ready for the taking, because Dick Grayson becomes
bad Batman.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Yeah. At the conclusion, Dick emerges as the next Batman.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
And there's a new title, which is one of my
favorite titles of all times, which I cannot believe DC
had never published a book called this called that Batman
and Robin, Batman and Son No, it's it's Batman and Robin.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Do you think, because this happened twenty years after the
death of Superman, that there was ever a chance that
Bruce Wayne would stay dead?

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
No, not even for a second.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
For a second. No, the thing. And I have said
this now, and I only know this because of hindsight,
this storyline in this era of time, because I will
say this, Batman Robin is a great book.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
It is a great book.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
I own a hardcover copy of it. I own the
absolute version of it because it is yellow cover. Well
that's the first cover of it. Yeah, that's the first
she wears the two of them the cardcover. I think
case is blue. I don't remember. But I own the
absolute of this because Dick Grayson as Batman is such
a cool storyline, and it's the genius of Grant Morrison
that they flipped the dynamics. So now Robin is the

(01:13:16):
curmudgeon and Batman is the happy, go lucky person.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
It also illustrates what d C does, I'll say, better
than legacy than Marvel, like we He's Robin is literally Batman,
so and he's earned it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
It wasn't just handed earned it. Yeah, and it's and
it's this.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Now he's mentoring, he has an adopted son.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
This whole after this whole two and a half years
where Dick Grayson as Batman is one of my favorite
eras of DC because Dick Grayson is a good Batman. Also,
these are the point where this is like where I
kind of think it's funny the cops catch Batman smiling.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
Yeah, yeah, and they're like there's a scene where he's like,
you're a different Oh, you're a different guy.

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
He knows it's not the same batt Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
Do you think Gordon knows this Dick.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
One hundred percent? Because I'm I believe in the syncret
conspiracy theory that Gordon knows exactly who Batman is, and
just I agree he doesn't reveal it because it doesn't
help him.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
He also would definitely know who Dick Grayson was.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
Oh yeah, because Dick Grayson dated his daughter and Mary's
his stuf. He took that kid to prom Yeah, in
his backseat. He knows who Dick Grayson is. He knows
Dick Grayson as Batman. Also, it'd be so easy to
identify all the Batman's just based on the Robbins, because
they're all the wearing his Domino mask, but yes, he
knows it's Dick graysis. But this is a great period.
And I say this all to knowing the hindsight of

(01:14:31):
the twenty twenty of where we have gone with Batman. Yeah,
this storyline is my biggest argument for I kind of
think if we're going to keep a continuity of comic books,
and I would even say this for novel and we're
going to keep a eighty year continuity, I think you
need to let these characters grow and change and move

(01:14:52):
and die and die. And I think Dick Grayson should
still be our Batman right now. I think we I
think we would have been better served by having twenty
five years of because here's the thing. Damien is still
Robin right now. Yeah, Damien has been Robin now for
longer than Tim was almost twenty years.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Infuriot, it almost swore.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
Longer than Tim Drake almost twenty years.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
I mean, but now they've know Tim is Robin again.
It's just so stupid. Yeah, and they don't know what.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
Yeah, Tim Drick should be the night Wing because Dick
Grayson should have just become Batman and we should have
left Bruce Wayne dead and it's like.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
Saying with Sandra Cannon Barbara Gordon.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
Yes, And it's the thing where it's like, yeah, because
Sondra Kan should just be Batgirl and Barbara Gordon should.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Just be Oracle, why would you want to stop being Oracle?

Speaker 3 (01:15:38):
And it's fine, you can even give her legs back,
she sho, she's just been at work.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Uh. But it's this thing where like, I'm not saying
you could have you could. We could do lots of
else World stories, lots of mini series, lots of one
shots with Bruce Wayne and Batman. Yeah, you can still
do those, but I think the ongoing continuity, we should
have just kept Dick Grayson as Batman because it's it's
similar to the moment we brought Barry Allen back on
Wally West. Yeah, it was kind of this thing of like, wow, okay,

(01:16:05):
I guess I look at all of Green lantern Yeah,
and I'm not saying there's never been any good stories told,
but like the minute we brought how back, it was like,
and then we introduced six new human Green Lanterns, and
we know how combooks are. It's like, it's like with this,
what they're doing with absolute Batman, right, now and there's
all these altern It's like, there's plenty of opportunities to
still toll Bruce Wayne Batman stories, the movies. The movies
were never gonna do Greg Grayson. That's fine, Yeah, but

(01:16:26):
like the people that read combooks are very specific. Yeah,
they're a very specific group, and there's not a lot
of crossover. And I just think that, like, this period
of Dick Grayson being Batman was so interesting. It was
so really interesting, and it was fresh as a good
it was invigorating and challenging.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
Yeah, the last.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Twenty years of Bruce stories compared to like and a
lot of this is my imagination, right, compared to like
the last twenty years of seeing this Batman who hasn't
been Batman, Yeah, would have been so interesting, and we
would have seen Dick Grayson grow up in a way
that I think would have been very Again, Dick Grayson
is the was always meant to be the reader's character,

(01:17:09):
and I just think it would have been such an
interesting evolution of that story archetype.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Especially on the end of Superdic Batman, at the end
of Rip, Tim Drake the best of all the bad
kids and and fun fact truly undeniably the best detective
of the Bad Kids, is the only one who knew
that Bruce Wayne wasn't dead. So he goes on a
jet sitting journey to discover what happened to him, and
he figures it out. He figures it out in his
Red Robin mini series and it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
Leads to this.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
Yeah, but I will tell you the Red Robin mini
series that happens time period.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Is really good. Really and it is.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
I don't think it's ever been republished.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
Oh no, I will die with that trade clutched. It's cold.

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
It's a really good storyline, so good.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
Yeah, Dick Grayson gets his first chance as Batman in
a crossover.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Jason, do you know which crossover it is?

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Actually it's a big one. We did a series on it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
Oh Black Night is the Batman during bike Oh yeah,
and that's where zombie Batman comes back right a figure
because that's the storyline where Dick finally figures out that
Tim is right. Yes, because he's like, this isn't Bruce.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
If you want a more in depth on Blackest Night,
we did a thing called Blackest Night Club. You can,
if you're a patron, can watch them, or you can
listen to very shortened like half half bite.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
Episodes, but the ones on Patreon have all I will say.
There you can see there's versions on YouTube, but the
ones on Patreon are uncut. They're way better and there's
like lots of graphics. And our editor, Adam Selecta, Adam
Slector did an amazing job. Yeahs I forgot about blackast Night.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, if you haven't read
Black ast Night, have no fear of Bruce Wayne's corpse
doesn't get reanimated because DC values the character too much
to disrespect him the way they did Head.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
Yeah, that's a weird it's a weird recoon where they
try to say it's a dark side clone, that dark
side clone Batman.

Speaker 1 (01:18:51):
It's weird, it is they wanted him for the art
editorially uses this as an in Reason Universe for how
Dick Grayson and Batman's other allies decide that Bruce Wayne
is still alive.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Jason told us.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
Bruce Wayne subsequently returns in Batman The Return of Bruce Laye,
which shows you where he's been traveling through, shows you
all the time kills Batman and Cave Mabatman had.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
A different artist draw reissue.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
It is cool. It's it's It's.

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):
Basically like, it's okay, sit down one evening, you have
nothing to do and bibe your intoxicant of choice and
read the weird elt World stories.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
If you take it out of continuity, it's very fun.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
The return of Bruce.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Try to figure it out. It's it's difficult.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
The return of Bruce is okay.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
When Bruce returns, he sets up.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
Batman Incorporated was an ongoing series It's No Longer, which
focuses on Wayne franchising the Batman identity across the globe,
which allows Dick to remain Batman.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
There was a rocker cover with all the whole family.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
It was very cool, which is so cool and again
it's such an interesting costumes were different. Well, yes, it's
interesting idea because Bruce looks at Dick and he's like, oh,
you've been doing a good job. There's no point for
me coming back to Gotham. So what I'm gonna do
is I'm going to go make a new Batman in
every city around the world. And this is when Kate
Cane Batwoman, really up her profile. This is when Luke
Fox took over as bat with Dick Grayson. It was

(01:20:10):
so great and I loved that they had the signifier
because this Frank Quietly's costume on Dick Grayson was he
had gloves that had these little risk gauntlets. But he
only had two scallops yea, and Bruce had three. So
that's how you told the difference between the two batman's.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:20:25):
Oh, and he also had the classic black bat on
this chest, whereas Bruce brought back the yellow oval.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
It's my favorite. I love no, I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
Yeah, And so we have this like year and a
half where there are two Batmen. Yeah, and to be
honest with you, I love it. And at the end
of that, I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
Twenty eleven, Yeah, it is when the New fifty two happens.
DC hard reboots. They do relaunch a Batman Incorporated series
which runs to the end of twenty thirteen.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
Yep, it doesn't quite have the same and it sort
of goes in the New fifty two but sort of
continuing the storyline there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
The Batman continuity gets a little bit messed up because
we adopt a lot of it and then we don't.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
But this is where we're.

Speaker 3 (01:20:59):
Gonna can I throw out a quick boomerang before that happens.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
In the safe. There's anything else you want to talk about?

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
The last thing that you talked about Batman the digital
age is that there is a storyline that ends this era.
It happens in Detective comics. It is a Batman Dick
Grayson storyline. It's called the Black Club. Oh yeah, is
Scott Snyder's first title writing Batman.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
It's called Black Mirror.

Speaker 3 (01:21:20):
Black Mirror.

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
And I will say this, I'll say this is a
whole There is a story.

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
Line called the Black Club.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Two there is. It's my favorite Scott Sander Batman story.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Yes, and it and it's the end of the Dick
Grayson Batman because when we do the New fifty two,
it's just Bruce Wayne's Batman and that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
And night Wing has a red strike.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
But yeah, it's the I really like, I mean, the
two and a half year or whatever it was when
Dick Grayson was Batman and Bruce Wayne was also around.
Was it felt like to me when I was reading
these comic books, it felt like it felt like the Beatles,
like at the height of their powers, where it just

(01:21:58):
comic books felt like it felt it's exciting, poppy and fun,
and you were like, there's two Batman, Oh my god,
what is going to happen? And like it just it
was such an interesting period of Batman and it was
a minut's because.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
We were in between editorial mandates, so like they were
just doing they were just doing weird stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
They were they were literally, I felt like, letting each
creator just they were like, Okay, Grant, you want to
tell this Batman Incorporated thing? Okay, cool, Well Tony Tony
Daniel they brought him back and they're like, you write
this thing over and Detective over here. Oh, and Scott,
you want to do this like weird mystery, Okay, you
come over and do this miss And these three titles
were all happening at the same time, but.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
They didn't feel out a step or interfere with each other.

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
And they also didn't feel like they were all telling
the same Batman storyline.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
Yeah, which is something that I would say post New
fifty two, they're a little bit more guilty of.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
That's I also think is something that's very been very
guilty of. I would say, like almost the last ten
years at Batman is like I feel like a lot
of the story.

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
I think that's all the families.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
So all the Superman stories feel the same, all the
Wonderman stories feel the same.

Speaker 3 (01:22:52):
But they they were very intentional, and I think they
were intentional, especially on the DC side, of making sure
that each tie it had a distinct feel, yeah, instead
of just being the same storyline. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
So that's your Batman. The Digital Age episode Evan digital
A is good age.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
If you want to read any of these, by the way,
you can go to geek historylesson dot com slash recommended Reading.
We have widgets, you can purchase them in your format
of choice, and all of the big hits here are
going to be featured there. We have recommendations for every
episode we've ever done, so there's like six hundred episodes
where the recommendations there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
Please go check that out.

Speaker 3 (01:23:28):
Yeahs cool. What do we do now?

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
I think we do the honor roll?

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
Now, okay? Cool?

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
So could you tell people very kindly for me what
that is?

Speaker 3 (01:23:35):
I mean, I mean, what are you gonna do if
I don't bunch me in the face?

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
Maybe, Oh my god, you like bat Dick, I'd probably
break my hands. Let's be real.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
Well, if you go over to Apple podcasts and you
leave us a five star review on geek History Lesson,
we will read your review on the air. We thank
you guys for doing it because it helps pop us
in the Apple podcast algorithm. So that's why. Yeah. So,
who's who's joining the Honorall? We call it the Honorall
joining us today? Peter Parker is Batman twenty sixty two. Okay,
what twenty sixty two? Yeah? What a spinoff?

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
I gotta say a plus us your name, I'm a
fan of you should just use your name.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
That's a very good one.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
I'm because they typed their title all in caps. I'm
gonna I'm gonna shout it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:17):
Oh my god, that's appropriate, bro, just your volume appropriately.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
I learned so much from this show.

Speaker 1 (01:24:23):
Ashley's skeptical and realistic attitude and Jason's optimistic and open
minded attitude create the perfect chemistry. Also, Doctor Strange is
always a treat when he shows up. Most of my
list of comics to read consists of Geek History Lesson.
Recommended reading. Please do a lesson on the modern age
of Batman at Superman.

Speaker 2 (01:24:37):
This was just for you minute due.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
Also, Edna Mode is always right. Capes are impractical I
don't like you anymore. Also, never criticize the Batman.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
Twenty twenty two. You're gonna hate this episode. That movie
has one bad scene. Peter Parker is Batman twenty sixty two.
This is my favorite review evers. There's a lot, im
there's a lot to a pack in that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:58):
What do you like? You a lot? I'm assuming this
is a dude, but I don't want to see this,
but what do you What do they think is the
only bad scene in that? Everything before him holding the flare?
Is it where the penguin figures out the riddle before Batman.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
And we're just joshing it everybody's reviews and I just
I love that we got so many different talking points.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
That's a great Peter Parker's Batman twenty Can we get
some applause the quality review You've set the bar high.
I want reviews only like this from now on. I
want to go on a roller coaster. Not only the
title wasn't all caps and then there was a smiley
face after it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:40):
I want to go on double applause for that smiley face.

Speaker 2 (01:25:43):
Huh. On an emotional journey.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
Like what you want to like and don't let anybody
tell you any different. And if you love the Batman
in that movie is for you love it. I like
The Penguin, that's the spinoff of it. I thought it
was really good. I look Under the Red Hood. There
you go. She likes Go to the Red Hood, which
has nothing to do with you of those movies.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
I like Battle for the Cowl and that's a bit
of a mix. Was their user name, Peter Parker is
Batman twenty sixty two.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
Hey, Peter Parker is Batman. You think we should punch
this robin in the face? What do you think because
they don't like either of our choices? What do you
think about this? That's being super bad? Tick?

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
Yeah, exactly everyone, Thank you so.

Speaker 3 (01:26:16):
Much for listening to this podcast. You can find us
on all the podcast formats and hosting sites. You know
a cast man. I don't know if you can find
us on any casts, Spotify, all the places. Basically, if
you google ge Hitchy Lesson you can find it over there.
Make sure you describe, but Ashley, where can they find
us on social media now? Because there's a lot of
there's a lot of turmoil on social media right now.
The Upper Times are colliding.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
You can find us everywhere that matters at geek history
lesson Oh cool.

Speaker 3 (01:26:39):
Yeah, the places that don't matter, doesn't matter, It doesn't
matter no more. Actually we're what social media? Do you
want to shout out, like, what's where's a cool place?
You're like one place that year they're doing some cool
stuff that you'd like. Everybody, come over here, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
Follow me on threads. I like threads right now, Ashley V. Robinson,
he is very important.

Speaker 3 (01:26:55):
I'm on threads at John and jw ii in. I'm
doing cool stuff over there.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):
Actually, you're you're start up controversy. You're getting them, You're
getting them reply I am.

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
I am. Wow, that's for a while. I took a
break for a while, but come on and check it
and took me out at Joan Ashley. What have we
learned today about Batman the digital age?

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
We've learned that Bruce Wayne is a super dick who
hits kids. Yeah we did, has no memory and died Batman.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):
You know, in some respects, I thought you were talking
about a boomer.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
I mean, Bruce Wayne's not even a boomer.

Speaker 3 (01:27:29):
He's the greatest kids, no memory, dead dead. I don't
think i've bat Boomer.

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
I don't think I've made you this hard in a
long time.

Speaker 3 (01:27:42):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (01:27:42):
I'm really proud of that one.

Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
Wow, what an age. We mainly talked about him punching
a bunch of kids in the face, and.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
Let me tell you, I had to whittle it down
that we could focus on that.

Speaker 3 (01:27:53):
Okay, Well, I think he picked the right moments than
you think he picked the right moments, and that's why
this has been a great geek housh lesson everybody. Thank
you so much much for listening. And Professor Ashley, will
you please dismiss the class.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
Class is now dismissed, and that's better than a hit
in the teeth.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):
Yeah, your damn kids

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Batman The Digital Age 2000 - 2012

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