Batman: Year 100 to feature the masked crusader in AD 2049

Its the Batman in his 100th year. We have a police state, and a withered but still masked Batman being hunted by the cops in the forthcoming mini-series Batman; Year 100.

BY A CORRESPONDENT

21 February 2006
MUMBAI, INDIA

The masked crusader is back. Set in the year 2039, the latest artist to work on Batman says that the futuristic story - Batman: Year 100 - will revolve around the predicament of maintaining a secret identity in an America that has become a police state. Even in present day America, as the creator admitted in as many words, maintaining a secret hideout, a secret identity and an extra-legal system of justice, would be similar to creating "a terrorist cell." The four-part 200 page miniseries is set to debut this Wednesday, and will be penned by Paul Pope, who said it would be a challenge, saying "I thought, what can I do with Batman that hasn't really been done before? Because it seems just about everything has been done and so much of it done so well." What he has come up with in response, is this "He's someone with the body of David Beckham, the brain of Nikola Tesla, and the wealth of Howard Hughes, who is pretending to be Nosferatu." 


Image Copyright: Paul Pope

Batman: Year 100 will see him resurface as a potential suspect in the death of a federal agent. Each issue will be written and drawn by Pope, and will be 48 pages long. Jose Villarubia will be filling in the colour. It will be priced at $5.99.

The Batman comics are a potent example of how the genre changes and evolves to 'catch the contemporary.' When Batman was first created in 1939, he fit well into a grim film noir or gothic tone, showing little remorse over the high death count he left behind in his vigilance over justice. By the 1940s the detective genre had caught on, and the Batman image softened. A Watson-like sidekick Robin entered, and like Holmes, Batman became an indispensable secret ally of the city police, solving puzzles that baffled the ordinary detective. In the mid-1950s and 1960s, Batman's mastery over the world of science became apparent. Dealing with odd transformations and bizarre space aliens became routine for Batman in a comic series that molded itself to the growing popularity of science fiction. 1966-1968 saw a lighter Batman, returned to his Holmes-y ways, but in some ways the dark and mysterious hidden world of Batman had never been more sinister. The campy tone of the series led to its extreme popularity with audiences
who thoroughly enjoyed the humor in the dangerously raunchy double-entendres between the dynamic duo.

But a huge backlash from an anxiety-ridden public led to the establishment of the first censorship organization for comic books, the Comics Code Authority. In addition, Batwoman and Batgirl were quickly introduced to heterosexualise the series. Batman quickly returned to a grimmer mode in the 1970s, and Robin was sent off to college! The 1986 series The Dark Knight Returns saw the comic's sale hit a phenomenal high, with the series becoming darker and grimmer than ever. The noir-ish Batman was fleshed out in this series and after, and his early days were fully explored. This hugely influential dark series was followed by 1988's Batman: The Killing Joke, in which the Joker crippled Batgirl Barbara Gordon, kidnapped Commissioner Gordon (her father) and attempted to drive him insane through physical torture and showing him nude photos of his critically injured daughter. Questions about its suitability as children's entertertaiment began to be raised again.

It seems paradoxical to talk about a comic book that is not suitable for children. Yet this has ever harrowed all children's entertainment, and despite close monitoring over whether they cross lines of violence and sex, as the 1966 Batman showed, it was easy for a heterosexual audience to blatantly miss the double meanings in the script. Additionally, the sexually violent series that emerged in the following decades only added to its popularity. Perhaps the question is not so much about 'protecting' the children as choosing which version of sex-violence they would like their children to hear.

Another point is that however endearing a comic series might be, it narrative sees the contemporary, and it is obvious that the creator will impose his political views on the character, knowingly or otherwise. Paul Pope would agree. He feels that such a project is a chance for him to combine 'topical political ideas in a symbolic way,' and said "Not so much as a moralizer, but to really tap into things that people are currently thinking and I'd say even worried about." "One of the reasons I love Sci-Fi is it's a way to write about contemporary anxieties and concerns. It's a vital pop culture genre - maybe the most." In a series where the character fights for justice, 'justice' will obviously be defined by what the creator and his community believes is justice.

Batman: Year 100 is no exception. While Batman has been internationally popular, Batman Year 2039 promises to give its American teens a serialized narrative of terrorism and fear that might help concretize, dramatise and lend its fantasy support to President Bush's narrative of 'justice.' Or, it might just raise interesting questions about that narrative.

Paul Pope, creator of the critically-acclaimed award-nominated THB, 100%, Escapo, and Heavy Liquid, was clear about his vision for the series, saying "There's worrisome stuff in the world. The thing I wanted to seriously address and I hope that others will respond to, is that we live in a world where the reality is we face weapons of mass destruction and are in a position where there really are people in the world who want to hurt us. The idea of one lone vigilante fighting crime and the appeal of that is somewhat challenged by the thought of a suitcase bomb that could kill a million people or infect a city with botulisms or something like that. I wanted a new way to fit a superhero into this sort of post September 11 world, where there really is mass terror going on." Thus, this Batman will be heavily backed by money (as the years passed, the millionaire became a billionaire), possibly his most important 'power.' His anonymity in the police state will probably be both his biggest asset and his biggest liability. Traditionally, Batman has preferred physical danger and even risk of death if escape required him to reveal his identity. Pope will focus on a more athletic Batman, who shows physical weaknesses over time, but is indisputably human, down to his realistic boots. Pope emphasized that for him, the classic Batman was the most interesting and believable.

Pope, a 35-year old graphic novelist, was asked by DC comics to work on the 200-page book length mini series, in what will be his first 'mainstream' assignment. Pope has been featured by magazines such as Wired and Gear, and has also done a five-year stint with Japanese Manga giant Kodanasha. Pope, whose first cartoon at age four was of Batman, will be imagining the character in the year 2039, in a world where totalitarianism has overcome all but the last remnants of humanity. With individual liberties almost completely curtailed in a police-state America, Batman is unlikely to be a police ally, and is well positioned to offer some resistance to not just Bush's idea of 'external terror,' but also the terrors of imperialism as more and more Americans agree to give up civil liberties in exchange for greater 'national security.' Much depends on how sensitively the series is pitched, but it could potentially be another subculture that powerfully explodes mainstream myths about justice and peace. Or is that too optimistic an expectation from a well-established icon and a multimillion company that backs it?