With Catwoman, the role change took her into the opposite direction. There's always going to be something appealing about star-crossed lovers and people with something bigger than their own desires that's keeping them apart, and while there's a good chance that you already know this from, you know, school, that's not really unique to Batman comics. Not only was she the focus of the classic 1978 run by  Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, which did a lot to lay down the groundwork for the modern age Dark Knight, her entire character arc is about coming to terms with the fact that she wanted no part of Batman's world of crime-fighting and villainy. A photographer/reporter, Vicki Vale was initially introduced as a woman smart enough to expose Batman's secret identity. Kathy Kane was a wealthy socialite like Bruce Wayne who was also a former circus acrobat like Dick Grayson, who decided to fight crime for kicks. Actions may speak louder than words, but words can express so many things that actions can’t! In the Silver Age and in response to various allegations which caused the Comics Code Authority to be created, Batman was given a female counterpart. The truth is, “Love Letter” is in the name of the game only because of branding. Black Canary Too clinging?" Batman's Love Interests. That's one of the reasons that Silver's so important as a character, because she shows how those two different parts of his life can collide in an interesting way. With a lot of classic superhero love interests, from Lois Lane to Steve Trevor, there's this idea that the heroes can't reveal their secret because it'll put the loved one in danger, or because they're just too dedicated to ridding the world of evil. For Silver, the fact that she finds out Batman's secret and then rejects him is a big moment, because it shows that to love Bruce Wayne is to understand that nothing's going to come before his mission, and she's not the kind of person who's willing to let her heart come in second. It's an incredibly powerful scene, and one that's often overlooked when people talk about Kevin Conroy's greatest moments from his 25 years of being the voice of Batman. That said, I think you're ignoring a few of the fundamental things that make Batman's love life so interesting, and it starts with your list of "iconic" loves. Batman strangles a man in mid-air while flying back to the Bat-Cave. Since the stories are structured to put the focus onto Batman's crimefighting adventures, it makes sense that pretty much everyone he's going to encounter in those stories is going to relate to that in some way. Talia is also notable as the mother of Bruce's son, Damian Wayne. I mean, it's kind of his whole deal, from the moment that his parents were gunned down and he made a solemn vow to spend his life waging war on crime! But once the photo ops were over, so were they. Following is a list of those romantic partners that have been prominently portrayed in comics books and other media: Julie Madison - First appearance: Detective Comics #31. Julie Madison was originally an actress, but her character was changed many times in the following decades. Cloud, Natalia Knight and Julia Pennyworth were introduced while other characters were re-introduced, like Vicki Vale and Catwoman. Batman has a strict "no killing" policy. No family. A mer-der, if you will. Batman is the greatest comic book superhero. In the first years of the Bronze Age, Batman had only one romantic interest, Talia al Ghul, but they were often at odds and the relationship never became serious. When Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams introduced her in 1971, they were pretty heavily inspired by On Her Majesty's Secret Service. By 2003, she'd been so firmly established as Batman's primary love interest that she learned his secret identity, but that didn't happen overnight. Cookies help us deliver our Services. "Was it something I said? In fact, Silver in paticular has a much stronger claim on being an "iconic love." It's not Batman who has a thing for criminals. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Batman's lovers have to be criminals. No love. Does Batman have a type? Thanks! Her on-again, off-again love affair with Batman has become such a prominent part of her character that it permanently changed the way she works. Not in this life.Bruce Wayne. She was the enemy. Vicki Vale - First appearance: Batman #49. Her character has undergone few changes over the years, and many elements of her original characterization have remained. Catwoman is so beloved—by both Batman and by the readers—that she can't really be a villain anymore in the traditional sense, and has been an ally and a protagonist in her own right since the '80s. You know the name, and have seen his films. Love Letter: Batman Edition is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2-4 players. In various other continuities, Vicki Vale is portrayed as an occasional date of Bruce Wayne. Villains like the Riddler have an obsession with Batman that borders on a twisted sort of romance, and that's a border the Joker rolled past quite some time ago. Oh. There's an idea that if they could just move beyond the tragedies of their past, these two characters could actually be happy together. In the movie Batman Begins, Batman decides to save the life of a criminal by killing the entire League of Shadows. That's why Talia was always the more sympathetic member of al-Ghul family. Plenty of fans made it to the letters page by writing in support of the new character, but in 1964, she was quietly dropped from new stories, and in 1969, Barbara Gordon made her debut as the all-new Batgirl and proved to be far more popular and enduring than Kathy Kane ever was. Ben Affleck was tickled by Zack Snyder’s love letter to the actor’s superhero role, and Oscar Isaac also weighed in, observing the DCEU filmmaker’s also chiseled chin. ... which is why Batman video games are so much fun! Ranking The Most Expensive Cars Owned By Popular YouTubers. It gives her an agency that most other Batman love interests don't have, in that the heartbreak comes from her decision, not his. Batman's significance has to do with the superhero in you. This list includes all those women who have sporadically appeared as romantic partners of Batman: DC Database is a FANDOM Movies Community. Batman is probably the character with the highest number of romantic relationships in the DC Universe. By the end of the Silver Age, Bruce Wayne started seeing other women with no serious intent of starting a relationship. With characters like Batman or Spider-Man, the tension plays on the idea that there's a part of their life that they can't share with others. Which, of course, leads us right back to Catwoman. On the other hand, Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter-ego, has managed to have a few relationships with ladies of his interest, but they always come to a rather abrupt end because of the lack of trust and constant absence shown by Wayne. They all work for the same reason: it's instant drama. Missives that disclose race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity are risky for buyer’s agents and listing agents. I don't know where you're getting your information from, pal, but Batman hates criminals. Bekka 1st appearance: DC Graphic Novel #4. Sources: Road and Track, Top Gear, L.A. Times, Car and Driver. The Batman crew build a sprawling set to recreate Gotham City. Talia is pretty directly synthesized from those ideas, but taken to a superheroic extreme that would allow for Batman to go on the same type of Bond-esque world-traveling adventures that were so popular at the time. I think I get where you're coming from now. Instead, he was the product of what Batman called a "eugenics experiment," artificially grown from their DNA and rapidly aged in a tank to become the perfect leader for the League of Assassins. All those pretty party girls, their sweet smiles and simple hopes. Yeah, that’s right. Which, of course, can't happen. So many women. Joking aside, you've got a solid point. Other notable kills include Darkseid in Final Crisis, Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, The Joker in Batman: Arkham City and KGBeast in Batman #420. Batman comes together with the award-winning Love Letter to … It's the readers. Why else would he dress up and go out every night looking for criminals so that he could tie them up, and run the risk of getting tied up himself, or attacked with a whip by a woman in a black latex cat costume who—oh. Once again, thanking you in advance, Your pal, Oliver The day I put this on was the end of me. ... in the words of James May, the Porsche 911 restored and reimagined by Singer is "a love letter to a car." She would always be the enemy. ", Q: What does it say about Batman that three of his most iconic loves, Catwoman, Talia and Andrea Beaumont, are criminals? That being said, he does occasionally find love, so let's take look at Batman's best and worst relationships. Comics.  After that story came out, though, it was rarely mentioned again—although the alternate-future Kingdom Come story included a character called Ibn al-Xu'ffash, which translates from Arabic as "Son of the Bat," who was Bruce and Talia's kid. Pages using DynamicPageList parser function, Vicki disappeared from the Batman comics when. Sometimes I wonder if I'm even human anymore. But the fact that she existed at all, and that the stories got along just fine without her once she was gone, leads to an interesting conclusion about the way Batman's love life is presented. If you'd like to ask Chris a question, please send it to @theisb on Twitter with the hashtag #WhatsUpChris, or email it to [email protected] with the subject line "That's What's Up. At the end of the day, though, I still stand by my original answer. In time, however, Batwoman also became a caricature instead of a serious persona. When he eventually dedicated himself to studying, he focused on the sciences and criminology, so he could become the Batman. Fortunately, Batman is able to use a grappling hook to suspend them in the air. How perverse it feels in her presence. That's What's Up: Is Batman attracted to criminals? 1. The daughter of the supervillain Ra's al Ghul, Talia's father has encouraged his daughter's relationship with the Dark Knight in hopes of recruiting Batman as the successor to his League of Assassins. Every relationship was a charade, or some reluctant excursion I knew I would never complete. Andrea Beaumont, though ... Look, I'm as big a fan of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm as the next person—I'm willing to bet that I'm an even bigger fan than the next person, unless I'm literally standing next to the people who made it—but putting her as the third name on the list just doesn't feel right. I mean, even if he is attracted to a few of the criminals he faces down, we all know that there's only room for one lady in his life. With Batman, though, one of the biggest strengths of the character has always been that the villains in his rogues' gallery are some of the most compelling characters in comics. Lego Batman even broke records recently. You deserve the best and I want to give you my best. During their first encounters, Talia showed a devotion to the Dark Knight as strong as her love for her father, often saving Batman, but always choosing to remain by her father's side. History Talk (0) Share. There's something there immediately that's worked its way through almost every permutation of the character, and provided the blueprint for later characters like Talia, or even Nocturna, the vampire thief who took him to court over custody of Robin. This article is a stub. Most of his relationships are with ladies from his own Rogues Gallery, and in recent years, his relationship with Catwoman has been given special attention; but the constant in every scenario is Batman's unwillingness or inability to maintain a relationship longer than the Batmobile's paint job. Years later, when she reappears, he's dedicated his life to fighting evil, but—and here's your spoiler warning for the twist in a movie from 1993—she also has a masked identity that's consuming her life. The strong influence of Superman's success motivated the creators of Batman to introduce a serious female figure who could eventually become Batman's partner. Readers of Comic Heroes magazine voted Batman … It's a time-tested trope that adds that extra layer of longing to any relationship, and with the Caped Crusader, that's way more compelling than anything that would involve juggling his secret identity, because it pits the very idea of romance against the thing that's at the core of his character. Thus, Vicki Vale was introduced as an answer to Superman's Lois Lane, but these efforts proved futile as the character wasn't developed in the right direction. If you haven't seen Mask of the Phantasm, well, first of all, you should do that, because it's very good. That allowed Talia's character the freedom to change, pushing her further into evil than she'd ever gone before. My criterion for a relationship. No real intimacy. Never knowing they stood a better chance with Freeze. It's now official. Yeah, okay. Batman stories are always going to be adventure stories first and foremost, and anything that detracts from that isn't going to be a good fit. 10 Reasons Why I Love Batman ... Batman is a superhero so he's going to be smarter than most of those around him. Gotham would be safe, but there would be no rescue for Bruce Wayne. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. But there's a good reason why those characters can be so prominent within the Batman mythos without being involved in the superhero stuff: they're not Batman's love … This was something that had been alluded to in Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham's Son of the Demon graphic novel in 1987, when Batman and Talia were pronounced married by Ra's, and Talia got pregnant as the result of some wedding night bat-bedding. Tynion's story was no doubt a great way to finish off Batman's New 52 run, as it was so deeply ingrained not only in Batman's origins, but also in what keeps him fighting in the present. This is due to the nature of Batman's character; it is difficult for him to maintain a serious relationship with a woman as a result of his obsession with his crusade against crime. Burton's Batman may be evidence of style over substance, but when he gets the style right, he does it very well.This is particularly evident in the iconic Batmobile ride with Batman and Vicki Vale. Note: I focused on the darker renditions of Batman, not the candy-coated and plastic-nippled Batman. Unfortunately for Bruce (and for the concept of crime as a whole), Andrea breaks it off with him and leaves Gotham City, and he channels his heartbreak into becoming Batman. Twitch Hosts Ivan, Hector, Becca, and Ify dress up to play Batman Love Letter from AEG. You can help the Batman wiki by expanding it. Silver St. He has cemented his reputation as a notorious playboy, a false perception he has created himself. They're Bruce Wayne's. But there's a good reason why those characters can be so prominent within the Batman mythos without being involved in the superhero stuff: they're not Batman's love interests. Later, in an address to the city, Commissioner Gordon assures the public that all of the Joker's men have been rounded up and that Gotham is now crime-free. By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. Where Were You On The Night Batman Was Killed? Bruce Wayne's love interests can never really know who he is without knowing he's Batman, and since Batman's love interests tend to travel in slightly more crime-oriented circles, his secret's not exactly something he wants to chat about on a first date. Unfortunately, their unconventional lifestyles and personal choices have often caused them to grow apart from each other, although there have been many stories in which the two of them have decided to form a serious relationship. Her first appearance in 1940's Batman #1—which puts her arrival at only a month after Robin's and about 17 pages after the Joker's—literally ends with Batman musing that while she might be on the wrong side of the law, she was still a "lovely girl" with "lovely eyes." See, the classic superhero love triangle is built around the secret identity. Did I come on too strong? There's no question about it – Batman … There's been a romantic tension between them for over 75 years, to the point where even the eternally square Batman of the Adam West show occasionally entertained the idea of running off with her and starting a sexy new life far away from his Gotham Cty crime-fighting duties. Love Letter: Batman is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2–4 players based on the original Love Letter game by Seiji Kanai. Julie Madison was originally an actress, but her character was changed many times in the following decades. You've always loved women dark and dangerous-- yet if they do something dark and dangerous-- you can't love them-- and therefore, you've never really loved any woman at all. If nothing else, it ignores the fact that there are far more prominent romances for Batman that definitely don't dress up in murder costumes and go looking for bloody revenge. To understand the essence of the Batman mythos, we need to understand Batman's beginnings. It wasn't until the mid-70s that some writers started taking Batman's love life more seriously. No real losing oneself in someone else. That only really changed recently, and only then because there was something else to change the dynamic and add a different kind of drama: they had a son. He would often flirt as Batman with occasional villains, one of which was Catwoman. Either way, that changed the dynamic completely. Acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman is burying Batman, but not before he pens a final "love letter" to the Dark Knight. Amina Franklin 1st appearance: Batman #659. As the James Bond fans among you may recall, that's a film that involves 007 heading to an impregnable mountain fortress and romancing—and eventually marrying—Teresa Draco, the daughter of a mastermind who heads up a notoriously powerful international criminal syndicate. Selina Kyle; Catwoman - First appearance: Batman #1. You've always loved women dark and dangerous-- yet if they do something dark and dangerous-- you can't love them-- and therefore, you've never really loved any woman at all.Natalia Knight[1]. I'm sure they wondered what went wrong. Bruce Wayne/Batman is an angry guy, full of repressed vengeance and bitterness. A letter allows you to express your innermost feelings, and creating one that’s written by hand only makes the sentiment even sweeter. Bruce Wayne and Vikki Vale had it pretty good to begin with, with Vale being one of his first girlfriends all the way back in the 1950s. , where he called it a "wish dream of two homosexuals." Batman. Really the only major complaint I have with Batman Returns is that its supporting characters are so good that Batman kind of gets the short end of … After several encounters with Ra's, Talia and Bruce eventually had a sexual encounter, from which their son. I say "almost" because there are plenty of examples of it going the other way, too, from the aforementioned Batwoman to a relationship with Wonder Woman that was teased in the pages of JLA, to Sasha Bordeaux, who was hired as Bruce Wayne's bodyguard and wound up becoming Batman's sidekick so that she could protect him, and was then sent to prison where her death was faked so she could be recruited by a government agency and then become a secret agent cyborg. He wouldn't kill … It asks the question of if it's possible for Batman to hate crime, but love a criminal. Right up to the ending, Batman #50 could be considered a love letter to Bruce and Selina’s nearly-80-year romance, a beat of punctuation on the work writer Tom King and a … That's why there are so many love interests that exist within that world of crimefighting: they're the ones whose existence doesn't conflict with the actual premise of the story. She's the Phantasm, a terrifying vigilante armed with scythes who's out to murder the mobsters who killed her father. Andrea Beaumont, for all that she only really appears in that single story, is so memorable exactly because she plays with that same idea of smashing together those two halves of Bruce Wayne's life. Faced with the problem of giving Batman a love interest who could exist alongside his mission and who wasn't a villain, since the Comics Code prohibited any positive portrayals of criminals, Edmond Hamilton and Sheldon Moldoff basically just made, well, exactly what her name says she is: Batman, but a lady. Characters like Catwoman, Talia, and the Phantasm are just the characters for whom it's reciprocated. Rather than being torn between Ra's and Batman, Talia was now inextricably tied to the Dark Knight as the mother of his son, and the tension came from the possibility that Damian could follow in her footsteps rather than his. As early as 1977, it was established that the Catwoman and Batman of Earth-2, the multiversal home to DC's Golden Age characters, had been married, and there was a famous story in 1983 from Alan Brennert and Joe Staton that told the story of how they got together. Each week, comic book writer Chris Sims answers the burning questions you have about the world of comics and pop culture: what's up with that? This is a theme often explored throughout the history of Batman, and I think one of the most complex reasons that we all love him so much. There's never going to be a story where Batman just hangs out with Carl From Work—his version of Carl From Work is Aquaman, and while they do sometimes hang out, it's mostly in the context of needing to beat up King Shark or solve a mermaid murder. If it did, we wouldn't get any more Batman stories. Later in the story, she claimed to have lost the baby, but at the end, it was revealed that Batman's son was still out there, having been given up for adoption. It's also why his most lasting romantic relationships are with people within that world, and in Batman's case, that's a road that almost always leads to villains. Plus, it's his affection for her and the bond they share through their son, Damian, that keeps him from going all-out to bring the League of Assassins down once and for all. The answer, of course, is no. Edit. From day one, Catwoman has been Batman's most enduring love interest, and I mean that in a very literal sense. ... Why PS5 game Astro's Playroom is 'a love letter to PlayStation' Daniel Rutledge. And if Catwoman's at the top of the list in a walk, then Talia al-Ghul makes for a strong second place. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Batwoman didn't stay all that prominent for long. Earn Batman Tokens by eliminating opponents and by winning each round for a new spin on classic Love Letter! When Grant Morrison and Tony Daniel reintroduced the idea in 2006 n the form of Damian Wayne, they took a bit of a different approach. In the Earth-Two continuity, Julie and Bruce broke up as she expec… She could be part of them, sure, but never as the prime mover, which bred its own dramatic little set piece for her: the beautiful assassin, trapped between her devotion to her father and the love of his arch-nemesis. The Grim Knight is a Batman who uses guns, but his origin story, spinning out of DC Comic’s The Batman Who Laughs miniseries, is not without hope. Why Singer Porsche 911s Are So Superior. But there's one more twist to the idea that also comes through with Catwoman: whether or not Batman is attracted to criminals, the criminals are certainly attracted to him. The original Batwoman, for instance, was explicitly introduced to be a persistent love interest who was meant to stay around forever—or at least until Batman stories were able to shake the gay subtext of Batman, Robin, and Alfred all living together in a palatial mansion that Frederic Wertham obsessed over in Seduction of the Innocent Until then, here are the basics: Andrea Beaumont is a Gotham City socialite that Bruce Wayne falls in love with right at the start of his vigilante career, before he's inspired to strike fear into the hearts of superstitious, cowardly criminals by becoming the Batman. Please don’t allow them to make any more movies like that about you. The reason why Christian Bale works so well as Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy is because Bale, quite frankly, looks like an angry guy. In the Modern Age of Comics until the present date, Batman has had numerous romantic relationships, in every different media, some of which have lasted long enough to set a "record" and others which were merely used for the sake of a story. Ra's could be as hell-bent on killing off the majority of the world's population as he wanted, but Talia herself had to be a step removed from his plans. In the Golden Age, Batman had a couple of short relationships as Bruce Wayne, such as Julie Madison and Linda Page. She also never did manage to get rid of that subtext. Letters are a personalized way to show your love for someone in the simplest way. Batman. It's worth noting that not all readers liked that change, because it shifted her away from her role as a love interest, but it shows how much had to be done to accomplish that. It's a great plot—and one that was loosely adapted from Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Todd McFarlane's Batman: Year Two—and it works because it ties together that dual-identity theme with the obsession that's a crucial part of how Batman operates. Cloud, Vicki Vale, Shondra Kinsolving, and even Batman's first romantic foil, Julie Madison, are all characters who aren't even close to being crooks, and they're all at least as important as Andrea Beaumont. She would last the longest because she was safe. In this quest, she became involved with Bruce Wayne, as she suspected him of being Batman and she was determined to find evidence. In fact, if you can just promise to avoid any more bad movies, then you really don’t have to answer this letter, and can ignore the rest of my questions/comments.

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