LazyCustomizer:
I’d like to read your opinion of how the Penguin would fit in the Nolan Batman films, and whether you believe Nolan’s determination not to use the Penguin is wise or closing himself off from a potentially interesting story.
Yes and no.
On the one hand, I share Tim O’ Neil’s opinion that the Penguin is one of Batman’s best villains (although I would personally give pre-eminence to the Riddler, but ultimately “best Batman villain” always comes down to what aspect of Batman you like best, and I like Batman best as a detective) simply because the Penguin isn’t crazy; he’s just a straight-up crook. That might not be as otherworldly and scary as the usual Arkham gang of horrors, but it can make for a great villain because the Penguin is just a bastard, plain and simple. No stupid self-destructive plots, no monologuing, no movie-style villain tropes. The Penguin would make a great villain in a Nolan Batman movie…
…except he probably wouldn’t. Because all of the things that the Penguin isn’t are what’s mostly expected out of a Batman movie now: the Bat-villain in a movie has to be crazy-go-nuts because it has becomes received wisdom that Batman’s Enemies Are Crazy. This goes for the comics too, of course; it’s one of the reasons Penguin has generally dropped down the ranks over the past two decades, demoted to basically being a mob boss. But it’s even moreso in the movies, where Nolan is especially interested in the dark theatricality of Batman and his enemies. Nolan’s Scarecrow is obviously insane long before he ever gets dosed with his own fear chemicals; his Ra’s Al Ghul is a weird blend of totalitarian and guerrilla. Part of what makes the new cycle of Batman films tick is that the films explicitly say that the only sane response to this insanity is a different type of insanity. But the Penguin isn’t insane. He’s just a criminal; nothing more than another version of Carmine Falcone, who gets shoved out of the plot halfway through Batman Begins.
Besides, how do you do a “realistic” Penguin? What makes the Penguin a good comic character are those explicitly comicky bits: the trick umbrellas, the monocle and top hat, the birds as weapons. That’s all stuff that won’t fit in a Nolan film; without it, all you’ve got is a pretty bog-standard deformed criminal. Danny Devito’s Penguin in Batman Returns was great (and Returns is far and away the best of the 90s cycle of Batman movies: the best action, the best acting, and the only one that doesn’t feel tremendously dated now) precisely because in addition to being a nasty piece of work he also went in for all the crazy gimmicks. But all that won’t fit in a Nolanverse film, because if you don’t start out crazy in the Nolanverse, there’s no good reason to play dress-up.
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The B:TAS Penguin is a good model. “Flashy night-club owner with a funny nickname” with a huge chip on his shoulder due to a physical deformity. I also kind of like that he was an arms-dealer, which explained the gimmick umbrellas.
Of course, this was before the character redesigns made him DeVito-esque.
I’m still hoping for a CIA-Trained steriod-freak Bane come to Gotham to rebuild the mob in the wake of the Joker’s rampage, but that’s probably just me.
I think the Penguin could work well in the Nolan Batman films in one way-the outsider crime boss that insiders can work with. A lot of the plot in The Dark Knight is driven by the fact that the Joker cannot be trusted by ANYONE, including the Mob. Now, the Penguin can’t be trusted much either-but he’s not out and out crazy. If he proposes to help restore your criminal empire, he’s going to do that, even if he intends to double cross you, shoot you dead, and make it his own empire instead.
In that light, using the Penguin as the criminal who tries to rebuild the mobs in Gotham-especially since the Batman has now been positioned as an enemy of the police, rather than an ally-would work very well for him, and could bring a little more complexity to the criminal element. Instead of just having “mobsters” or “crazy people,” the Penguin could add a step between them-someone who is more comfortable than he wants to admit with freaks like the Joker and the Scarecrow, but aspires to be a “respectable” criminal like Falcone. I think that’s an important element to the character too; the Penguin may not have the same psychological issues of many of Batman’s enemies, but he’s not far from that gulf, either.
I think a sane villain would be just what Nolan needs, to counter-balance an increasingly deranged protagonist, especially now that Batman is on the run from the law.
Why couldn’t you just use Penguin as background material? He’s not a plot villain, he’s just this figure Batman has to intimidate at some point.
I’m sticking to my guns that Black Mask is the villain in Batman 3, and will be genuinely surprised if he isn’t in it. He’s the best guy, I think, to reposition the criminal underworld in his favour – especially because he has a grudge with Bruce Wayne more so than Batman, which would be sorely needed now that Bruce’s love interest is gone.
That, and his whole “False Face” thing was more or less the same concept. I don’t like The Penguin; I find him very boring. Black Mask is the right combination of cunning businessman and psychotic. He was treated really unfairly in Under the Red Hood.
I have given strange looks to my Burton-fan friends who insist that his version of the Penguin was more realistic than the comic…then again, ‘Quasimodo in black, raised by Sewer Penguins’ has long been a fetish of theirs.
Male penguins incubate eggs. Following the collapse of the Gotham mobs’ economic system in Dark Knight, someone needs to act as the bank, take care of the money. Toby Jones with a prosthetic nose. Al Capone with an umbrella and a top hat.
He’d only be a B-level threat in the movie; you’d need a badder bad guy. They’ll probably go with the Riddler, but…?
The movie that would make the most thematic sense would probably be one with Dick Grayson and Talia al Ghul, maybe some Catwoman thrown in for good measure. They won’t go there, though.
Penguin as a sane criminal would make an interesting counterpoint to Batman. He’s arguably about as sane as Batman, but they both dress up like animals and have weird gadgets. Penguin using birds would even match Batman using the bats at Arkham in Begins.
The problem with Penguin in a Nolan film is that penguins aren’t threatening. Even though the real things can be quite violent and bloody, people smile and laugh and feel good when they see penguins. That, I think, is why a sane Penguin has fallen in importance as Batman moved away from Adam West wackiness. He just looks silly. Burton got some mileage with the Returns redesign, but that Penguin was still a bit comical in a fairly comical (if dark) world.
It just takes too much effort to sell the penguin motif in the Nolan world. A more acceptably vicious animal would be an easier sell.
Tales to Enrage, I do like your take.
The Batman Returns film? Urgh. Ungodly mess, except for Pfeiffer’s Catwoman.
Baines, the Penguin once rode an enormous vulture, I believe. He could/can/is associated with other types of fowl without having to dress like them.
Cast Warwick Davis as the Penguin, night club owner/information broker who runs guns on the side. Make him a non-combatant, who surrounds himself with goons freakier than he is. That way you can introduce a lot of the B-stringer Batman villains ala Zsasz without devoting time to them. Batman needs info from Penguin, fights thru the likes of Firefly, Mockingbird, Junkyard Dog, etc, gets to Penguin. Penguin says, “Oh, you want information, why didn’t you say so?”
DC
Something that I don’t think has been pointed out is that I don’t think the Penguin is strong enough to carry an entire feature film by himself, or even as the A-plot.
As has been noted, the Penguin IS basically a mob boss. And that’s actually an upgrade; he used to be ‘bird-themed bank robber,’ which is the sort of thing you would expect to find in, say, a Flash Rogue.
Nothing wrong with that of course, although lord knows that in the last twenty years or so the canon of Gotham mob bosses has gotten rather crowded (and you even have Black Mask as ‘crazy motherfucker with a gimmick who is ALSO a mob boss’ if you want him) and that even in Batman Returns, they had to add in Catwoman and Max Schreck in order to fill up the edges.
The only way the Penguin works in a Nolan film is if Nolan unexpectedly decides to dial it back a notch or two and do a film that’s mostly about Batman fighting CRIMINAL criminals (that is, guys who, no matter what their other damage, are out to get PAID rather than to just be crazy) and if Penguin is the B-plot. The A-plot would have to be carried by the aforementioned Black Mask (or, potentially, a reworked Red Hood) or someone similar in order to fulfill the crazy quotient.
There’s some potential for deconstructionism and maybe light poking-fun with a Nolan Penguin, as well. “Why BIRDS?” “I like birds.” “… that’s all?” “Do I need another reason?” But… yeah.
Penguin does have one thing going for him on the positive side of the ledger; while he’s a DIFFICULT fit for the Nolanverse, he’s actually requires a lot LESS difficult than many other Batman villains. The Scarecrow is actually probably as outre as you can go in the Nolanverse, and Nolan dialed him back a lot. Can you imagine some of the other well-known Batman villains fitting into a Nolan film? Mister Freeze, Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter, Riddler, Bane? The Ventriloquist MAYBE fits in, again with a lot of reworking, but he has a certain native absurdity. The Penguin doesn’t have a lot of ‘this was AWESOME in the Silver Age’ baggage attached to him.
I’ve seen Batman Begins, but not the Dark Knight, so I may be a bit off, but I think the Penguin can work (though maybe he shouldn’t be the only villain, and probably won’t be.)
Batman works well with duality themes. Masked hero and unmasked secret identity. Sanity and madness. Vigilantism vs criminal or vs. law abiding. Two Face of course.
With the Penguin one can have “Respectability vs. savagery” In other words, a high-society man (rich, debonair, respectable hotspot owning, etc.) vs. the cruelties of being a mob boss. Does it make sense to play up the gimmick umbrellas and bird-themed crimes? Maybe, they are much less realistic, but make the penguin much less generic. They would let the Penguin distinguis between his “two faces” more.
Would it make sense to have the Penguin start out more pedestrian, and then start to mirror Batman’s oddness more as the film progresses? I dunno. I like superheroes, but I want to see them comment more on current issues and changing times. (Yes, I know that this can date a film and that some aspects of superheroes should be legendary and timeless, but I also think that “Superman Returns” suffered for not commenting more on what it means to be a hero and to be an American post 9-11.)
Well, I’m flattered. In light of yesterday’s post, I’ll throw another question out there:
Now that we have a significant amount of Post-Henson Muppet material to go by, what is your opinion of how Steve Whitmire has fared as a replacement for Jim? Additionally, do you think it’s good that no new performer has taken up the role of Rowlf the Dog?
How about going in a totally unexpected direction and having a non-Batman villain in the next movie? A Flash rogue, maybe, or somebody who once fought the Teen Titans or something?
I agree that Penguin would work in a Nolan film, but not as a main villain. He’d have to be a side villain, like the Scarecrow in Batman Begins. He’s too normal, oddly enough, to be interesting enough for the main badguy.
I think in these big comic book movies, everyone expects the badguy to be one of the well-known villains. For Spider-Man, you’re going to get Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Sandman, etc., not Cardiac or even Shocker. Of course Batman’s going to get Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow, etc. The Riddler is the obvious next choice, but I’d like to see a lesser-known villain take the lead this time around just to see what they do with him.
The Penguin would work extremely well in the Nolan Franchise, I think. He’s not crazy, he’s a mob boss.
And he’s been away for a while. They only whisper his name in the mob hang-outs. He’s short, a little rotund (but deceptively strong), and he’s got a bit of a waddle in his walk and a beaked nose. They call him The Penguin…
But never to his face. Because while you were laughing at his little waddle and his beaked nose and the way he’s always overdressed for any occasion and – yes, a little bit of a ‘waugh’ to his laugh, he’s got you by the nose, or the throat, and he’s got the pointy end of his umbrella pressed against your neck, because he’s an EFFECTIVE mob leader. And brutal. Did we mention brutal?
He’s not crazy, he’s practical. And perhaps a trifle self-conscious (so you probably don’t want to call him the Pen-.. er.. bird to his face.
You thought Batman Returns was the best of the 90’s films? Now I know you’re inhaling something. That movie was pure shit – from visible penguin zippers to instant batmobile plans appearing out of nowhere, not to mention Bruce Wayne doing a rap scratch ON A COMPACT DISC.
The best penguin was the Burgess Meredith penguin because that series allowed the villains to be ridiculously over the top. In a Nolan film, The Penguin would have to be re-imagined as a new kind of visual crazy.
Problem with the Penguin is that his gimmick is too much of a gimmick: half the time the writers are forced into writing some bird-themed caper. They’ve tried making him more of a cerebral threat in the Post-Crisis years, which helped, but honestly there’s only so much you can do with him.
The Riddler has some value (for the possibility of complex puzzle crimes which few writers have created). Catwoman is good as an anti-villainess whose criminal activities are non-lethal and thus presents a moral dilemma for Batman (if Catwoman ever killed, Bats’ need for vengeance would overwhelm his sexual interest). And the Joker. Obviously the force of Chaos in opposition to Batman’s drive for Order, but the Joker’s body count has gotten so ridiculously high there’s no logical reason to keep him off the electric chair.
Who would work as a Nolan villain? Given how The Dark Knight ended – Batman hunted as a wanted viligante – it has to be a villain to counterpoint the Caped Crusader’s current plight. Deadshot, maybe? Catwoman is still possible (play her as the DCAU did, a thrill-seeking but good-hearted antivillain).
…How about a Penguin/Riddler bromance flick? The two Batman villians who can put up a respectable front versus a hunted-by-the-police Batman. Ollie keeps the pressure on in the streets while Eddie inches ever closer to that secret identity…
Eh, they’re probably just going to use the Riddler trying to get closer to Batman’s secret identity, while he pulls out his trump card that he knows Two-Face isn’t dead, just being held in Arkham. He’ll break out Two-Face, and it’s going to backfire at the end of the movie and clear Batman’s name with the public and police.
I won’t see it, though. I’m waiting for a good director with a sense of humor to take on Batman. The fact that we have a series of Batman movies that aesthetically can’t support Penguin, Mr. Freeze, or Poison Ivy (to say nothing of Robin!) – well, I guess I just don’t see where these things are anything but crime flicks with a bad costume attached.
John 2.0: the DeVito design preceded the nightclub owner/arms dealer version on BTAS, which an interpretation taken from the contemporary comics in the first place.
I will back Chris up on this: Batman Returns is indeed the best of the 90s cycle of Batman films, and possibly my personal favorite Batman film. Arguing about stuff like the CD rap scratch highlights exactly what modern fanboys get so wrong about Batman stories: they’re not realistic. At all. Not ever. Batman just happens to be one of the few superheroes whose powers can be more or less fit into the “real world”, but that doesn’t mean the character is realistic in any way, shape or form.
The thing that’s so great about the Burton movies, and the animated series which followed their lead, is that (intentionally or otherwise) Burton set the stories in what is clearly some kind of parallel reality. You need that element of staginess, of artificiality, to make Batman work, because you need to acknowledge that this is a heightened reality. If you’re basing the story in a Gotham City that looks like Albert Speer’s wet dream, you don’t stop to worry about the logic of the guy dressed up as a bat.
And this has always been my problem with the Nolan movies. They’re very well done, and I believe we need to have lots of different takes on Batman, so Nolan’s is as valid as the next. But when you strike a defensive tone of setting everything in “reality”, when you seem to be operating out of defensiveness–“No, really, a billionaire really could secretly train as a ninja and dress up as a giant Bat to fight crime!”–you risk exposing the whole premise for the silliness that it is. To me, trying to ground Batman in “realism” makes about as much sense as making a Scott Pilgrim movie where you try and find a scientific rationale for why people keep exploding into coins. The surrealism is part of the point, and most of the fun.
The Penguin won’t work in the Nolan films just because they’ve worked so hard at making sure everything is DARK and KEWL and “realistic”. Sure, the Penguin doesn’t violate the laws of science, strictly speaking, but he does violate the tone Nolan has establised–he’s just too weird and campy. Burton or the animated series guys could pull him off because they left room for the whimsical and quirky in their Bat-universe. Nolan hasn’t.
No, Batman Returns IS shit. It is just plain awful. Michael Keaton is a great actor but a terrible Batman – he wears lifts in his shoes for god sakes. The Penguin was lame like always. Christopher Walken made the movie for me almost entirely.
Anything The Penguin can do, Black Mask can do better, and is also more visually appealing and creepier. In Battle for the Cowl, when The Penguin and Two-Face were fighting it out, who was the evil bastard mastermind? Black Mask.
I don’t really have a comment on Batman villains for the next Nolanverse film, but I would like to say that I wanna see Oracle in a Batman film one of these days.
“Michael Keaton is a great actor but a terrible Batman – he wears lifts in his shoes for god sakes.”
Disregarding his appearance, Keaton was a great Batman. Even if you were to put aside his acting ability (which you wouldn’t, because that’s kind of his job), he at least does a better Batman voice than Christian Bale. After all, it’s his voice that every Batman actor has been trying to emulate since 1989.
Personally, I’m wanting to see a sort of mob war between the ‘normal’ and ‘freak’ villains in Gotham, Leading up to ‘smart Bane without Venom’ being the main villain. I think Penguin would fit great in that kind of thing- a big enough deal to set a decent part of the movie about, but not big enough that you’ve really got to go into specifics. Just have a few scenes showing him being a nasty little bugger, a few scenes showing people making fun of him, and maybe him using an umbrella gun or something in a fight scene. But not too much more then that- no bird gimmicks, no trick umbrellas, no crazy deformed penguin things. Just a guy with enough of a gimmick to be interesting, but otherwise nothing that stands out.
I loved Batman Returns. Why? It was entertaining, and that’s what a movie is supposed to be.
Penguin as mob boss is perfect for a Nolan film, IMO. The one I’d like to see is a three way, Penguin as unreliable ally, Catwoman as friendly enemy and Riddler as the main villain who has the city convinced he’s the hero because he’s going to catch Batman!
@Murc: Actually, I think there are a lot more options available for the next Nolan film. Yes, Riddler, Catwoman and Penguin are the three highest profile villains left, but who in the hell would have thought that Ra’s and Scarecrow would have been the villains in Batman Begins?
The Calculator started out as a guy with giant buttons on his chest that zapped things out of a readout on his forehead. Now he’s a hacker. Killer Croc has been a thug, a reptile monster and a murderous pimp with a skin condition.
Now, I don’t know if any of these particular examples are good ideas or not, I’m just saying that Batman’s got a deep bench.
I’ll be surprised if it’s the Black Mask.
Nolan is not making Batman movies for you. He’s making them for people that have never read a single Batman comic. Those people have no clue who the hell Black Mask, Hush or any of the rest even are.
Now, I realize the same can be said of al Ghul, Scarecrow and Carmen, but I think even they have some level of recognition above the other two, if only because of the cartoon. Also, because the main attraction of Batman Begins was Batman, Nolan could use whoever he wanted as a villain. Now, the attraction is the baddie, and he set the bar as high as it’ll go last time. I don’t envy him at all – I wouldn’t make another one.
I really think it will boil down to what themes are explored. In the first film Batman had to fight his past, his fear and the forces that created it. The the second, he had to deal with the chaotic backlash of upsetting the status quo of Gotham.
After the events of the previous film, Gotham will rally around law and order over the chaos Batman and the Joker represent to them. Gordon’s prosecution of corruption in the force will have a shot in the arm as anyone running on Dent’s message will win office. Despite Batman now being hunted, things will seem like they’re getting better.
I have no idea what Nolan will do, but one thing has occurred to me: It won’t surprise me if we skip a big chunk of time. That’s allow Wayne Manor and the real batcave to be rebuilt. It would allow Batgirl to be old enough to be Batgirl if for some insane reason Nolan goes that route. It would give Joker enough time to corrupt Quinne and send her into the world as a copy-cat. And of course, Nolan loves messing with time.
I’d say Batman Returns has to be considered the best of the 90s group, if only because the others are such utter trash. And Returns has Christopher Walken!
I also suggest that if you say “Keaton was a great Batman, if you set aside his acting ability”, you’ve kind of defeated your own argument.
Bale is the only one who convinces me that he’s got the necessary streak of crazed obssession necessary to actually be Batman. (And yes, I’m including George Clooney.)
I’d go along with the sentiment that a Nolanverse Penguin would be the mob-boss-with-a-funny-nickname-nobody-dares-say-to-his-face version, probably used as the opening-five-minutes villain that is quickly dispatched a la Scarecrow (in TDK), or as a background villain a la Eric Roberts.
Without reading the comments, I’d reckon a Nolan movie Penguin would be an odd-looking chap, but not too unusual. In public. Behind closed doors…the weird comes out.
I don’t even know how much say Nolan has in the decision.(Burton is on record as saying that Warners FORCED him to use the Penguin; they let him do his own “take”, but the choice of villians was decided at the corporate level- a problem Raimi also had with the Spiderman films, and one that eventually drove him off the series).
Nolan has free reign to do whatever he wants; at least, he did on Dark Knight, and that made a billion dollars, so I imagine it will be the same deal for the third one.
Considering Nolan originally refused to do a third Batman movie at all, yeah, I don’t see DC/Warner as wanting to upset him too much now that he’s on-board.
But comic book companies really do love to shoot themselves in the foot, so who can tell? Raimi was making money with Spider-Man, more than Marvel probably ever hoped to see, and they still made him use a character in 3 that he had said from the first movie that he didn’t want to use.
I agree with the trend. “Penguin” is a classic Mob-style nickname. Like “Bugsy” Siegel, you’d never call him that to his face. Maybe he looks a bit like a penguin, short and favoring dark Italian suits with a white shirt, but with a bit of a gut. And say he’s a birder, too — those people are obsessed, let me tell you, and it gives him a chance to encounter Bruce Wayne or possibly Alfred. (Maybe he picked up the habit young, like Mike Tyson did his pigeons, or he got into it once he became rich. Doesn’t matter.)
The thing is, you could have him as a Mob boss in the classic style, who throws a little bit of schtick around.
And give him a non-RP British accent. Oswald Cobblepot? Short mean working class Brit who gets things done in Chicago. I mean Gotham.
I suppose it would be a little much to show him feeding the eyeballs of his victims to his birds. But dumping a body in a cornfield and lingering on the crows come to feed? Sure.
The key to Penguin now is to keep the umbrella tricks from running amok. Keep it to a last resort holdout weapon. Don’t telegraph it, and use it to get in one surprise shot at Batman. Just enough to injure him, and make the fight interesting.
Carlos, your “Short mean working class Brit who gets things done” sounds ideal for Bob Hoskins; shame the studio heads probably won’t go for it.
Possibly because Bob Hoskins is nearly seventy. There are many British actors who can do “working-class bloke” who are younger and better for the role.
How about Robert Carlyle? I’ve always thought his nose was a bit pointy and odd-looking…
David Tennant?
There are many reasons why Oswald is my favorite Bat-Villain, but the reason I think that Christopher Nolan could work with him is that he has always been a deconstruction of the Theme Villain. Hell, there was a wonderful Silver Age story where he couldn’t come up with a job, so he just started pulling random bird-and-brolly-themed stunts, certain that the Dynamic Duo would piece the “clues” together into a Perfect Crime.
Oswald’s perfectly sane, if quirky. He went into the costumed felon biz to get the respect he’d always been denied. I think Nolan could make great use of that, if he emphasizes that Oswald is deliberately using the tropes of the crazies to carry out flamboyant crimes that are nevertheless plotted out with all the care of the best caper movies — or are in fact distractions from other, low-key crimes and his slow, determined process to build up a rep and a following in the Gotham underworld.
On the other claw, I don’t think Nolan’s quite established the theme of Flamboyant Crazies quite enough. Ra’s al-Ghul and Crane were certainly off the beam, and The Joker introduced the idea of Crime as Performance Art, but those might not be enough precedent for the Funny-Looking Guy With A Chip On His Shoulder to put on a tux. Oswald might work in a FOURTH movie in the trilogy, after the Riddler has established the Theme Villain as a PATTERN, but I suspect that even the notion of a fourth movie will prove redundant.
For that matter, I’m slightly disappointed that the Riddler appears to be a done deal for the third movie. Yeah, you have to have a Joker film, but it’s disappointing that, after starting with Ra’s Al-Ghul, a Bat-adversary of undeniable pedigree but very limited mainstream exposure, Nolan would fall back on The Usual Suspects for both of the later installments.
Penguin is the Pete Campbell of Batman villains.
“Nolan is not making Batman movies for you. He’s making them for people that have never read a single Batman comic. Those people have no clue who the hell Black Mask, Hush or any of the rest even are.”
Huh? I thought he was making Batman movies because he likes the character and had a good idea for it which translated into Batman Begins.
Black Mask is in many of the newer Batman titles. Battle for the Cowl, War Games / Crimes, and he’s visually cool, which is a feat that The Penguin can never really achieve. The Penguin is a fat guy with a bunch of umbrellas and a fetish for birds. You’d rather see that then a guy who’s a legitimate psycho who is also a crime lord?
Hell, if they use Catwoman at all, Black Mask and Catwoman have loads more chemistry than Catwoman / Riddler, considering War Games and what have you.
There’s also a good chance that Black Mask will be in Batman: Arkham City, which is yet more recognition for the character to the general public.
You know who they need for the next movie (besides David Tennant as the Riddler)? The government to step in, and declare that they’ve had enough of the weirdness of Gotham. So they send in a decorated combat veteran with a proven record of “unique” operations to take down the Bat for real: Slade Wilson.
“I also suggest that if you say ‘Keaton was a great Batman, if you set aside his acting ability’, you’ve kind of defeated your own argument.”
Expect that wasn’t what I wrote.
I’ve been a Batman fan for a long time, and I realize that wackiness can play a part in it all…but one small problem keeps bugging me…
“Gosh Batman, some weird green-suited freak is leaving behing wacky clues about how he plans to steal some obscure treasure from a museum…some cat-burglar in a catsuit is going around stealing diamonds from the ultra-wealthy and planning museum heists.” Ummmm why the hell would he care? Gotham is pretty much shown as hell on earth with dangerous criminals kidnapping, robbing, murdering, planning mass fear-gas attacks…you know…crimes with a body count happening all the time. The police might hate being made to look like fools at the hands of the “wacky” criminals and I understand the “Broken Windows” theory of policing, but if any of us were Batman would we *care* about the attention getters or focus on the constant threats to life and limb around Gotham city (masked and unmasked) and forget the non-lethal criminals?
Roth, that’s a good point. I think the Riddler only works as someone who’s after Batman, or if he provides a legitimate threat to Gotham as a whole (not really sure how this works, unless Riddler is holding the city hostage somehow).
Catwoman would have been interesting if Batman still had a relationship with GCPD. If Gordon was pressured to bring in Catwoman because she was targeting political figures, like robbing the mayor as in Year 1, to see if Batman would spend his time persuing a criminal who really wasn’t hurting anyone to protect Gordon. But yeah, with his current outlaw status, I’m not sure why Batman cares about someone like Catwoman.
Ultimately I think Bane probably works best as the next villain – he’s Batman raised in a prison and forced to improvise, not use money to get what he wants. He’s in Gotham as a South American businessman, but his real plan is to take down the Batman and take over the criminal networks in the city.
The movie Batman needs to lose a physical fight. A battle of wits (kinda) occurred with the Joker, but Batman hasn’t really been physically challenged – Bale’s Batman is often quite arrogant towards the threat he faces because he knows he can win in a fight. To grow the character, he really needs to be challenged but someone who is more equal to him, especially physically.
… but then I also think Nolan could also craft a great Robin character, since Bale’s Batman really needs someone to watch his back. I know that Nolan is against a kid sidekick, but that movie Batman is quite dependent on others for his survival, so adding in a field operative in Robin could also help add to that character.