Famed Batman Writer Denny O Neil passes away

[MikeandRaph87]

I like how The Shadow is at least during the Bronze Age cannon the film that Bruce's family went to see when his parents were gunned down. Due to The Shadow being an influence on Batman's creation and The Case of The Chemical Syndicate being lifted from a plot of The Shadow. It is really a cool real world tie in.

One thing I always wondered and maybe you have the answer, Denny O'Neil is the one who moved the JLA out of the cave in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island and into a satellite 22,300 miles in synchronous orbit? I love the concept!

It reminds me of the one adage of "never meet your idols". Denny never should have met his.

Batman#401-#403 was a transitional period after Batman was allowed to have a soft reboot and react 400 in the synonymous title before going on it. I ignore most of the Jason Todd as Robin issues so I never read The Mime issue especially since I assumed it had no relevancy and was a gap filler until Year One. She was Proto-Harley? I had no idea. There was Gaggy that turned into a one-shot (before the few issue return during Dick's run as Batman). Mime would have been reoccurring? Everyone was finding there footing in 1986 so it was not Denny's fault. The whole company was rebooting everything.

[PizzaPower1985]

YES! It was Denny who moved the JLA to the Watchtower satellite. Denny (and Gerry Conway and Len Wein after him) are the guys that wrote what modern JLA is based on. It's where the JLA Bruce Timm cartoons get most of their ideas.


Yeah, it's a shame that Collins had to come on when he did because the transitional period tarnished his storytelling opportunities. Collins made me fall in love with Todd. I ignored the kid before I read his run and Tim was my fav. Robin. When I read Collins "Second Chances" book, I was amazed at how fun his Batman stories were. But they clearly could have been so much better if there wasn't the editorial mandate there. And yeah, it wasn't Denny's fault.

I heard Denny once say that becoming editor immediately after Crisis was very difficult because a lot had changed with Batman since he wrote the character and so the Batman that he was editing was not exactly the same Batman that he had written. But he tried his best to move Batman back in the direction that he had written him? Does it show? I'm not immediately familiar enough with the Batman books of 86 to 90 to say if definitively he did move him back to a more bronze age character.

[Leo656]

Y'know, there was a bit of a shift post-Crisis to make Batman into a darker, more violent character but I'm not sure that, outside of "Dark Knight Returns" that it was really all that dramatic a shift. '86-'90, coincidentally enough, was when I started getting really, really into comics, and around '91 was when I started going to shops to collect back issues and such. And I never, ever had a problem reconciling the late-70s/early-80s "Caped Crusader" version with the late-80s "Dark Knight Detective" version who I was seeing in tales such as "Death in the Family" and "Lonely Place of Dying". It all felt perfectly in sync, to me. Not that I was reading Every Single Issue, but Batman was more clearly the same Batman, for example, than the "new" Superman of Byrne was compared to the Silver Age one. Superman was very much a different guy and it was very clear that pretty much none of his pre-'86 canon could be applied even if you squinted and tried to force it in your headcanon, while Batman wasn't really all that different and you didn't necessarily have to dismiss too much of his previous history or personality outright.

Like, I hadn't been collecting at the exact moment when Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" had come out, so I wasn't even aware that they had revamped Batman's origin; they were still publishing reprints of the phenomenal "Untold Legends of the Batman" mini-series which had been published previously (early-80s, like around 1982, I think?), and which had been the most recent "official" tellings of the origins of Bruce, Dick Grayson, and some of the Big Villains. Now, Miller's "Year One" came along and officially "overwrote" "Untold Legends" as the official origin story, and some things definitely changed but not SO much, really. And point of fact, the main Batman books were still making reference to the events depicted in "Untold Legends" all the way up until maybe 1992 or 1993. So obviously, the late-70s/early-80s Batman, and the late-80s/early-90s Batman, were clearly meant to be the same guy, with the same past, with a few exceptions regarding details like how he met Alfred, what specifically inspired him to be Batman, stuff like that. He had more of an "edge" to him, and the blues and grays of his costume got darker, but I had NO trouble at all, as a reader, in believing that it was the same character.

How I looked at it was - and I'm sure this was exactly the intention when they wrote it - by '88 or so, Batman was now being written as having been around for a while, and the first-ever inklings of him being affected by everything he'd seen and done in his career were starting to creep in. His anger and his trauma started becoming more of a plot point, particularly and especially after Jason's death. And it made sense because, by that point, with everything that had happened between he and Dick becoming somewhat estranged, Bruce "betraying" Dick by rushing Jason into the Robin role, partly because he was pouty about Dick leaving, which fractured their relationship further, and then Jason getting killed, along with a lot of other stuff like what happened to Barbara... the more "happy-go-lucky" version of Batman went away, but it no longer made sense, at that point, for him to behave that way. It all felt very realistic and earned; by the time he shifted from "Caped Crusader" to "Dark Knight", it felt like too many years and too much traumatic sh*t was finally starting to screw with his head and the more silent, brooding, and damaged version of the character which slowly evolved out of things felt like the more appropriate and believable version of the character.

But to me, I felt no disconnect at all during that time period. I find it harder to reconcile the "always-perfect, infallible Bat-God" version which started becoming standard in the late-90s/early-2000s, or so, to the "Caped Crusader" era, frankly. Many of the writers during that time took his "always prepared" gimmick to absolutely absurd lengths, and his "damage" to the point of being either crippled by rage OR simply an enormous, stand-offish jerk to everyone just because "I'm Batman". Still plenty of good stories, but I think they didn't REALLY start deviating from the Caped Crusader stuff completely until the late-90s.

So, I say kudos to the writers and editors of the Post-Crisis era for handling the tonal and character shift in the Batman books with such savvy and delicate craftsmanship, so that a kid like me saw zero disconnect. People like to point at DKR and Year One and insist that overnight, Batman was a completely different guy, but that simply isn't so. The cover art, however, DID become much darker and more sinister overnight across the entire line of Batman books, THAT much is absolutely true. Which is what you see whenever they do a Batman documentary; they talk about Miller, and then they show you a bunch of late-80s/early-90s covers with lots of shadow and blood and psychotic-looking villains, and it would make someone THINK that the content inside of the books was all of a sudden so very much different than what had come before, but if you actually read the books, that simply isn't true much of the time. "Detective Comics" did have a bit more of a "darker" spin on it when Norm Breyfogle took over the art, with his more Gothic, almost vampiric depiction of Batman - which I LOVE, but not all the time - but the writing, still, was not very much different at all.

Late-80s/early-90s run is probably still my all-time favorite Batman era. It was a really, really fun time for the character. Not "fun" as in "fun and games" - Lord no, he was going through some dark sh*t - but it was really all the "Death in the Family" and "Lonely Place of Dying" stuff that really cemented my adoration for the character. Batman was always my number two character behind Superman, but it was the very first time, as a child, where I had ever seen a super-hero character who was so tremendously "affected" by their work, and it made me really relate to and fall in love with the character more than ever. He wasn't just that cartoon character smiling at me from the Super-Friends poster anymore. He felt real.
----------

Quick aside about Denny, and his skillful hand in guiding the character. I feel that Denny so thoroughly understood the Batman character, that many of his views have become my own. For example, Damien. "Son of the Demon" was originally written out of canon long ago, because as Denny put it: Having been driven to become Batman by watching his parents die, Bruce would have a huge problem with continuing to be Batman if he knew he had a biological son (apparently adopted kids were a bit different, but it makes perfect sense the way Denny explained it). Like, for starters, he'd never want to put his own biological son in a position where he'd tragically lose Bruce, which is statistically likely because, y'know... it's a dangerous job. He wouldn't risk putting his kid through that. And he'd NEVER let his own biological son be Robin, because bad guys try to kill Robin and at least once they succeeded.

Denny always said that Bruce having a biological son would be a mistake, because he would never, EVER want to risk losing his own child to violence OR himself dying by violence and creating yet another orphan to be trapped in the cycle of violence and grief. The first three Robins had already either been orphaned or otherwise "damaged", so it was different, plus they were adopted. But if it was his own son, it would change the game and he'd have to stop being Batman, and that kid would NEVER be Robin.

Thus, I can't accept Damien. Denny's opinion on that subject is so completely sensible that I find it completely bonkers that they went the total opposite way with it, just because Grant Morrison was feeling nostalgic. But Damien's existence breaks the mythos in some very fundamental ways, and it tells me that modern writers don't "get" the Bruce Wayne character to the degree that Denny did.

It's not the only thing I strongly agree with Denny on, but it is maybe the biggest thing. I doubt I'll ever change my mind, either. That and "Batman can never have a happy ending because he's too driven, and will eventually die on the job", that's another one.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Y'know, there was a bit of a shift post-Crisis to make Batman into a darker, more violent character but I'm not sure that, outside of "Dark Knight Returns" that it was really all that dramatic a shift. '86-'90, coincidentally enough, was when I started getting really, really into comics, and around '91 was when I started going to shops to collect back issues and such. And I never, ever had a problem reconciling the late-70s/early-80s "Caped Crusader" version with the late-80s "Dark Knight Detective" version who I was seeing in tales such as "Death in the Family" and "Lonely Place of Dying". It all felt perfectly in sync, to me. Not that I was reading Every Single Issue, but Batman was more clearly the same Batman, for example, than the "new" Superman of Byrne was compared to the Silver Age one. Superman was very much a different guy and it was very clear that pretty much none of his pre-'86 canon could be applied even if you squinted and tried to force it in your headcanon, while Batman wasn't really all that different and you didn't necessarily have to dismiss too much of his previous history or personality outright.

Like, I hadn't been collecting at the exact moment when Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" had come out, so I wasn't even aware that they had revamped Batman's origin; they were still publishing reprints of the phenomenal "Untold Legends of the Batman" mini-series which had been published previously (early-80s, like around 1982, I think?), and which had been the most recent "official" tellings of the origins of Bruce, Dick Grayson, and some of the Big Villains. Now, Miller's "Year One" came along and officially "overwrote" "Untold Legends" as the official origin story, and some things definitely changed but not SO much, really. And point of fact, the main Batman books were still making reference to the events depicted in "Untold Legends" all the way up until maybe 1992 or 1993. So obviously, the late-70s/early-80s Batman, and the late-80s/early-90s Batman, were clearly meant to be the same guy, with the same past, with a few exceptions regarding details like how he met Alfred, what specifically inspired him to be Batman, stuff like that. He had more of an "edge" to him, and the blues and grays of his costume got darker, but I had NO trouble at all, as a reader, in believing that it was the same character.

How I looked at it was - and I'm sure this was exactly the intention when they wrote it - by '88 or so, Batman was now being written as having been around for a while, and the first-ever inklings of him being affected by everything he'd seen and done in his career were starting to creep in. His anger and his trauma started becoming more of a plot point, particularly and especially after Jason's death. And it made sense because, by that point, with everything that had happened between he and Dick becoming somewhat estranged, Bruce "betraying" Dick by rushing Jason into the Robin role, partly because he was pouty about Dick leaving, which fractured their relationship further, and then Jason getting killed, along with a lot of other stuff like what happened to Barbara... the more "happy-go-lucky" version of Batman went away, but it no longer made sense, at that point, for him to behave that way. It all felt very realistic and earned; by the time he shifted from "Caped Crusader" to "Dark Knight", it felt like too many years and too much traumatic sh*t was finally starting to screw with his head and the more silent, brooding, and damaged version of the character which slowly evolved out of things felt like the more appropriate and believable version of the character.

But to me, I felt no disconnect at all during that time period. I find it harder to reconcile the "always-perfect, infallible Bat-God" version which started becoming standard in the late-90s/early-2000s, or so, to the "Caped Crusader" era, frankly. Many of the writers during that time took his "always prepared" gimmick to absolutely absurd lengths, and his "damage" to the point of being either crippled by rage OR simply an enormous, stand-offish jerk to everyone just because "I'm Batman". Still plenty of good stories, but I think they didn't REALLY start deviating from the Caped Crusader stuff completely until the late-90s.

So, I say kudos to the writers and editors of the Post-Crisis era for handling the tonal and character shift in the Batman books with such savvy and delicate craftsmanship, so that a kid like me saw zero disconnect. People like to point at DKR and Year One and insist that overnight, Batman was a completely different guy, but that simply isn't so. The cover art, however, DID become much darker and more sinister overnight across the entire line of Batman books, THAT much is absolutely true. Which is what you see whenever they do a Batman documentary; they talk about Miller, and then they show you a bunch of late-80s/early-90s covers with lots of shadow and blood and psychotic-looking villains, and it would make someone THINK that the content inside of the books was all of a sudden so very much different than what had come before, but if you actually read the books, that simply isn't true much of the time. "Detective Comics" did have a bit more of a "darker" spin on it when Norm Breyfogle took over the art, with his more Gothic, almost vampiric depiction of Batman - which I LOVE, but not all the time - but the writing, still, was not very much different at all.

Late-80s/early-90s run is probably still my all-time favorite Batman era. It was a really, really fun time for the character. Not "fun" as in "fun and games" - Lord no, he was going through some dark sh*t - but it was really all the "Death in the Family" and "Lonely Place of Dying" stuff that really cemented my adoration for the character. Batman was always my number two character behind Superman, but it was the very first time, as a child, where I had ever seen a super-hero character who was so tremendously "affected" by their work, and it made me really relate to and fall in love with the character more than ever. He wasn't just that cartoon character smiling at me from the Super-Friends poster anymore. He felt real.
----------

Quick aside about Denny, and his skillful hand in guiding the character. I feel that Denny so thoroughly understood the Batman character, that many of his views have become my own. For example, Damien. "Son of the Demon" was originally written out of canon long ago, because as Denny put it: Having been driven to become Batman by watching his parents die, Bruce would have a huge problem with continuing to be Batman if he knew he had a biological son (apparently adopted kids were a bit different, but it makes perfect sense the way Denny explained it). Like, for starters, he'd never want to put his own biological son in a position where he'd tragically lose Bruce, which is statistically likely because, y'know... it's a dangerous job. He wouldn't risk putting his kid through that. And he'd NEVER let his own biological son be Robin, because bad guys try to kill Robin and at least once they succeeded.

Denny always said that Bruce having a biological son would be a mistake, because he would never, EVER want to risk losing his own child to violence OR himself dying by violence and creating yet another orphan to be trapped in the cycle of violence and grief. The first three Robins had already either been orphaned or otherwise "damaged", so it was different, plus they were adopted. But if it was his own son, it would change the game and he'd have to stop being Batman, and that kid would NEVER be Robin.

Thus, I can't accept Damien. Denny's opinion on that subject is so completely sensible that I find it completely bonkers that they went the total opposite way with it, just because Grant Morrison was feeling nostalgic. But Damien's existence breaks the mythos in some very fundamental ways, and it tells me that modern writers don't "get" the Bruce Wayne character to the degree that Denny did.

It's not the only thing I strongly agree with Denny on, but it is maybe the biggest thing. I doubt I'll ever change my mind, either. That and "Batman can never have a happy ending because he's too driven, and will eventually die on the job", that's another one.

Untold Legends IS amazing (of course it was, it was penned by Len Wein). I sometimes fight myself on which origin I prefer more. Year One seems to be my current favorite though.

2. Your thoughts about Denny being against the son thing and Damien are exactly why I can't read modern Batman. Grant Morrison did some interesting stuff in his run but aside from Paul Dini (who wrote concurrently in 'Tec) I cannot get into "modern" Batman stories. BRUCE WAYNE SIRING A CHILD IS TRITE FAN-FICTION when placed in the Batman canon. That said, as "What If" stories, Son of the Demon, Bride and Birth are pretty good. But Morrison invented the Bat-God who can defeat anybody because preparation and "I'm Batman." Ugh. F*ck that $hit!

And F*CK Damian. The little snot has so many fans and so many people like him YET when Jason Todd was a brat and talked back to Bruce, FANS MURDERED HIM in the DEATH IN THE FAMILY. WTF?

For me the golden period was when Frank Miller, Max Collins, Starlin and GRANT/BREYFOGLE were on the character. After GRANT/BREYFOGLE left, Chuckie Dixon wrote some DAMN GOOD stories but other than that? Nah!

While we're goin' Batty in Denny's thread, let me also mention the Gerry Conway/Gene Colan/Don Newton run from the early 80's. IF BATMAN WERE EVER WRITTEN AS A MARVEL CHARACTER, that'd be it. The Batman as a Vampire saga, Six Days of the Scarecrow... So many great stories in that run. Then Doug Moenke took over and started writing straight up dark, scary Batman stories. So yeah, good stuff.

[Galactus]

I regards to Son of the Demon Bruce struggling to be Batman and taking fewer risks because he was about to be a father hence why Talia pretended to lose the baby.

I'm not sure I'd fully agree with Denny O'Neil that he that he'd struggle with putting his biological son in more jeopardy than his adopted ones. That to me kinda denigrates his relationship with Dick, Jason and Tim as if they are lesser by not being blood relatives. It's always been absolutely bonkers that Bruce would work with actual children. There is zero way to rationalise so the idea he'd draw any distinction between the Robins seems ridiculous.

I regards to Damian specifically he was already a trained assassin when Bruce first encountered him and he was a fully fledged Robin after he came back from the dead and there is little Bruce could do to stop him being a crime fighter if that is what Damian wanted. Better to keep him at his side and on the straight and narrow.

As for why fans took to Damian and not Jason...well different times and different expected. Jason was the first to replace the ever popular Dick so he was bound to be blowback even before the attempt to make Jason distinct by making him a rebel. By the time Damian came along there had already been Jason, Tim and Stephanie. Also it's long been believed that in that phone one guy who programmed his computer to repeatedly dial the 'kill him' number so one guy made the difference.

Interestingly this was the first I'd ever heard that story in a documentary about Batman's history that was aired on BBC2 back in the day to accompany the '89 movie. It features Denny O'Neil and Frank Miller and is actually has pretty unique takes the franchise history if anyone is interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUaLlwjoxY&t=1930s

[Leo656]

Chuck Dixon also did some great stuff in the Guy Gardner book. That guy's a dark horse but nobody to sleep on, he's written some good stuff.

I've just never been a fan of either Revived Jason or Damien even being there. I find that most of their biggest supporters are the ones who wish Batman would just get on with killing people already, and so they find both Jason and Damien to be something of a substitute; they'd prefer to see Batman go around killing people himself, but since he won't, they take comfort in the fact that at least SOME of the characters can get away with killing in his name... even though that makes no real sense considering what we're often told Bruce's values are. I mean Damien at least toned down somewhat, but Bruce is forever letting Jason back into his good graces even though Jason more or less refuses to stop killing people. It's weird.

I totally get the "Why" of how this kid (Damien) was such a monster that Bruce would have to take him into his guidance, I just found it contrived and not even necessary to even reintroduce him at all. Tim hadn't even fully come into his own as Robin all that long before and people still loved him. He'd been around a while by the time they replaced him with Damien but he was still only really well-established not too many years before. Bringing Damien in was nothing more than Grant Morrison needlessly flexing a little bit of muscle because he liked a story he read as a kid - a total "Geoff Johns" move, to be sure - and if there's ONE guy in all of comics who needs Strong Editorial Oversight, it's Grant Morrison. Throwing out a perfectly good character to replace him with a worse one, just because you think your fanfic ideas are better than another writer's fanfic ideas - again, "Paging Geoff Johns! Paging Geoff Johns!" but Morrison does it, too - is altogether pretty arrogant. No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but again... Grant Morrison.

I like the guy but he's clearly a narcissist. And it rather puts a bit of a taint on his work, much of which I actually do enjoy. But I don't think anyone loves Grant Morrison's ideas more than Grant Morrison. Damien being a good example of it. "Why are we doing this? Is it at all necessary? No? Alright. If he REALLY wants to do it..." Meh. Everybody's afraid to tell that guy No, but No is a word he ought'a hear more often. Just calling it like I see it.

And I loved "Final Crisis" so I'll talk all the sh*t on him I want.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by Galactus

I regards to Son of the Demon Bruce struggling to be Batman and taking fewer risks because he was about to be a father hence why Talia pretended to lose the baby.

I'm not sure I'd fully agree with Denny O'Neil that he that he'd struggle with putting his biological son in more jeopardy than his adopted ones. That to me kinda denigrates his relationship with Dick, Jason and Tim as if they are lesser by not being blood relatives. It's always been absolutely bonkers that Bruce would work with actual children. There is zero way to rationalise so the idea he'd draw any distinction between the Robins seems ridiculous.

I regards to Damian specifically he was already a trained assassin when Bruce first encountered him and he was a fully fledged Robin after he came back from the dead and there is little Bruce could do to stop him being a crime fighter if that is what Damian wanted. Better to keep him at his side and on the straight and narrow.

As for why fans took to Damian and not Jason...well different times and different expected. Jason was the first to replace the ever popular Dick so he was bound to be blowback even before the attempt to make Jason distinct by making him a rebel. By the time Damian came along there had already been Jason, Tim and Stephanie. Also it's long been believed that in that phone one guy who programmed his computer to repeatedly dial the 'kill him' number so one guy made the difference.

Interestingly this was the first I'd ever heard that story in a documentary about Batman's history that was aired on BBC2 back in the day to accompany the '89 movie. It features Denny O'Neil and Frank Miller and is actually has pretty unique takes the franchise history if anyone is interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUaLlwjoxY&t=1930s

The Jason Todd thing has always bothered me. I'm somebody that easily divorces himself from the events and happenings in comics that I can't or won't accept. IN MY HEADCANON... Jason shined as a brilliant Robin (that's debatable under Starlin) but was killed. HE NEVER CAME BACK. And he remains a reminder to Bruce that THIS IS A WAR. And (to quote Frank Miller) "He Was A Good Soldier." Grayson is the quintessential Robin but Tim is the modern and current Robin and is in some ways better than Dick. Tim is the crime-fighting detective that Bruce wishes he was when he was younger. Tim IS MY FAVORITE but Jason had some amazingly, heartwarming stories. If Batman #408 and #409 didn't show ANY READER that Jason had potential to be AND WAS a great Robin then man, READ IT AGAIN!

Leo656 is right about Denny knowing Batman better than any other writer. If Denny says "It would be a lousy stunt to bring Jason back" or "Bruce should or would never allow himself to sire a child in regular canon" then IT HAS TO BE SO... and in both cases Judd Winnick and Morrison were writing fan-fiction.

Also... That documentary features a lot of famous journalistic figures (who are nobodys now) like Legs McNeil and the sociologist turned lawyer Brett Gray... whose argument about cities being dystopian Hells in the 1980s IS EXACTLY WHY TMNT CAN AND SHOULD BE MADE INTO AN ULTRA-VIOLENT GRIT-FEST FULL OF DEATH, SEX AND "KEWL EDGE-LORD SEQUENCES".

Denny's interview here shows that he's still dealing with the fallout from Jason's death. He seems less interested about the movie and more interested in his job as editor... always the professional. Thanks for digging that up as I saw it years ago and been looking for it ever since.

[Leo656]

I read more than once that a lot of in-house editorial at DC were not in love with the Keaton movie at the time of its release, due to its severe deviations from the comic books, the "Joker killed Bruce's parents" thing, and a few other issues. I'm pretty sure on an individual level, most or all of them came to enjoy the movie as "a movie", but as far as I know at the time it was released they were more concerned that it was going to cause a lot of brand confusion in the marketplace and they were dreading having to deal with it. It did not go over well.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I read more than once that a lot of in-house editorial at DC were not in love with the Keaton movie at the time of its release, due to its severe deviations from the comic books, the "Joker killed Bruce's parents" thing, and a few other issues. I'm pretty sure on an individual level, most or all of them came to enjoy the movie as "a movie", but as far as I know at the time it was released they were more concerned that it was going to cause a lot of brand confusion in the marketplace and they were dreading having to deal with it. It did not go over well.

You read that did you? Seriously, brother, you are a wealth of knowledge for us DC and Batman fans. Mind telling me where you read it? Links? Sources? I totally need to see that to further my Batman '89 knowledge. Thanks!

[ZariusTwo]

Tom King recently confirmed that his Batman/Catwoman comic book is inspired directly by Batman Returns, he's even set it at Christmas time

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by PizzaPower1985

You read that did you? Seriously, brother, you are a wealth of knowledge for us DC and Batman fans. Mind telling me where you read it? Links? Sources? I totally need to see that to further my Batman '89 knowledge. Thanks!

I wish I could but it was not something I was looking at recently. For all I know it could have been an old issue of Wizard, or a retrospective article about the movie itself, or even both at separate times.

Sorry I can't remember. I know for a fact that Joker/Napier being the guy who killed Bruce's parents went down horribly in the DC editorial offices but they had no control over it. That bit's been repeated so often in so many places that it's pretty much common knowledge by now.

[PizzaPower1985]

Well, thanks anyway. I think I've heard Denny himself echo similar things about the Spring of 1989. Mark Waid, who was a random DC editor back then, once reported in the last years of Comics Scene magazine that everyone in the DC Offices was obligated to be "hyped" and to "love everything" about Batman '89 while everyone in the Bat-Offices had little respect for the film.

That said, it's the movie I have seen most often in my life (see the "what movies have you watched most" thread).

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Denny O Neil understood The Shadow more than anyone outside of Walter Gibson and Theodore Tinsley. The Shadow from the 70s DC run and Marvel's 1941 Graphic Novel (not published in 1941, but set in 1941) saw him teaming up with Michael Kaluta, one of my favourite comic book artists. Outstanding comic books.

If only the writers when The Shadow was over at Dynamite Entertainment understood the character even half as well as Denny O Neil did, then we wouldn't have had absolute garbage like Simon Spurrier's run, a comic mini-series that understood the character as much as I understand quantum physics.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by Whatswiththeheadbands?

Denny O Neil understood The Shadow more than anyone outside of Walter Gibson and Theodore Tinsley. The Shadow from the 70s DC run and Marvel's 1941 Graphic Novel (not published in 1941, but set in 1941) saw him teaming up with Michael Kaluta, one of my favourite comic book artists. Outstanding comic books.

If only the writers when The Shadow was over at Dynamite Entertainment understood the character even half as well as Denny O Neil did, then we wouldn't have had absolute garbage like Simon Spurrier's run, a comic mini-series that understood the character as much as I understand quantum physics.

Headbands, you are so right! DC nailed The Shadow in the 70s, thanks to Denny. Did you know that Walter Gibson wrote a Batman story in (Batman 400 I think) one of the anniversary issues. I just recently heard about Gerard Jones and am debating on throwing my bound Shadow Strikes books away because of that awful news.

And you love Kaluta? So do I... His Shadow short story... In the Toils of Wing Fat is so beautiful to look at...

Leo might confirm this but I think Kaluta painted a Superman painting that's super famous. Do you know the one?

[Leo656]

I probably seen it but I can't recall from memory, sorry.

I'm gonna have to track down that 70s Shadow stuff. As I've said, the character always intrigued me but I'm a total neophyte. If People Who Know recommend it, then I can't see how I'll be disappointed.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I probably seen it but I can't recall from memory, sorry.

I'm gonna have to track down that 70s Shadow stuff. As I've said, the character always intrigued me but I'm a total neophyte. If People Who Know recommend it, then I can't see how I'll be disappointed.

This is the painting... from issue 400. That was a great issue!

[Leo656]

Ah yeah, I think I have that one actually. I have so many that without my checklist I can't remember specific ones.

[MikeandRaph87]

Only Finger did more.

[PizzaPower1985]

That video mentions Joker as insane, being essentially developed that way by Denny O'neil. That's not accurate. Steve Englehart is the one who brought that aspect to the foreground in Sign of the Joker/Laughing Fish stories.

I have a problem with Joker being seen as insane. I think he works better and is more interesting in the "crazy like a fox" mold, cunning, deliberately dangerous, not insane. Insane people often have little control over their actions, something I can vouch for, having seen and dealt with mental illness in my interactions with certain people before. I think Joker being insane is one of the greatest sins of modern comics.

[Leo656]

See, I'm not sure that I totally agree. He's gotta be at least KINDA crazy.

I forget who, but in some article I read once where they had a real-life psych expert "analyze" comic book super-villains and try and actually "diagnose" them, I forget what they specifically said about Joker but the gist of it was, "Based on the things he's done, if he still had any human capacity whatsoever then he'd be completely suicidal with guilt and unable to even function," because all humans to some degree have empathy.

So he's either really very crazy or he's literally The Devil. Nobody who's done the things he's done would be able to live with themselves. He's way, way beyond being a sociopath or even a psychopath.

Of course, the author also took the chance to point out that this is exactly why nothing about comics is in any way realistic. Especially not "crazy" super-villains.