With the release of Suicide Squad to further cement Ben Affleck’s role as Batman after Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, one is left wondering, “Where does the cowl go from here?”
While it may be easy to think that this Batfleck was arguably one of the worst of all screen representations, one must delve into history to see how truly epic this evolution was. How did his vision of Batman stack up against other film versions? Glad you asked, as we have compiled a history of Batman in the hopes that Batfleck will be replaced sooner rather than later.
1) Lewis Wilson
Appearances: Batman (1943 serial)
Only the most loyal fanatics of Batman may know that The Caped Crusader hit the silver screen well before Adam West. During the height of World War II, Columbia Pictures put out a 15-part serial in theaters, because that’s how you watched television shows back then: in a theater.
Lewis Wilson portrayed Batman as a swinging playboy by day, moonlighting as a bat-eared detective who could throw down with criminals, so long as he was able to get back to his lady-friend Vicki Vale.
The plot, however, was a little less tongue-in-cheek. Batman was actually a government agent hired to track down and neutralize Dr. Daka, a Japanese scientist plotting to turn the world into mindless zombies who looked strangely like Cesar Romero’s Joker. With plenty of anti-Japanese sentiment and other racial stereotypes, the serial has been labeled as war propaganda like other films of its decade.
In terms of gadgetry, the only thing Batman had was The Batcave, his hidden sanctum deep below his remote estate . Like Bob Kane’s preceding strips, Batman’s gadgetry was minimal, using the utility belt as a pretty way to hold up his tights and driving an old limousine around as he searched for clues. Nothing is more hilarious, however, than how Batman and Robin change into their alter egos: they just get changed in the backseat of their car. At least Bob Kane’s Batman had the foresight to drive around in his costume.
2) Robert Lowery
Appearances: Batman and Robin (1949 serial)
What does a studio do when they come up with a good film serial? If you said, “Strip it down to a bare bones budget, find an even more over-weight actor, and repeat footage over and over again to get a fifteen part serial completed,” you’d be correct.
While the 1943 Batman series suffered from a theme of war propaganda, Batman and Robin of 1949 suffered even more from diminishing returns.
With Robert Lowery playing The Caped Crusader, Batman and Robin battle The Wizard, who has stolen a machine that controls motorized vehicles up to 50 miles away. The Wizard’s criminal exploits continue, as he must steal diamonds to keep the machine running. Hold up right here. There’s a magic machine that can find, target, and control any motor, and its fuel is DIAMONDS?
Whatever. Batman and Robin come to the rescue, while trying to keep Vicki Vale from learning that they are really Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson.
The story itself is not bad, except for having more “Whodunnit” twists than a whole season of Scooby-Doo. The problem lies in production. The sleek limousine is replaced by a 1949 Mercury convertible; Batman’s utility-belt finally gets some use by magically vomiting up a full blowtorch; Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are now changing into Batman and Robin on the side of the road as well as the backseat of the car; repeated scenes of The Wizard going through the motions of letting visitors into his hideout via submarine happen at least twice every fifteen minutes.
3) Adam West
Appearances: The Batman television series (1966), Batman: the Movie (1966)
Love him, hate him, or be confused by him, there is no mistaking that Adam West was the first mainstream Batman on film. While the series was considered campy and nonsensical by many, the story lines were actually quite coherent for an action-mystery series. Suspense was driven by the “cliffhanger” approach of ending an episode in the middle of dire circumstances for Batman and Robin, to be solved and finalized in the next episode later in the week.
Unlike the past characterizations, Adam West created polar opposites of Bruce Wayne and Batman from the serials of the 40s. His Bruce Wayne was grim and serious, while his Batman was more flippant than earlier, (and later) versions of The Dark Knight. Did you ever think you would see Batman get drunk and dance at the disco, then get his keys taken away by the police? Neither did I, and that was only the first episode of the series. While Adam West looked a little bit more like Batman would in terms of physique, the applied eyebrows to the Bat cowl eradicated any critical acclaim for even the costume.
In terms of gadgetry, no one did it like Adam West. Instead of having a change of Bat Clothes in the trunk of his car, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson would see the Bat Signal, drive to their mansion from Nova Scotia if need be, slide down poles that automatically changed their clothes into superhero costumes, and be out in the Batmobile, racing to meet Commissioner Gordon to find out what was going on. They would then proceed to use a variety of Bat Merchandise that would keep licensed toy companies in business for decades: Batcopters; Bat Boats; Bat Gliders; Bat Poles; Bat Ladders; all this to thwart the crimes of The Riddler, The Penguin, The Joker, and Catwoman while still trying to keep a straight face.
While many of Batman’s gadgets can be joked about, nothing can touch the design of the Batmobile, a marvel in engineering that would make even Jay Leno drool.
4) Michael Keaton
Appearances: Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992)
It took a long time, but in 1989, history was made in the world of Batman when director Tim Burton, comedic actor Michael Keaton, and Academy Award winner Jack Nicholson got together and made a blockbuster superhero movie that future films would strive to be equal to. That movie was Batman.
While many critics found that Tim Burton gave much more character development to The Joker and later The Penguin, the snub actually works in creating a certain brooding, displaced attitude for Bruce Wayne and Batman. You can only get the feeling that, because of the deaths of his parents, this detachment helps Batman focus on his goal of vengeance to criminals everywhere. Sure, there’s a bit of a love story, but who could possibly neglect Kim Bassinger for very long?
In terms of gadgetry, the Batmobile and Batwing became technological marvels of commercial marketing. They are vehicles any adult would want to ride around in, and easily became toys that every kid would want to play with, to then become adults who would actually want to ride around in. In terms of personal gadgets, gone are the ridiculous Bat-Merchandising products, replaced by good old-fashioned stealth products like smoke pellets, napalm, a grapple gun, and Batarangs to give a hint of Batman flair.
5) Kevin Conroy
Appearances: Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995), Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
Does a superhero automatically lose credibility when following a successful, dark, live-action movie with a cartoon? Batman: The Animated Series, growls from the shadows with a resounding “NO.” Kevin Conroy voiced the Dark Knight Detective in a cartoon that merged flat-detailed animation with the shadowy effects of film noir.
In hindsight, Batman: The Animated Series seemed almost a bridge in the movie franchise from the dark action movie of Batman and Batman Returns to the live-action cartoonishness of Batman Forever. The enemies are more colorful, but the henchmen almost all look like gangsters from the 1950s, so there’s still a hint of the human element.
Kevin Conroy continues the lineage of vague, brooding Batmen that Michael Keaton began, however there is much more character development. There better have been, considering the series had four seasons.
Gadgetry stayed on par with its recent predecessor. The Batmobile is pretty bad-ass, just a little sleeker than the last one, and that shadowy film noir flavor really makes one wonder if it’s a jet on wheels. Unfortunately, it’s a cartoon car, so we’ll never get a chance to sit in it at a Hollywood museum, much less give it a test spin.
6) Val Kilmer
Appearances: Batman Forever (1995)
There are many Batman fans who swear by their comic book collections that Batman Forever was a good movie. I would take those collections–which probably include an issue of NFL Superpro and a sealed copy of Youngblood #1–and promptly throw them in the recycling bin. Yes, I’m green conscious.
While the storyline isn’t that bad, the villains of Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey are sadistically clever, and Val Kilmer doesn’t “Adam West” the hell out of Batman or Bruce Wayne, there is one item in this movie that began the utter destruction of the most feared superhero franchise of the 1990s.
Bat-nipples.
No matter how angry Batman became, no matter how Val Kilmer was able to make Batman into a realistic father-figure for Dick Grayson, no matter how hot Nicole Kidman looked, no matter how bad-ass the Batmobile handled (it was arguably the most bad-ass Batmobile ever created), it’s hard to get past the Bat-nipples.
Val Kilmer does bring about that vibe that gets the ladies going, as was prevalent in his relationship with psychiatrist Chase Meridian, so maybe Batman was just excited. Still not good enough.
In terms of gadgetry, Val Kilmer’s Batman doesn’t go too overboard, just over-updated. Batarangs are electronic, or at least glowing, the utility belt spits out more covert items than the CIA probably have, an updated Batwing comes back, along with the Batboat. The Batmobile is the cherry, looking like a rolling cocoon of awesomeness that could drive through a line of 10 tanks and still get from 0-60 before a Bugatti.
7) George Clooney
Appearances: Batman and Robin (1997)
Whereas Val Kilmer and Batman Forever managed to control how far they managed to allow the Batman franchise to step backwards, George Clooney and Batman and Robin made sure to catch up. The villains got loonier–so loony that the terrifying Bane looked ridiculous for the first time ever, anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few critics that don’t know Batman comic books saw who was to be the villain in The Dark Knight Rises and said, “Are you kidding me!?”
Adam West may as well have come out of retirement, considering how George Clooney portrayed Batman: campy, but stale. Yes, it is possible to fail at campy humor. Welcome to the Batman Club, irony.
The shame of it is that George Clooney was BORN to play Batman — in real life he pretty much is Bruce Wayne, and onscreen he always plays the consummate trouble-shooter exasperated by everyone else’s lack of professionalism. If he’d been given a more serious role, he could have been the Bat-franchise’s Sean Connery. Alas, such was not to be.
Oh, and let us not forget the Bat-nipples. Apparently, Bat-nipples were such a hit in Batman Forever that they were made even more obvious in Batman and Robin.
In terms of Bat-toys, or what we used to call gadgets, Batman and Robin add the kitchen sink that Batman Forever steered clear from. In fact, Batman and Robin broke into a few other people’s houses and threw in their kitchen sinks, too. Bat-Bombs, Bat-Lasers, a Batmobile that looks like one of those wind-up sparking cars I used to play with when I was 6, a Batcycle, a Bat-Sled that looked like an air-boat, something called the Bat-Hammer that looks like a kamikaze plane, and even a Bat-Saw. Those are just Batman’s gadgets. At one point he’s wielding a futuristic hockey-stick from Mr. Freeze’s henchmen. Oh, and there’s a Bat-Girl, whose origin is ridiculous without being hilarious.
8) Christian Bale
Appearances: Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
After years of deliberation at Warner Bros., mostly to make sure that the public forgot about Batman and Robin, Christopher Nolan directed arguably the best series of Batman movies thus far when Batman Begins was released with Christian Bale portraying the Dark Knight.
The film took the dark, brooding ambiance of Tim Burton’s Batman and added the one thing it was lacking: the character development of Bruce Wayne/Batman in an epic way that recreated Bruce Wayne’s past. It worked. With the focus on Batman instead of whatever villain was around at the time, Wayne’s training and transformation are realized–not just in fighting technique, but in philosophy. Batman battles the inner demons clamoring for vengeance while portraying the lavish, playboy lifestyle of a multi-billionaire in daylight hours. This is the Batman that fans had been waiting for, the tortured symbol of justice portrayed by Christian Bale.
Gadgetry may have been a bit sparse, because any superhero starting off isn’t going to have a full arsenal. Luckily, Wayne Enterprises had Morgan Freeman there with a pile of military technology that was, in comparison to the last two Batman movies, realistic: body armor; glider-cloth; a grapple-gun; an ATV tank with missile-launching capability that ejects a motorcycle, and we believed this possibility every step of the way. It’s every army captain’s Christmas list to Santa Claus.
The only bad thing about this Batman is that, after The Dark Knight Rises, he will be gone, and replaced by another Batman who will have a hard time reaching the bar that Christian Bale has raised.
9) Diedrich Bader
Appearances: Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011)
Whereas Christian Bale set the standard for the serious Batman movie, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Diedrich Bader took the fun road with their animated series that launched after audiences were wowed by Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight. This Batman was as cartoonish as a cartoon can get. What must be remembered is that this cartoon is a nod to the Silver Age of comics, when drama and life messages were vaguely hidden by good, old-fashioned fun.
With skinny little legs holding up a huge body, a brighter costume than Adam West’s, and a run that is almost as ridiculous as Scooby-Doo and Shaggy’s, this Batman drew on the older interpretations of Batman during the more playful years in Batman books. Batman cracks obvious jokes, does some wordplay, battles ghosts, time travels to meet Sherlock Holmes, and pretty much everything else you would expect a children’s cartoon to feature.
Bruce Wayne as an adult doesn’t actually appear directly until season two, which makes this show more about the superhero legend rather than the man behind it, which works for such a tongue-in-cheek show.
If that doesn’t sound ridiculous enough, some of the villains include Crazy Quilt, Clock King, a gorilla super-genius, Sportsmaster, and Kite Man. Luckily, Batman has Bat-Guns, Batmobiles, Batcopters, Batboats, Bat-Subs, Batcycles, Bat-Axes, and probably Bat-Bats in order to pound the injustice out of them. And those are just the foes! You can’t use weapons on allies like G’nort, the space-dog Green Lantern.
10) Ben Affleck
Appearances: Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad
(2016)
The cycle of following up a great portrayal of Batman with a horrible portrayal of Batman continued when Christian Bale passed the cowl to the actor that ruined Daredevil’s screen time for 12 years: Ben Affleck, aka Batfleck, aka Fat Batman, in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The screen fight between Batman and Superman before casting was as anticipated as Freddy VS. Jason, and it paid off, just not in this film. It paid off if the animated two-part movie Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in 2012. Peter Weller really sculpted an old Batman in the theme of Frank Miller, and the story was amazing with political themes tied to the action.
Then Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice happened. For 5 minutes, Batman was great. Unfortunately, it happened when Batman wasn’t even on-screen. It was the anticipation of Batman as you heard the screams of criminals in an abandoned building. Then you saw Ben Affleck in a Batman costume, and it was over.
In Affleck’s defense, the film itself was was muddled and nonsensical, but he didn’t make it better. Instead of owning the character no matter how bad the script was, Affleck went through the motions, much like the Daredevil film. I guess he acted like a depleted old man that didn’t want to be Batman, but I was hoping for more.
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