I know several threads have been made about this topic and I'm sorry if these feels redundant at this point. I was originally going to post this in another "Geoff hates Batman" thread, but since it ended up too long I thought I give it its own thread. Here I'm simply going to counter the argument of "Geoff hates Batman and wants to make him look bad whenever he had the chance." Below are some examples of Geoff "not hating" Batman, and then I give a reasoning to the recent Lex Luthor-Batman relationship in FE and JL.
I used to think that Geoff hates Batman, but after thinking about it no, he loves the character, he has stated so, mentioned that Tomasi's B&R is one of his favorite series. Tomasi's portrayal of Batman is the exact opposite of Johns'. Here are more examples:
- Johns has repeatedly stated that Flash is his favorite character. By "Geoff is a fanboy who hates Batman" logic, Geoff would never put Batman over Flash right? Well, in Origin/War, Flash basically worshiped Batman. So, Geoff had his favorite character to worship the character he hates so passionately? No way.
- Johns is very close to Hal Jordan right? He spend years on the title, so you would think he would portray Hal stronger than Bats right? Well, in Johns' stories, Batman repeatedly embarrassed Hal (who was portrayed as a complete fool), and after that, inspired him to fight. For those annoyed by the "Who's Bruce Wayne?" moment, let me elaborate. Batman figured out that GL is Hal Jordan after seeing his name tag when he briefly took off his ring, and after revealing this revelation, Batman thought it was only fair to reveal his own identity. At the time, Hal was doubting himself because he was just a man, but Bruce unmasked to show him that he's also just a man, but they can still save the world. So Geoff portrayed Batman as an honorable, intelligent and inspiring leader, while Hal, who Geoff probably likes more, was portrayed as a complete moron.
- In JL: Origin/War, basically every single Leaguer was portrayed poorly. You would think that this was John's opportunity to make Batman look bad right? Wrong. Batman was the only character (other than Cyborg) who was portrayed strongly, he was actually mature. The others? Flash/Aquaman were just there as extras and barely did much (with the exception of the Shark moment with Aquaman), Hal and Shazam were immature morons, Diana was a crazy idiot, Superman was a horny bully.
- In Flashpoint, Batman was the central character alongside Flash.
- In Throne of Atlantis, Batman was arguably the most protected character in the story (besides Aquaman). He was standing there between SUPERMAN, WONDER WOMAN, AQUAMAN and OCEAN MASTER, characters who are extremely beyond Batman in terms of power levels. And get this, Batman actually hurt Ocean Master (Aquaman's brother and the main villain of the story who managed to beat the entire JL on his own) at one point in non-PIS fashion, a luxury that Superman and Wonder Woman didn't have. This was a golden chance for a "Batman hater" to make Batman look bad, but he didn't.
- In one issue of JL, after the League had just defeated Amazo, Batman deduced something regarding Amazo's interiors, and Clark asked him how could he possibly know this without X-Ray vision. Flash, you know, Geoff's favorite character, replies: "Because he's Batman". A line that every Batman fandoy loves, and every Batman hater dreads.
- If we're talking about a character getting humiliated, Geoff has made Superman look much worse than Batman in his entire run. Clark was knocked out by a small shard of K, he was mind-controlled in Trinity War and killed Doctor Light, he was absent during the entire FE story. Those are much worse than Flash or Hal making a small crack at Batman's expense or Lex pick-potting him. Yet, it is very well established that Geoff loves Superman. In a recent Q&A, in two words, Geoff describes Superman as "everyone's hero", and has written some of the strongest Superman stories ever, and seems to be on his way to writing another one. If we're going to assess weather or not he hates a character by his portrayal of them, he is more likely to hate Superman than Batman, but he has proven that he does indeed love Superman.
Which leads us to "Why did he have Lex make a fool out of Batman?" I'm going to compare it to a Pro-Wrestling tactic. Chris Jericho, is an established WWE wrestler, a multiple time champion, and is considered by many a Legend in the business and a future Hall of Famer who has several 5-star matches under his belt. At Wrestlemania 29, the federation's biggest show of the year, Chris Jericho wrestled a young up-and-comer called Fandango in his first official match. Fandango was booked to beat Chris Jericho clean in the ring. This gave Fandango a major boost and people actually noticed. As for Chris, he recently just made his return, the crowd went wild and no body even remembered that loss. Every time Jericho returns, he loses to the younger guys, or at least, if he beats them, he makes them look worthy of facing him, and he usually ends up losing the rematch anyway. This is called "putting over" the younger talent who are trying to get established. No matter how many times Jericho loses, his legacy is intact, the crowd will always cheer for him and pay attention to his promos and matches, and no one will ever remember those losses. On the other hand, a win over Jericho can make a young guy's career, and give him a major boost. Back to Batman and Lex Luthor. Geoff is trying to re-establish Lex as a character, in this case, he wants to portray Lex as a good guy, and so he's using Batman to "put over" Lex Luthor in the intelligence and resourcefulness department. FE will be remembered as one of Lex Luthor's most defining story-arcs. As for Batman, is his legacy really going to be affected by a story-arc, that had another character in the spotlight, where the writer had some fun at his expense? No. Batman has several other titles where he's portrayed as the main character, a cross-over story arc that stars a different character doesn't hurt him one bit. And besides, if you read JL#31, Batman "got his momentum back".
Thanks for reading, sorry for the long thread and I hope this cleared things up.
Log in to comment