POP CULTURE
DC Will Ruin Their Best Seller
If they keep selling more of it…
Batman and the Joker, two of the most iconic characters from the DC publications. Representing two fundamentally opposite forces: order and chaos, the two have only thrived over their eight decade long history. And while their popularity skyrocketed in the recent years following their multiple onscreen adaptations, it appears they are soon going to burn out if DC continues the path it has set these characters upon.
While everyone loves to see some big epic battles, every now and then, it becomes tiring if they become repetitive. The same is happening between the Batman and the Joker. The two characters, over the recent years are, have fought each other like it is definitely the end of times, but every time, inevitably, they do find a way back only to go at it again.
During the New 52 era, between 2014 and 2016 alone we received not one but two wars between the aforementioned characters. The first happened during the events of Death of the Family, when the Joker believed Batman was being held back by his family, and decided to kill them all, his grand schemes only to be foiled by Batman towards the conclusion of the story-arc. The second battle came to be known as Endgame, teased as the final battle between the two forces. Now, I loved Scott Snyder’s Endgame, in fact his entire Batman run, but especially Endgame, for how fitting a conclusion it would had been to the story of the Batman. As I read the last pages of the book, I froze at my seat. It took me several minutes to absorb the events that had come to pass: it was the end of Batman. It was a tragedy, the final HA.
Only It Wasn’t
Like every other event before, like every other writer before him, Snyder left the story on a cliffhanger, leaving Bruce’s death presumed, they were able to bring him back for the next set of stories and eventually the Joker too finds a way back. And that lead us to the Joker War Saga: a yet another ultimate battle between the Batman and the Joker, yet again left at a cliffhanger, with yet another return of the Joker.
The problem is, when you keep repeating the same stuff, over and over again, the stakes no more are real, the story stops mattering. And with each big event centered around Batman, the story has become kind of generic, a villain takes control over Gotham, and Batman has to secretly work his way through the city, fighting the minions, to reach to the big baddy and defeat him. You put the Riddler into this mix, you get Zero Year. Swap him with the Joker, you get Endgame and Joker War, speak of Bane and you have the City of Bane arc, you get the idea.
More Batman than Joker
And the more you think about it, you realize that it is more of a Batman problem, Than a Batman vs. Joker problem. DC is overly relying on the Bat Family comics. So much so that out of the 20+ active series published by DC in 2022, eleven are Bat-centric. The same can also be said for ten out of the 25 limited series of comics this year.
Even on the big screen, Batman has just received his 3rd reboot, with Robert Pattinson under the cowl. The upcoming Flash movie stars not one but two Batmen, Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton, at this rate it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Bale also decides to show up in some scene.
And all of this is coming at the cost of other great stories that do not get to the print, because we are all going crazy over Batman. Just think about Catwoman. How many books have we seen with her being the protagonist? Apart from the regular ongoing series, there are not 9 books I can think of. Out of which only 3 can be termed recent. The same goes for most of the other heroes and villains under the DC umbrella. They have little to no life, until needed in a big crossover event. Things do seem to change as we usher into The Infinite Frontier, but so far the efforts seem to be only half-hearted.
DC has tons of amazing characters, each having infinite potential to get as much popular as the current tentpoles, each having their own unique stories to bring to the readers, the only thing DC needs is to give them a shot, lest it’s most beloved should start losing it’s fanbase.
Sometimes, by seeing less of one, it allows us to see more of all of them- MatPat, The Film Theorists
