This is the first part of Matt Wagner’s Dark Moon Rising Trilogy, in which he reworks three Golden Age stories into modern Batman continuity. We see Batman fight the menace of Huge Strange, a mad scientist who tries to fix the human genome but ends up creating- what else!- monster men. It’s great pulpy fun and I highly recommend it.
But that’s not what I want to talk about.
In this story, Bruce Wayne gets some.
‘Bout time.
There’s been this myth for some time that Bruce Wayne, and his Marvel millionaire counterpart Tony Stark, are international playboys, boozing all night, in and out of bed with all sorts of hotties across the globe. But that’s simply not so. Instead, both men drink ginger ale and have the occasional steady girlfriend. It’s no wonder Batman was a target of Dr. Wertham; he spends more time with Robin than with the opposite sex. Tony Stark’s worse; he wears his alcoholism on his sleeve, and I can’t recall him ever being in a successful relationship.
Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are not playboys. George Clooney is a playboy. In the latest issue of Vanity Fair, he says, "Here is my theory on debunking photographs in magazines, you know, the paparazzi photographs. I want to spend every single night for three months going out with a different famous actress. You know, Halle Berry one night, Salma Hayek the next, and then walk on the beach holding hands with Leonardo DiCaprio. People would still buy the magazines, they’d still buy the pictures, but they would always go, ‘I don’t know if these guys were putting us on or not."
See, that’s a playboy. If we’re supposed to believe that Bruce and Tony live the life, then we need to see a little bit of it. I’m not talking about scenes where Tony’s slipped into the bottle again; I’m talking about seeing Bruce start the night in Paris dancing with Paris, and ending the night in New York dancing with Lindsey. (I’m sure he has something in his utility belt that would protect him from whatever virulent disease he’d get from either encounter.) Alfred should be cooking breakfast for the gaggle of gals that spent the night (not that the tramps actually eat human food, but you know what I’m saying). Bruce Wayne should be the first story in the Gotham equivalent of Page Six, not moodily brooding about the crime scene in Gotham. I realize this view may not play with Time Warner’s licensing department, but I thought I’d share anyway.
Perhaps Ray should wait
to blog for a while after
reading gossip blogs…