At some point as a teen I either fell down a minorly mentally scarring Wikipedia tunnel or insomnia led me to odd documentaries with the same end result, and I learnt that most people’s hang to one side or the other and one of the functions of Prince Albert piercings was/is to control this for aesthetic reasons.
Delicious Taffy
If someone with that sort of piercing “uses the back door”, is does that count as Prince Albert in a Can?
On the one hand Joe’s right, platitude-dispensing rectum or no.
On the other hand, we know from experience that Amber’s way of coping with things can result in one becoming a superhero. Sure, Becky would appreciate some sympathy from Joyce, but I’m sure she’d also appreciate being Batman. Everyone wants to be Batman, and she’s already got dead parents so she’s ahead of the game.
I mean, Batman is not a very healthy person and nothing he does will actually achieve any meaningful long-term consequences (unless he does something that creates another supervillain; those usually stick around).
Being Batman is suffering and it’s the last thing anyone should aspire to.
Only if you’re a crappy writer or a member of DC Editorial who doesn’t want superheroes to have happy, fulfilling personal lives.
Serious answer though, Batman’s money is the only reason social services in Gotham haven’t totally collapsed and he does employ a good chunk of the city, and makes a habit of hiring ex-cons so they don’t need to continue a life of crime.
He Who Abides
And yet he never gets around to throwing that money at the nightmare factory that seems to exist solely to make his enemies (a fair chunk he’s either made himself or inspired) into worse people. Granted, I’ve long believed that he doesn’t dedicate resources to helping his Rogues become functioning members of society because without them, he has to confront his own demons, but still . . .
Wagstaff
That’s a very good point there.
I mean, in Spongebob Squarepants, Plankton is traditionally seen as the villian, but in recent years people have been reckoning that it’s actually Mr. Krabs who’s the real villian.
There’s no reason to suspect that Batman isn’t subject to the same kind of scrutiny.
Regalli
He donates to Arkham, even, at least in some continuities.
Unfortunately, the place is cursed by a cosmic force maintaining the status quo. Or just cursed in general. Gotham clearly attracts some distinct weirdness given Bruce is actually the SECOND instance of Old Money Scion Theming Self After A Nocturnal Winged Animal in Gotham, and that’s counting the entire Court of Owls as one instance. (‘Bruce is accidentally the world’s biggest wrench in the plans of a secret society who built Gotham with all these secret passages and convenient gargoyles to hide their agents’ is one of those storylines that shouldn’t make nearly as much sense as it does.)
Wagstaff
I’m betting it’s along the lines of this trope common among super rich guys with super technology:
That, and Gotham being as weird as it is and it being the DC universe, I would actually buy ‘the city is literally, actively cursed by one of the many supernatural entities in the universe’ as a reason. An evil Superman from an alternate universe could show up, kill the Batfamily’s entire collective rogues gallery, and then promptly vworp out of reality again, and within days there’d be a whole NEW cast of people with oddly thematic neuroses to deal with. (And the Joker, unkillable murderclown that he is, would probably just show up three days later with some handwave about the Lazarus Pits or something.)
khn0
I see no other explication. I mean, outside of all this money spend, the rate of crime should have made mots people move (except those who can’t, sure, but that would mean at least way fewer socializing events for millionaires). Also there is no way that in that situation the Wayne Industries wouldn’t see massive strike movements whatever the salary is.
Tgape
No. I can categorically state that Gotham is *not* cursed by *one* of the many supernatural entities in the universe.
At last count, Gotham was cursed by at *least* **FIVE* of the many major supernatural entities in the universe.
Please note that I only say five, because my brother gave me four reasons why I should attend his wedding in Gotham, and I therefore only felt I needed to find five reasons to not go. So after I got to five, I stopped looking. It didn’t take me long to get to five. There’s probably more.
Delicious Taffy
Yeah, “Batman’s methods don’t/can’t help” is like the least interesting way to write about him. Crime and supervillainy being inevitable don’t negate the good stuff he actually does do, and taking that good away for the sake of drama is just flat-out lazy. Yeah, he’s an unstable weirdo who could do a whole hell of a lot more with his seemingly-infinite money and incredible tech, but like… It’s a weird city.
thejeff
It’s a reaction to the meta nature of serial storytelling anyway. Batman can’t help because if he did, then over the 90 years of Batman comics, he shouldn’t still be in a corrupt city fighting an ever increasing number of supervillains. There’s no intent inherent to this or any deep point about rich people or the nature of crime or anything. It’s just an inherent result of writing decades worth of stories about a guy fighting crime.
All the takes about Gotham being cursed or Batman really causing the problems or how he really should spend his money on social programs are just attempts to justify what starts to look weird if you think too deeply about super hero tropes.
It’s essentially true for all super heroes anyway. They may not all have money, but they all generate rogue’s galleries and far more trouble than seems reasonable. Often their superpowers would be far more use doing other things than fighting crime or even than fighting world conquerors. But super hero comics are adventure stories.
Regalli
Oh, yeah. It’s the nature of Big Two superhero comics in play – keeping everything in continuity means Batman’s probably been fighting crime for decades, except he isn’t allowed to age really, and Gotham’s still full of costumed assholes. (My first bit about a cosmic force enforcing the status quo was meant to be a dig at editorial.) Over at Marvel, the X-Men have terraformed and colonized Mars, and everyone’s like ‘we have no idea how they’re going to eventually reset back to the school in New England, but it’s gonna be weird when they do.’
thejeff
Or what some lousy writer will do with it a decade from now.
Yeah, that’s my biggest problem with the current big X-Men arc. It changes everything and it’s cool and all, but it’s not sustainable.
It’s a good thing really, as frustrating as it can be. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be reading comics if they’d headed off into exploring the realistic consequences of super powers, super tech, aliens and magic, moving their worlds further and further from anything recognizable as our society, starting decades before I was born.
Tgape
IMHO, I feel like saying this isn’t sustainable because they left the Xavier school for the gifted in the dust is more of a problem than the X-men colonizing and terraforming Mars. Stories *should* be able to change things. The fact that Marvel and DC have not been allowing it is a problem.
deliverything
Marvel, at least, already has multiple universes, so they have an excuse to have it both ways if they choose to. They could easily have some realities that maintain the crime-punching status quo and others that explore how superpowers could change and improve society.
On the other hand, the suspension of disbelief many people need to enjoy the crime-punching might be more strained when other comics show how much better things could be if the superheroes had sense.
thejeff
The story where that happens can be cool, but remember if that was the way the genre worked, they would have done that back in the 60s and we’d have been off in some incomprehensible alternate world for my whole comic reading lifetime.
And that’s ignoring the DC side, where everything changed when Superman stopped WWII.
They can tell alternate history stories – and they do, but the main line is always going to be our world, like it is today with Superheroes, because that’s the genre. The gonzo science fantasy alien world that we’d like to think real superheroes would lead to isn’t something with the same appeal.
Nor for that matter is the horrific dystopia that random people getting superpowers and billionaires having supertech would far more likely be – even if the Boys had a good run.
Tgape
Oh, Batman’s certainly allowed to age – but only if he ages enough in one go to need immediate replacing, and only when they want to put in a particular replacement.
thejeff
I know Cap’s done that, but I don’t recall a Bat replacement with that as the reason. He can do it for an alternate future of course.
Thag Simmons
The vast majority of Batman stories portray Batman as pretty miserable on a personal level, even the good ones.
DrunkenNordmann
Heck, Animated Series’ Batman – arguably one of the most popular incarnations of the character around – ended up as a bitter old man estranged from his friends and family in Batman Beyond.
BBCC
The best Batman stories, imo, are the ones with a robust Batfamily where Bruce is by no means perfect but clearly does care about them and enjoy their company and where he is friends with other heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman.
I am Nothing
Huh, unless these iterations are handled comically, I tend to have the opposite opinion.
Personally, I prefer Batman iterations where nobody has superpowers (sure, the villains have superpower-esque technology). I mean, I feel like Batman’s role as a hero is incredibly undermined when you have bunch of other people who can do a much better job than him and in much faster time.
Then again, I’m not too big into superhero films in general, and I can’t really take superheros such as Superman and Wonder Woman seriously as I tend to feel they’re out-of-place in grittier scenarios.
Wagstaff
What about series like My Hero Academia?
I am Nothing
Ah, I’ve never watched that one, but I have heard of it.
I really don’t mind superheroes so much as long as it’s aware of how ridiculous it is. For example, something like the Incredibles works for me, as it plays around with the core idea of Superheroes.
Wagstaff
Well My Hero Academia solves the problem by having 80% of everyone having at LEAST some kind of superpower, to the point to which laws pretty much HAD to be rewritten with them in mind.
Oh and also, The Incredibles is my absolute favorite!!!
Edna Mode is just so wonderful!!! And the Omnidroid fight was EPIC!
Demoted Oblivious
Ooh my back!
BBCC
YMMV. It’s more about the relationships for me. If you’d rather not throw in superpowers heroes, he can always be friends with Jim Gordon, Batwoman, Lucius Fox, etc.
Spencer
Yeah.
Batman needs some gothic creepiness and angst to his character, but being a broody miseryguts who’s always miserable, but miserable in really cool and badass ways, that sucks.
Well yeah but he had to suffer and fail in preparation for Batman Beyond, where Terry inspires him to pick himself back up and take his company back.
It was just a lot nicer before we found out the root of Batman’s suffering and isolation from the family was that he fucked his son’s girlfriend and got her preggers.
Batman has the advantage of being rich though. While don’t know how much money Becky’s parents had, somehow I doubt her family’s wealth is anywhere near Batman levels of rich.
233 thoughts on “Recognizes”
Ana Chronistic
even a broken cock is right twice a day
…wait no
Yumi
Why was this painful to read when I don’t even have a cock
DrunkenNordmann
Because you recognise that anything happening to that particular area (regardless of specifics) tends to be painful?
Yumi
I mean
ANYTHING?
a/snow/mous/e
pain, pleasure…
Wagstaff
Not unless you’re into masochism.
Delicious Taffy
Yes. Especially that.
DrunkenNordmann
“Anything happening to an area” usually implies something bad happening.
Otherwise the phrase would be more specific.
Yumi
You seem determined to be serious. I’ll leave you to it.
DrunkenNordmann
Nah, I’m trying to be comically serious.
Shen Hibiki
Well, try harder!
I am Nothing
Oh ho, this one time…
foducool
at band camp?
Yotomoe
I mean I’m sure Joe’s does hang a bit to the right.
Miri
At some point as a teen I either fell down a minorly mentally scarring Wikipedia tunnel or insomnia led me to odd documentaries with the same end result, and I learnt that most people’s hang to one side or the other and one of the functions of Prince Albert piercings was/is to control this for aesthetic reasons.
Delicious Taffy
If someone with that sort of piercing “uses the back door”, is does that count as Prince Albert in a Can?
Tsa
Well, you better go catch it!
…wait no hold on
Delicious Taffy
lol epic
He Who Abides
Thanks for that, Ana. I’ll not be sleeping tonight.
Keulen
That sounds painful.
RowenMorland
Only ever ask a cock for it’s wisdom twice in 24 hours? Got it.
Despite Rage
I think we’ve covered this…
Ask it what you should do, then do the opposite
Except twice a day apparently
Doctor_Who
On the one hand Joe’s right, platitude-dispensing rectum or no.
On the other hand, we know from experience that Amber’s way of coping with things can result in one becoming a superhero. Sure, Becky would appreciate some sympathy from Joyce, but I’m sure she’d also appreciate being Batman. Everyone wants to be Batman, and she’s already got dead parents so she’s ahead of the game.
Don’t be selfish, Joyce. Do it for BatBecky.
StClair
Both of my parents are about ten years gone. Not Batman.
Leorale
Not batman… YET.
(Sorry about your parents tho.)
I am Nothing
I thought Sal was Batman?
Needfuldoer
No, she just wishes hers were gone.
(I expect she’ll go low- or no-contact with them after college. She’ll probably be there for her brother, though.)
Jamie
You might be missing a multinational billion-dollar family company with a massive R&D department and incompetent accountants.
Miri
And Albert. He always seems like a very nice, supportive surrogate parent butler…
Opus the Poet
Mandela moment, the butler has always been Alfred in this universe.
In the Dumbiverse Carla is closest to being Batman, except her parents are still living and she doesn’t have a butler.
Geneseepaws
Doesn’t have a butler. That we Know of,…. !!
Azhrei Vep
She doesn’t have a butler that we know of, yet.
Geneseepaws
Made me laugh, So Hard!
Well done.
thejeff
Never assume a woman doesn’t have butlers at her disposal!
Clif
She might have an Albert in her can.
Albert is unarguably a prince.
Tho certainly not Becky specifically.
DrunkenNordmann
I mean, Batman is not a very healthy person and nothing he does will actually achieve any meaningful long-term consequences (unless he does something that creates another supervillain; those usually stick around).
Being Batman is suffering and it’s the last thing anyone should aspire to.
Doctor_Who
Yeah, but chicks dig the car.
Miri
I want the utility belt.
Wagstaff
How can we create a more sane society,
when we keep supporting systems that reward sickness?
Tgape
Restricting utility belts to sick people rewards sickness. Give utility belts to the masses, and end this madness.
Clif
What do you have against sickness? Some of my best friends have been sick.
BBCC
“Being Batman is suffering”
Only if you’re a crappy writer or a member of DC Editorial who doesn’t want superheroes to have happy, fulfilling personal lives.
Serious answer though, Batman’s money is the only reason social services in Gotham haven’t totally collapsed and he does employ a good chunk of the city, and makes a habit of hiring ex-cons so they don’t need to continue a life of crime.
He Who Abides
And yet he never gets around to throwing that money at the nightmare factory that seems to exist solely to make his enemies (a fair chunk he’s either made himself or inspired) into worse people. Granted, I’ve long believed that he doesn’t dedicate resources to helping his Rogues become functioning members of society because without them, he has to confront his own demons, but still . . .
Wagstaff
That’s a very good point there.
I mean, in Spongebob Squarepants, Plankton is traditionally seen as the villian, but in recent years people have been reckoning that it’s actually Mr. Krabs who’s the real villian.
There’s no reason to suspect that Batman isn’t subject to the same kind of scrutiny.
Regalli
He donates to Arkham, even, at least in some continuities.
Unfortunately, the place is cursed by a cosmic force maintaining the status quo. Or just cursed in general. Gotham clearly attracts some distinct weirdness given Bruce is actually the SECOND instance of Old Money Scion Theming Self After A Nocturnal Winged Animal in Gotham, and that’s counting the entire Court of Owls as one instance. (‘Bruce is accidentally the world’s biggest wrench in the plans of a secret society who built Gotham with all these secret passages and convenient gargoyles to hide their agents’ is one of those storylines that shouldn’t make nearly as much sense as it does.)
Wagstaff
I’m betting it’s along the lines of this trope common among super rich guys with super technology:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless
Regalli
That, and Gotham being as weird as it is and it being the DC universe, I would actually buy ‘the city is literally, actively cursed by one of the many supernatural entities in the universe’ as a reason. An evil Superman from an alternate universe could show up, kill the Batfamily’s entire collective rogues gallery, and then promptly vworp out of reality again, and within days there’d be a whole NEW cast of people with oddly thematic neuroses to deal with. (And the Joker, unkillable murderclown that he is, would probably just show up three days later with some handwave about the Lazarus Pits or something.)
khn0
I see no other explication. I mean, outside of all this money spend, the rate of crime should have made mots people move (except those who can’t, sure, but that would mean at least way fewer socializing events for millionaires). Also there is no way that in that situation the Wayne Industries wouldn’t see massive strike movements whatever the salary is.
Tgape
No. I can categorically state that Gotham is *not* cursed by *one* of the many supernatural entities in the universe.
At last count, Gotham was cursed by at *least* **FIVE* of the many major supernatural entities in the universe.
Please note that I only say five, because my brother gave me four reasons why I should attend his wedding in Gotham, and I therefore only felt I needed to find five reasons to not go. So after I got to five, I stopped looking. It didn’t take me long to get to five. There’s probably more.
Delicious Taffy
Yeah, “Batman’s methods don’t/can’t help” is like the least interesting way to write about him. Crime and supervillainy being inevitable don’t negate the good stuff he actually does do, and taking that good away for the sake of drama is just flat-out lazy. Yeah, he’s an unstable weirdo who could do a whole hell of a lot more with his seemingly-infinite money and incredible tech, but like… It’s a weird city.
thejeff
It’s a reaction to the meta nature of serial storytelling anyway. Batman can’t help because if he did, then over the 90 years of Batman comics, he shouldn’t still be in a corrupt city fighting an ever increasing number of supervillains. There’s no intent inherent to this or any deep point about rich people or the nature of crime or anything. It’s just an inherent result of writing decades worth of stories about a guy fighting crime.
All the takes about Gotham being cursed or Batman really causing the problems or how he really should spend his money on social programs are just attempts to justify what starts to look weird if you think too deeply about super hero tropes.
It’s essentially true for all super heroes anyway. They may not all have money, but they all generate rogue’s galleries and far more trouble than seems reasonable. Often their superpowers would be far more use doing other things than fighting crime or even than fighting world conquerors. But super hero comics are adventure stories.
Regalli
Oh, yeah. It’s the nature of Big Two superhero comics in play – keeping everything in continuity means Batman’s probably been fighting crime for decades, except he isn’t allowed to age really, and Gotham’s still full of costumed assholes. (My first bit about a cosmic force enforcing the status quo was meant to be a dig at editorial.) Over at Marvel, the X-Men have terraformed and colonized Mars, and everyone’s like ‘we have no idea how they’re going to eventually reset back to the school in New England, but it’s gonna be weird when they do.’
thejeff
Or what some lousy writer will do with it a decade from now.
Yeah, that’s my biggest problem with the current big X-Men arc. It changes everything and it’s cool and all, but it’s not sustainable.
It’s a good thing really, as frustrating as it can be. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be reading comics if they’d headed off into exploring the realistic consequences of super powers, super tech, aliens and magic, moving their worlds further and further from anything recognizable as our society, starting decades before I was born.
Tgape
IMHO, I feel like saying this isn’t sustainable because they left the Xavier school for the gifted in the dust is more of a problem than the X-men colonizing and terraforming Mars. Stories *should* be able to change things. The fact that Marvel and DC have not been allowing it is a problem.
deliverything
Marvel, at least, already has multiple universes, so they have an excuse to have it both ways if they choose to. They could easily have some realities that maintain the crime-punching status quo and others that explore how superpowers could change and improve society.
On the other hand, the suspension of disbelief many people need to enjoy the crime-punching might be more strained when other comics show how much better things could be if the superheroes had sense.
thejeff
The story where that happens can be cool, but remember if that was the way the genre worked, they would have done that back in the 60s and we’d have been off in some incomprehensible alternate world for my whole comic reading lifetime.
And that’s ignoring the DC side, where everything changed when Superman stopped WWII.
They can tell alternate history stories – and they do, but the main line is always going to be our world, like it is today with Superheroes, because that’s the genre. The gonzo science fantasy alien world that we’d like to think real superheroes would lead to isn’t something with the same appeal.
Nor for that matter is the horrific dystopia that random people getting superpowers and billionaires having supertech would far more likely be – even if the Boys had a good run.
Tgape
Oh, Batman’s certainly allowed to age – but only if he ages enough in one go to need immediate replacing, and only when they want to put in a particular replacement.
thejeff
I know Cap’s done that, but I don’t recall a Bat replacement with that as the reason. He can do it for an alternate future of course.
Thag Simmons
The vast majority of Batman stories portray Batman as pretty miserable on a personal level, even the good ones.
DrunkenNordmann
Heck, Animated Series’ Batman – arguably one of the most popular incarnations of the character around – ended up as a bitter old man estranged from his friends and family in Batman Beyond.
BBCC
The best Batman stories, imo, are the ones with a robust Batfamily where Bruce is by no means perfect but clearly does care about them and enjoy their company and where he is friends with other heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman.
I am Nothing
Huh, unless these iterations are handled comically, I tend to have the opposite opinion.
Personally, I prefer Batman iterations where nobody has superpowers (sure, the villains have superpower-esque technology). I mean, I feel like Batman’s role as a hero is incredibly undermined when you have bunch of other people who can do a much better job than him and in much faster time.
Then again, I’m not too big into superhero films in general, and I can’t really take superheros such as Superman and Wonder Woman seriously as I tend to feel they’re out-of-place in grittier scenarios.
Wagstaff
What about series like My Hero Academia?
I am Nothing
Ah, I’ve never watched that one, but I have heard of it.
I really don’t mind superheroes so much as long as it’s aware of how ridiculous it is. For example, something like the Incredibles works for me, as it plays around with the core idea of Superheroes.
Wagstaff
Well My Hero Academia solves the problem by having 80% of everyone having at LEAST some kind of superpower, to the point to which laws pretty much HAD to be rewritten with them in mind.
Oh and also, The Incredibles is my absolute favorite!!!
Edna Mode is just so wonderful!!! And the Omnidroid fight was EPIC!
Demoted Oblivious
Ooh my back!
BBCC
YMMV. It’s more about the relationships for me. If you’d rather not throw in superpowers heroes, he can always be friends with Jim Gordon, Batwoman, Lucius Fox, etc.
Spencer
Yeah.
Batman needs some gothic creepiness and angst to his character, but being a broody miseryguts who’s always miserable, but miserable in really cool and badass ways, that sucks.
Clif
Sal is basically Batman.
Spencer
Well yeah but he had to suffer and fail in preparation for Batman Beyond, where Terry inspires him to pick himself back up and take his company back.
It was just a lot nicer before we found out the root of Batman’s suffering and isolation from the family was that he fucked his son’s girlfriend and got her preggers.
Thag Simmons
Does Batman seem like a particularly happy person to you?
Matthew Davis
Please. She has red hair and is a lesbian.
She’s a suit away from being Batwoman already.
Demoted Oblivious
Batman’s a douchebag.
Amber however, is a gamer, so maybe she’s playing the scenario out to win by getting her peace back.
Keulen
Batman has the advantage of being rich though. While don’t know how much money Becky’s parents had, somehow I doubt her family’s wealth is anywhere near Batman levels of rich.
Thag Simmons
I mean generally if it’s good to leave something alone you wouldn’t call it ‘festering’
Wagstaff