Bruce Timm Steps Down from WB Animation

[JME2]

But does Timm have any experience working on live action films?

No. But considering his long experience with adapting the DC characters for a non-comics audience, he would be invaluable to any attempts to develop a DC Cinematic Universe.

[Havok]

Maybe WB has wisened up and put him in charge of the DC movies.

That seems to kind of be Christopher Nolan's job now.

And while he did great for Batman, he did the one thing you don't do with a franchise character, he made him finite. Nolan's success came from making sure Batman was going to "die".

Timm also knows how to manage the entire stable of DC heroes. The biggest change he would have to get used to is film actors as opposed to voice actors. I trust his vision to manage the DC Universe more than Nolan's. If it was just one character, sure Nolan is probably the smart choice, but remember, he didn't even want to do this at one point.

[Batman]

We'll have to see how he does with 'Man of Steel' (I still hate the costume as presented so far but we all know how that worked out for the Nolan 'me' movies ) but I have to agree that the Nolan Trilogy approach doesn't work for the general DCU. The Batman trilogy was grimdark even for me (and that's pretty damned grimdark) and I don't know enough about Nolan's work (in fact I can't tell if I have ever seen any of his other movies at all) to say whether or not he can handle the rest of the DCU, but the Bat trilogy is no way to handle the DCU at large. I mean seriously. A grimdark Wally West? Bruce Timm had to kill Wally to make the Justice Lords come to pass.
Nolan is great at me, and may be great at a lot of other things, but his me approach doesn't work for most of the rest of my world.
Bruce Timm, on the other hand, may not no beans about life action but he does know the DCU (for the time being I'm inclined to say a lot better than the complete and utter morons currently unfortunately in charge of it some other people I could mention, so if nothing else his input should come in handy.

[Darth Yan]

Timm did a good job at making Superman more than some boyscout. HE felt like a human being with personality flaws and fallibility just like everyone else

[The Romulan Republic]

We'll have to see how he does with 'Man of Steel' (I still hate the costume as presented so far but we all know how that worked out for the Nolan 'me' movies ) but I have to agree that the Nolan Trilogy approach doesn't work for the general DCU. The Batman trilogy was grimdark even for me (and that's pretty damned grimdark) and I don't know enough about Nolan's work (in fact I can't tell if I have ever seen any of his other movies at all) to say whether or not he can handle the rest of the DCU, but the Bat trilogy is no way to handle the DCU at large. I mean seriously. A grimdark Wally West? Bruce Timm had to kill Wally to make the Justice Lords come to pass.
Nolan is great at me, and may be great at a lot of other things, but his me approach doesn't work for most of the rest of my world.
Bruce Timm, on the other hand, may not no beans about life action but he does know the DCU (for the time being I'm inclined to say a lot better than the complete and utter morons currently unfortunately in charge of it some other people I could mention, so if nothing else his input should come in handy.

I don't think Nolan's Batman films are that dark. The people on the ferries (even the convicts) at the end of The Dark Knight not blowing up the other boat and Batman getting to retire and live with Selina are the most obvious examples of the lighter side of those films.

[Gandalf]

Think of them in their context. When it was released, the Burton films were considered way dark because the only real precedent for film Batman was Dozier's work. Now after Nolan, the Burton films are looked upon the same way people look at the Dozier stuff.

Give it a decade or two, and a new grimrealdark Batman will come along that makes Nolan's films a piece of 00's nostalgia.

[JME2]

Timm did a good job at making Superman more than some boyscout. HE felt like a human being with personality flaws and fallibility just like everyone else

And not an easy task given that Supes is one of the most difficult DC characters to adapt.

[Batman]

Could you elaborate, please? Way I see it Clark had personality faults and fallibility enough in the comics, the main problem with adapting him (which isn't really a problem with adapting so much as using him in the first place) is the guy is so ludicrously powerful that the only way to tell an interesting story with him in it means either world-shattering catastrophe level threat, turning him into a complete and utter moron, or making it a story where his powers aren't any help, which certainly works but begs the question of why bother using Clark to begin with?

[RogueIce]

or making it a story where his powers aren't any help, which certainly works but begs the question of why bother using Clark to begin with?

You never know when you might need to have somebody look stupid by doing a handstand and call it "moving the Earth into its proper orbit".

[Batman]

That was Kara (Silver Age Kara, to boot), not Clark.

[Covenant]

To me, Superman would be the one easiest to do a movie or a one-off thing about, because the stories he's suitable for are the ones that have the least to do with comprehending silly plots or accepting that men in rubber suits are wire-fighting to save the city.

The thing most people think make him hard to understand or write for are, to me, the biggest assets. He's superpowered, sure, but that just means that I don't need to worry about "power" in the story. Superman isn't really a power fantasy the way Batman is, because the acquisition of power is so far outside the importance of his narrative. It's more a story about responsibility and trying to be a good person, and that's a story that you can really easily tell in a movie, or even a chain of movies. It's a really, really human story, just writ large. Superman always seemed fatherly to me, and the older I get the more I understand how terrifying it would be to have all of these powers, and how paralyzing it would be to know you could always be doing something to save someone. How long can you go? How much can you do at a time? Does Superman get a good night's sleep ever, or is it always haunted by the faces of the people he didn't save?

He works at a news agency, so it isn't as if he's going to be able to avoid that. He's going to see the same things I saw when I worked in television, he'll see the massaging of facts and the creation of stories. He'll know how many people are starving to death or being mutilated for tribal differences, but won't he also struggle with the question of if its right to get involved? He's not just a foreign guy afterall, he's an alien. He can help, but can he enforce? Can he do more than stop the violence just for a moment? What can he do? What SHOULD he do? If we could have a Superman, what would we WANT him to do?

These kinds of stories are deeply impactful to me. I really think Superman has the chance to talk about the value of a single person trying to do the right thing, and make stories that really challenge people. This is why I never blink at the "...and the American Way" part of his tagline, and the worse America behaves on the world stage the more relevant I think it is. In another thread elsewhere America was called a bully and the King of the Hill, and these things (being true) both stem from power. Superman himself is so powerful that he's pretty much the King of the Hill as well, so it would be natural in his world for him to be blamed for a lot of stuff, right or not, or at least blamed for not doing more when he's not involved. And when he uses too much force, or is too callous, or isn't culturally sensitive, he's a bully--or at least is called one. While this isn't the kind of story I see a lot of people clamoring, I think it would be really interesting, and, I don't know, maybe I'm just rambling now.

I just think of all the heroes he's the only one where I can focus on the metaphor and worry less about if he's got enough Kung Fu training to take down the other guy. He's a titan, a demigod, a massive testament to a philosophy and seeing him carry that weight on his shoulders is exciting to me. It makes me want to help out and be a better person, whereas Batman just makes me kinda sad. He's one of the few guys who I don't think ever needs to fight dirty to win, which makes him an optimistic hero. He may kinda flatten all the other villains of the DC realm, but I'm fine with that. The few times Superman is fighting toe to toe with someone else it shouldn't be a battle between two dudes over who is stronger, but more of a visual metaphor for the struggle of two ideologies.

But I don't really read comics, I just have a few that I read with my Dad, who is an old Superman fan, so maybe I'm missing something.

[Batman]

Yeah, right, what? Clark isn't a power fantasy but I am? Clark-can casually push planets around, Saturn lost a moon when Luthor was elected POTUS, he literally sunbathes when he feels he needs a power-up.
Me? I get routinely injured by street thugs (apparently I'm too friggin stupid to wear the armoured suits on a regular basis). Can I please get an official definition of 'power fantasy' here?

[Covenant]

Lemme clarify that I'm not making it out as a disparaging term, because there's a ton of things I'd classify the same way that I have a ton of fun with. The power fantasy version of Superman seems to be Captain Marvel, who is just a normal kid and then says Shazam and blammo, now he's a big strong adult with magic powers and everyone likes him and he can punch badguys and so on. The times I've seen Wonder Woman depicted she acts like a bit of an angry loose cannon, so she's a bit of a power fantasy too.

I'm defining power fantasy setting as one where the main character acts in a way that you can vicariously imagine yourself acting, and with the degree of power fantasy increasing with the degree of power it grants and the fewer the restrictions you have. The ultimate power fantasy is probably something like Captain Marvel, where someone normal finds a thing (or is miraculously chosen because they are special) which gives them immense powers, does not consume their "real" life or take away the "real" world, and there are relatively few new restrictions put on their behavior (or some are removed, such as being able to rip mountains apart to stop volcanoes, or throw cars at bad guys).

So the classic examples of little kids being chosen for magical destinies, something like Star Wars or Harry Potter, fit the situation but usually leave the realm of power fantasy as soon as the situation gets serious. Heroes start off, naturally, feeling like a great power trip. But then you learn that there's a serious danger to being a fated hero, which is when a lot of the drama starts and you have to root for the hero to overcome stuff rather than just sit back and enjoy. Plus, in both of those examples, there were lots of rules, their lives were forever changed, and there was no real "home" to go back to once the adventure started.

Batman is different in this sense, especially WHERE we jump into his story. Even in the movies he's not a "little kid" for very long, the Nolanverse movies jump pretty quickly from him being a sad kid to being taught by a secret clan of badass ninjas, which is a huge power fantasy there. He's so awesome that he's also a secret ninja.

Plus, he's stinking filthy rich, but he doesn't have to actually do a ton of stuff himself from what I've seen. Wayne Enterprises in the media I've seen (movies, some one-offs like Kingdom Come) greatly benefits from his natural genius, but it isn't like he's designing the stuff they sell himself, the way Stark's stuff worked in Ironman. In the comics he probably builds it all himself, because I think they really play up his brains in the other mediums (like in BtAS where he was more of a genius philantropist gadgeteer hero and less of the playboy scaryman vigilante), but the movie just hands him a company that makes weapons and cool superhero stuff basically anyway, which is where he gets his gear.

Then of course the lifestyle is pretty awesome, he's got money and goes to interesting events, meets interesting people, has a lovely life. If he just ever stopped caring about being Batman entirely he could walk away from it and have a wonderful fulfilling life and probably still do some good in his community the way businessmen or wealthy heirs do. Even without being Batman, Bruce Wayne is an interesting power fantasy.

Then on the flipside he's a cowl-wearing ninja master with a billion gadgets, a cool cave, a cool car, a butler and a sidekick. He terrifies the crap out of badguys, beats them senseless, and the police already are depicted as half corrupt and/or half incompetent, so you don't respect them for wanting to bring him in. If he was running around my home town beating shoplifters senseless then I'd be a little annoyed, but in a crime-riddled mess like Gotham he doesn't feel too extreme and so there's really no restrictions on what he can do to someone other than "Well, don't KILL them" but that's already a rule we all go by. Batman, especially in the Nolanverse depiction, goes way, way, way farther than we'd want a policeman to go when he's interrogating someone. He's pulling some serious Jack Bauer shit on the Joker, and since its the Joker, I don't feel all that bad. But that's the thing, because Gotham is THAT terrible and the police are THAT useless and the Joker is THAT demented, I can let so much of that slide. So the life of Batman is a power fantasy in that sense too, because it lets you be a total hardass but in a way that gets you approval.

The big exception to this is when Batman's actual body gets shown. I've got an artbook by Alex Ross that has a shot of Batman's back, all full of horrible manglework muscles, wounds, and so forth. I think the cultural prominence of Bane smashing Batman in half shows how much of a shock that was, but also that the idea that he's actually mortal adds a lot of depth to him. Maybe takes away a bit of the power fantasy, but it really makes for good storytelling. Same with showing him as a demented madman in The Dark Knight Returns.

Superman, by comparison, has a crappy secret identity who is described as mild mannered, wears dorky glasses, has a family farm, never got the accolades for doing well in class, or sports, or anything as far as I can tell. But he could have, and doesn't, and so he's pretending he's dumber, clumsier, more awkward and more cowardly than he is. As far as real life goes, he's an absolute nobody. But that's not even his "real life," since he's also an alien from another planet, so he doesn't technically fit in, and that has got to weigh on him too. At least, I imagine it would.

His persona as Superman is a pretty badass power suite, but it comes with so many extra rules and responsibilities. Batman can slug someone in the face if they're bad, or have a gun, or whatever. Superman has got to handle nearly everyone around him like they're made out of cotton candy, which does not sound fun, or even empowering, because if you slap a bad guy and he turns into a pile of smeared organs then nobody is going to think you're very Super anymore. The need for constant restraint, dedication to a higher standard, and taking the lead makes him a lot less appealing as a power fantasy, especially since he can never turn it off. Captain Marvel at least gets to turn off the super and go do a real life.

Anyway, I hope that makes it clearer. The main reasons are that the Batman persona seems to have only one major rule (don't kill anyone) and none others, plus a really awesome normal life... whereas Superman has a really dull life in his human disguise and an extremely demanding one in his super self. I'd say Batman's night job is way more tiring than Superman's (given the individuals anyway), but the sense of helplessness I get from imagining myself in Superman's role makes it feel infinitely more depressing than the endless Crusade that Batman is on. He may never win, but he's just one guy who works really hard, I don't think anyone expects him to (not even him). Superman, however, isn't just one guy, so he doesn't even get an excuse. Knowing that nothing I ever do is good enough by the standards I can set for myself? Ugh. I don't know how I could live like that, and it makes me really glad that I'm not Superman.

[JME2]

Could you elaborate, please? Way I see it Clark had personality faults and fallibility enough in the comics, the main problem with adapting him (which isn't really a problem with adapting so much as using him in the first place) is the guy is so ludicrously powerful that the only way to tell an interesting story with him in it means either world-shattering catastrophe level threat, turning him into a complete and utter moron, or making it a story where his powers aren't any help, which certainly works but begs the question of why bother using Clark to begin with?

You share my thoughts regarding him being overpowered for his own good -- which causes problems with his rogues gallery.

This was why Timm and co. added Darkseid during STAS and developed original villains like Livewire.

He's also...I don't know if outdated is the right word. The concept of Batman works because of his tech and mortality. But Supes' hasn't aged well. Even Johns didn't really apply a central theme to ground Supes under during his run (as opposed to GL and overcoming fear).

[Batman]

First off, Covenant, that was most informative, so thank you. I'm not sure I agree with everything you said but I can absolutely follow the reasoning behind it.

Second, JME2, I don't see how Clark can ever be outdated. The central theme for Clark is the same it's been since I started reading comics again-he's the ultimate real world nice guy (if you pardon the use of the term in a superhero context). The Big Cheese may be pie in the sky I believe the best of everybody nicer, but that's because, deep down, he's still a child. Clark is a grownup. He knows the world isn't that simple, that not all villains wear funny purple and green suits, that sometimes, the bad guys win, sometimes earthquakes happen, sometimes even the power to move faster than the speed of light or casually benchpress a planet isn't enough to save the day. That sometimes, he has to kill a few to save billions.
And sometimes, very rarely, he snaps because if so many innocents die every day why should the villains get to live? and needs to be talked out of it.
Clark knows the world is all shades of grey, and even he can't fix all the world's wrongs by his lonesome. But he keeps on trying anyway.
I'd say Clark's underlying theme is 'hope'. He believes humanity is basically decent all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

[JME2]

True, Bats.

I just meant he's more difficult to distill than, say, Pointy Ears. But your summation does just that.

[Batman]

Well I am supposed to be one of the smartest men on the planet, and I've known the guy for a very long time.

And of course I'm easier to distill. They all but hit you over the head with my motivation every time they retell my origin story.

[Tomzilla]

As a Superman fan, I thought I'd join this very good discussion about how he's been presented and how he should be portrayed.

As a kid, I loved Superman because of his powers. Super strength, speed, flight, heat vision, invulnerability--it's all awesome. I paid little attention to his personality. I also loved how he saved the world every issue. Even at a young age, I knew that when it comes to superheroes, Superman is the hero everyone looks to for guidance. In recent years I've become more fascinated with the character because I noticed his greatest superpower: hope.

How is that an alien with godlike powers personifies the ideal human existence? He seems more human than a real human but that's not really the case. In truth, he's a living, breathing idea. Superman embodies humankind's hopes, dreams, and nightmares. It's not a fair trade; Superman protects humanity, humanity burdens Superman. Superman can and has brought out the worse in us because our hopes and dreams can't live without our fears and nightmares. That's why it's so damn hard to emphasize with him. It's ironic how the people Superman tries to inspire in the comics actually reflects people who don't find him interesting in real life.

Why does Superman do it? Who or what inspired him to believe in humanity, to believe in something that might not be there? His parents. I was adopted shortly after being born. Like Superman, I didn't feel like I belonged. The difference is I'm human. Superman isn't. But we both had a great upbringing. Now could it be possible that Martha and Jonathan Kent brainwashed this alien child into becoming what they believe qualifies as an ideal savior? I wouldn't call it brainwashing, although Lex Luthor might. No, there's a difference between brainwashing a child into becoming a boring, too-good-to-be-true hero to encouraging a child into becoming a symbol for all our hopes and dreams. Superman wants to show humanity that our hopes and dreams are more than just possibilities, they're real. Our hero sees it in us everyday, especially in the likes of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and scores of everyday people and other heroes.

That's why Superman is so hard to sell. Humankind is convinced that our hopes and dreams are unrealistic. Many people think Superman wouldn't be the same character if he didn't have any superpowers. It's true, Clark wouldn't be saving the world everyday. He wouldn't be overpowering Darkseid's evil or thwarting Brainiac's apocalyptic schemes. But y'know what's interesting? Even without his powers, he still has the same personality. He is who he is because he was inspired by the good found in good people.

What does that tell us? Well for starters, it tells us that goodness isn't exclusively a human trait. It's a moral virtue that can be adopted by all life. It's not found in everything and it's not in everyone. Nobody is born good. Goodwill wasn't given to us by a higher power. It's more akin to inheritance, a gift we pass down to others. That's why I brought up adoption. It's not only integral to Superman's history and character, it's integral to us all. Martha and Jonathan Kent adopted the young Kal-El, an act that empowered the goodness they themselves had inherited from others. In turn they instilled these values in Clark Kent. Clark now shares these values with the entire human race. Humankind, likewise, shares it with him everyday because he hears and sees it in us everyday. That's what makes him unique.

It's an interesting dichotomy. Humankind has the power to change and transform itself into anything. Jor-El believed we only lacked the light to show us the way. That's because the light comes from within and beyond, it comes from both an internal and external source--one we can all possess if we're inspired to have it. If humankind accepted this goodwill and strived to uphold it, Superman wouldn't represent our hopes and dreams anymore. In all likelihood, he'd cease to exist.

Lex Luthor, please take note of this!

[Tomzilla]

EDIT: Sorry, double post.

[Covenant]

First off, Covenant, that was most informative, so thank you. I'm not sure I agree with everything you said but I can absolutely follow the reasoning behind it.

No prob, I felt it deserved a legitimate response.

[Ralin]

And while he did great for Batman, he did the one thing you don't do with a franchise character, he made him finite. Nolan's success came from making sure Batman was going to "die".

How likely is any given series of live-action Batman movies to last past three or four anyway? Seems like a really successful trilogy is preferable to three less successful movies written in a way that lets you squeeze in the Bat-equivalent of Spider-man 3

[Batman]

Um-they already did that with Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman and Robin.

[Zablorg]

and surprise! Batman and Robin sucked and killed the series anyway.

But I wouldn't expect you to have an objective understanding of what happens when a Batman overstays his welcome.

[Ralin]

Um-they already did that with Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman and Robin.

...That would be the sound of the point flying over your head.