Batman

"Hank Venture: Wait! Dude! What about Batman? You call yourself a Batman fan? He would never kill anybody. Seriously, ask yourself- what would Batman do?"

"More important than this, however, is the idea that Batman is not just a guy in a suit, but a symbol and there are people in the film most notably The Joker who want to destroy that symbol. While Batman's identity remains secret and his motives unknown to Gothamites, he represents hope in a city that has little to spare and embodies a pursuit of justice and further, a code of behavior that quite literally threatens these criminals' way of life. By throwing Gotham into chaos and testing the limits to which Batman holds himself, The Joker is not merely plying death and destruction but willfully destroying the philosophical foundations of organized society. The closest such examination another comic book-oriented film has ever attempted was the emotional throughline of the Spider-Man films. Peter Parker's struggle was almost exclusively personal, whereas Wayne not only has to find a way to maintain his moral compass, but consider what the repercussions of his heroism are to both the public and the criminals themselves."

"I think Batman is a pretty universal character. I remember him as a child. But I think Christian [Bale] did the best I’ve seen so far, because of that tortured background of loss. The original Batman, they’re not much remembered as a Batman character – they were not used for training [chuckles]. You had to really – there was a darkness and a damagedness about his character that I think they got right with Christian Bale. Especially in the last two. But that doesn’t have anything to do with Ben Affleck. I think he’s willing to take risks. He seems to be."

"I made Batman a superhero-vigilante when I first created him. Bill turned him into a scientific detective."

"I wanted to see and to show that transition when he goes from Bruce Wayne to Batman, the time when he's about to don the suit and go out and wreak some havoc. That's not a casual thing, obviously, it's not putting on a jacket to go out for the evening. So what is that transition like? So there was a thing we did early on that showed him going into a sort of trance and it justified this shift in him."

"This chapter offers a gay reading of Batman. It presents three reasons why Batman is especially interesting to gay audiences. Firstly, he was one of the first fictional characters to be attacked on the grounds of presumed homosexuality, by Fredric Wertham in his book Seduction of the Innocent. Secondly, the TV series from the 1960s was and remains a touchstone of camp. Thirdly, as a recurring hero figure for the last fifty years, Batman merits analysis as a notably successful construction of masculinity."

"Q: One of the things that led you to create Dark Knight Returns was a series of muggings. What happened?"

"I am sure there is probably a very good reason for the hundreds of thousands of adults who are flocking to see the latest adventures of Batman, but I for one am a little in the dark for what that reason is."

"He’s a rich man who beats up poor people. It’s quite a bizarre mission to go out at night dressed as a bat and punch the hell out of junkies. And then he goes home and lives in this mansion. There’s an aspirational quality to him—he’s an outlaw and he can buy anything. He has a new Batmobile every movie. He’s very plutonian in the sense that he’s wealthy and also in the sense that he’s sexually deviant. Gayness is built into Batman. I’m not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There’s just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he’s intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay. I think that’s why people like it. All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn’t care—he’s more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid."

"Creatively, it was ninety-eight percent Bill and one percent Bob, and the rest is in the ether. We don’t know. It was so much more Bill from the get-go, creatively. Bob Kane had financial advice that served him well. But as far as the major elements of Batman, the example I like to give – it’s probably even in the film, because I say it so much – if you just stop a random grandmother on the street and say, ‘Name something you know about Batman,’ first of all, she’ll know something. Everybody knows something. And whatever that person says will be a Bill Finger contribution. He was that pervasive in the creation of Batman."

"I don't like his other work; I think its shallow and badly written. I mean, I've got kids who like superheroes, and they think the Batman films are boring and pretentious. They like things like The Avengers and Iron Man because they're fun."

"It's a wrong move to take a superhero and give it psychological realism. There is no psychological realism. He's a bodybuilder who jumps off buildings. I'm sorry I feel really strongly about this."

"As Kane tells it, the pre-teen Bruce is out at night (circa 1924) with his parents when an armed mugger kills both of them. The orphaned lad, his hands clasped in prayer, his bedroom illuminated by a single candle, swears 'to avenge their deaths by spending the rest of my life warring on all criminals'. He 'becomes a master scientist' and 'trains his body to physical perfection' and, because 'criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot', chooses to become 'a creature of the night, black, terrible... a bat... the Batman'. From these two garishly printed pages, Nolan and Goyer have fashioned a whole movie."

"All superheroes are black sheep. But the Dark Knight has always been murkier than most. His superpowers are not an accident of birth, or of stumbling into the wrong lab at the wrong time. They're not powers at all, simply a simulation made possible by good fortune and the leisure that accompanies it. Bruce Wayne can splurge on the kit and cars to set himself up as a crime-fighting Christ substitute, plus power and glitter enough to hide his hobby. He's always been a curious idol: within aspiration because he's flesh and blood; beyond it because he's the lucky recipient of inherited wealth. So it should be no surprise that The Dark Knight Rises so firmly upholds the financial status quo. Christopher Nolan's film indulges in much guttural talk of the gap between the 99% and the 1%, but it is the former who are demonised, whose revolting actions require curbing and mutinous squeals muting. Your average Joe, it turns out, requires a benevolent, bad-ass billionaire to set him straight, to knock him sideways, if necessary."

"Superman: Next time they shine your light in the sky, don't go to it. The Bat is dead. Bury it. Consider this mercy."

"So we need a Batman and something that has been bouncing around in the back of my head, for decades probably, is a quote from Bob Kane. I remember reading where he said Batman is half Dracula and half Zorro, and that’s part of the appeal of Batman. That he’s dark and spooky-looking, and he’s got that badass costume and the bat imagery. So I always wanted to go all the way with it and actually make him a vampire. One episode of Batman: The Animated Series, back in the day twenty years ago, we actually wanted to turn Batman temporarily into a vampire but Fox Kids wasn't having any of that."

"The apartment was right off Gotham Drive, just inside the diamond-spine of the great city. The Batman watched from one rooftop away. Watched the light go off as the apartment dropped into darkness. Something he didn't understand pulled him magnetically to that spot. He knew who lived there—the incest offender who told Debra Kane how much he loved his little girl. But what was he doing... "No!" he said to himself. "I took an oath. The authorities already know about him. I can't just ...""

"Playing Batman is an actor's challenge. First it's different; then, you have to reach a multi-level audience. The kids take it straight, but for adults, we have to project it further ... When Batman was a comic it wasn't camp, but the show is. When I got the part, I tried to remember Batman as I knew him when I was a kid - with emotional recall."

"We're trying to create a folk hero ... when you play a legend, you have to play it with a straight direct line, direct speech and movement...Now Bruce, on the other hand, has to come across as the kindest, noblest, most charitable guy - again, "straight-line" - not Cary Grant charming - know what I mean?""

"Human psychology has two basic reactions to images of darkness and horror: the first is to be horrified, as if we saw a monster; the second is to be curious what it would be like to horrify, as if we were the monster. For those of us who are not particular fans of stories told from the point of view of vampires, that curiosity can be made palatable if the horrific monster preys only on the guilty. Bats are creepy—but there are creeps in the world who deserve to be scared. For them, there is the Batman."

"Looking at Superman psychologically means looking at modern mythology. He's the modern demigod myth. While there's something mythic about Batman too, to be sure, he's more akin to the mortal legends like Robin Hood and pulp heroes like Zorro and the Shadow, extraordinary men but men nonetheless."

"Where Superman drew his might from the Earth's sun, Batman found his in a city's darkness. Jerry and Joe played with the bright and impossible. Bob Kane and Bill Finger, in creating Batman, expanded the meme by adding the coin's other side, the dark and improbably possible."

"The Shadow archetype represents your own dark side, not necessarily your evil side but the part of you that is hidden, out of the light, the sum of those characteristics you conceal from both the world and yourself. Bruce Wayne confronts his own darkest nature early in life, chooses to work with it, and uses it to instill fear in others. His bright and dark sides work together to fight evil. From a Jungian perspective, therefore, Batman appeals to our own need to face and manage our own Shadow selves. We want Batman in our shadows."

"Because Batman is fully human and because a horrible trauma leads him to wear a mask and wage his war on crime, we can contemplate real psychological issues that drive people to do extreme things. Psychologists can examine how well he does or does not fit the symptoms of a variety of disorders. Nobody thinks it's weird for Superman to apply his natural gifts to help the members of this human race in a manner that keeps him above it all. When a guy runs around dressed like a bat, we have to wonder: Why the mask, the bat, and the underage partner? Why does he really wear a costume to fight crime? Why are his most intimate relationships with "bad girls" he ought to lock up? And why won't he kill that homicidal clown?"

""Bill and I discussed it," Kane recalled (Daniels, 1999, p. 31), "and we figured there's nothing more traumatic than having your parents murdered before your eyes." Losing one's parent or parents when old enough to know about it ranks as the single most stressful common life event children can experience (e.g., Monaghan, Robinson, & Dodge, 1979). Uncommon traumas like torture or terrorist attacks are not universal experiences, not things most of us can anticipate, but sooner or later we all learn that our parents can and will die."

"Why don’t children fear this hero who dresses like a monster? Because he’s their monster. He’s ours. Even when children learn that magic will not save them nor will a hero in blue fly out of the sky, so they develop more realistic hopes, they can still hope that when they can't find the strength to stand up to life's bullies, someone who is strong and capable might do the right thing and help. In Batman, they see the wounded boy who makes himself big and strong enough to turn fear against the fearsome. With both brain and brawn, he’s the part of us that wants to scare life’s bullies away."

"Lord Batman: Think about it - a world where there's no crimes. No victims. No pain."

"Bruce Wayne: Commissioner. What can I do for you?"

"Batman: Get a clue, clowny! He's got no sense of humor! He wouldn't know a good joke if it bit him in the cape."

"Superman: Do I look like Batman to you?"

"Wonder Woman: Circumstances asides, it was kind of... enjoyable being a kid again."

"Bruce: Look, sometimes I don't know what to think about this. It's just something I have to do."

"Carmine Falcone: You're taller than you look in the tabloids, Mr. Wayne. No gun? I'm insulted. You could've just sent a thank-you note."

"Commissioner Gordon: I don't know who he is beneath that mask of his, but I know when we need him, and we need him now!"

"Miss Kitka: If you please, to take off the mask to give the better picture?"

"Amanda Waller: Stop me if you've heard it before - you're eight years old. Your parents have just taken you to a rousing adventure film - a grand time is had by all. But unknown to you, a mysterious figure hides in the shadows. My plan was simple - the killer would leap out at you and kill your family. The trauma would put you on the path to becoming Batman. One problem - my assassin wouldn't pull the trigger. I argued with her, but deep down, I knew she was right. People say Batman's obsessive, that he'd do anything to achieve his goals - but he'd never resort to murder. So if I was to honor all he stood for, neither could I."

"Abed Nadir: I know I'm not Batman. You could try not being a jerk."

"Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture: We were robbed. No two ways about it."

"O'Neil's interpretation of Batman as a vengeful obsessive-compulsive, which he modestly describes as a return to the roots, was actually an act of creative imagination that has influenced every subsequent version of the Dark Knight."

": "Batman's rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure, this is a lighter incarnation, but is certainly no less valid and true to the character's roots then the tortured avenger, crying out for mommy and daddy." And besides, those Easter bunnies looked really scary, right?"

"I've always preferred Batman to Superman because Batman's stunts are at least theoretically possible. When he swings from the Playboy Building to the John Hancock Center, he uses a rope. Meanwhile, Superman is holding up toppling skyscrapers and stopping bullets with his teeth."

"Bob Kane...had an idea for a character called 'Batman', and he'd like me to see the drawings. I went over to Kane's, and he had drawn a character who looked very much like Superman with kind of ... reddish tights, I believe, with boots ... no gloves, no gauntlets ... with a small domino mask, swinging on a rope. He had two stiff wings that were sticking out, looking like bat wings. And under it was a big sign ... BATMAN."

"Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert Bruce, the Scottish patriot. Wayne, being a playboy, was a man of gentry. I searched for a name that would suggest colonialism. I tried Adams, Hancock ... then I thought of Mad Anthony Wayne."

"I knew many homosexuals but I certainly didn’t think of Batman in those terms. I thought of it in terms of … Frank Merriwell and Dick Merriwell, his half-brother, who was the kid he was taking care of. … In America we always talk about the Western hero and the pioneer kind of man—the Davy Crockett types—as being loners. They’re never really. They always have a sidekick. … Certainly there’s no homosexual relationship. It’s just part of the American syndrome. … It was just that the author realized that you’ve gotta have somebody to talk to. Sherlock Holmes had Watson—were they homosexuals? Baloney. You just can’t have your hero walking around thinking aloud all the time. He’d be ready for the men in white coats after a time. So we created a junior Watson and that’s all [Robin] was."

"Robin was an outgrowth of a conversation I had with Bob. As I said, Batman was a combination of Douglas Fairbanks and Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had his Watson. The thing that bothered me was that Batman didn't have anyone to talk to, and it got a little tiresome always having him thinking. I found that as I went along Batman needed a Watson to talk to. That's how Robin came to be. Bob called me over and said he was going to put a boy in the strip to identify with Batman. I thought it was a great idea."

"I think the reason he’s so iconic, is because of all the superheroes he’s the only one who has no superpowers at all. He’s just an ordinary person, but what he has is a super amount of passion. And a super sense of right and wrong, morality, and so he’s just an average guy – with a billion dollars – how transforms himself into this champion of pure good, there’s nothing in it for him, he gets nothing out of this except the knowledge that he’s healing the world. And its all because of what happened to him as a child, avenging what happened to, the murder of his parents, and his being left as an orphan. And he spends his life, instead of allowing life. You know life, I often say life throws nothing but curve balls, no matter what you do to prepare for life, its going to throw a curve ball, you’re going to constantly be switching from this to that and if you let it, it can make you bitter, it can make you angry, it can make you hostile. Bruce Wayne doesn’t allow that to happen. Life throws him this huge curve ball as a child, and he takes it and he turns it into something good, and that’s why audiences love him so much. People relate to him because every-one has had dark nights of the soul, we all do, people with the most charmed lives have had dark periods. So everyone relates to the darkness that Bruce Wayne goes through, and what they admire about him is his ability to overcome it, and to turn it into something good. And I think that makes him the most incredible character for me, to play, and for audiences to enjoy."

"Batman in comics"

"Live action television, featuring and"

"Animated television by Filmation"

"Animated television revival"