Marval Movie

There are 1240 different species of bats in the world, all ranging in shape and size to how they work.  The differences can be subtle of very greatly but they are all bats none the less.

Batman has always been one of the most diverse of all comic book characters.  He has been the Dark Knight, the camping crusader, a robot, a teenage boy in the future, a Victorian vigilante etc.  So many different interpretations that very to extreme to subtle but like Hamlet he can always be interpreted by the individual however they see him.

For bridging the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Warner Brothers decided to release a special direct to DVD movie.  Gotham Knight was given to the team that had turned Batman in animation into serious work with Bruce Timm as Producer and Andrea Romano as voice director and Kevin Conroy and Batman.

Gotham Knight is a eighty seven minute animated movie divided up into six short movies all about Batman, sometimes from different perspectives others from different interpretations, they all have their own art style and nearly all of them has a different director.

In the role of Batman for all of these shorts is Kevin Conroy, who has been voicing the character since 1992.  He has been working with the character for so long he is virtually fluent at it.  Conroy is low and sharp without being too gravely like others who taken on the role.  Here he has to subtly but noticeably adjust himself for each interpretation of each different Batman, he has to be the big bulky Batman or the more youthful energized funny guy, or the all to human tortured soul. Hes always been my favorite Batman and this serves as a shining example of his capability.

I have always thought that animation suits superheroes better than it does live action.  There doesn't have to be a big duduk perkara with getting the costume to look right in the real world because you just draw it and there it is, they were comics first and so animation serves to bring the drawings to life rather than to worry about the locations or the actor.

One of the best is Working Through Pain, this shows Batman has just been working his way through a sewer and having to deal with the bullet wound and having to climb out of the sewer and of course it is all but easy. While this is happening Batman has flashbacks of one of his experiences while he was in pelatihan and he meets a woman who can teach him to deal with his pain.  Like so many things Batman has had to deal with pain and this short really shows how he carries and does his best to deal with it, even if in the end it consumes him.  The short ends with one of the most pitch perfect images of Batman, him stuck in a hole of filth, pain and violence and he cant get out because he just cant let go.

While Batman himself gets multiple makeovers so does Gotham city itself.  I heard Dennis O'Neil say that "Metropolis is New York in the summer on a clear day, Gotham is New York in the winter on a cold cloudy night", there is one short that fits that description perfectly but they all offer great Gotham cities.  All dark, big and covered with unique Gothic architectural features that make them distinct.

While all the movies are different there is a loose flowing narrative that exists beneath each individual movie.  This works brilliantly to tie the separated movies into a whole.  It works because the whole point of the moves is that despite the differences in their style and direction in the end it is Batman.

I have my own interpretation of Batman, everybody does, and I still have yet to see "my Batman" anywhere but that's OK because I can accept and appreciate the different Batmen that have been offered, which I feel other people should do more often.  There is nothing worse than listening to some obnoxious fan whining say "no I don't like this its not my Batman".  Gotham Knight probably has your Batman in here somewhere, or maybe is a mix of two of them the point is this movie celebrates and revels in the opportunities that all the different art-styles and animation can offer the legend that is Batman