“Joker,” “Pennyworth” and looking for something where it isn’t

I’ll just go out on a limb and say it: Batman is a good character. There are really cool things about Batman that make a lot of people like him. He’s got cool gadgets and  an intriguing backstory. For eighty years it has been fun to watch him shoot grappling guns at crooks and supervillains. And, of course, Batman has a stellar supporting cast, a whole Bat-Family of multiple Robins, some Batgirls, and even a few Signals and Bluebirds and Knights and Squires. His rogues gallery is legendary in comics and on the screen, and in two movie serials, two live-action TV series, ten wide-release films (not counting “Justice League” or “Suicide Squad” or…) and seemingly infinite animated series and movies, his friends and foes have become as iconic as the Dark Knight himself. I assume, not being a Warner Brothers executive myself, that this means it seems like a fantastic idea to get those spin-offs rolling. Because, of course, you can’t flood the market with too much Bat-Mania, but you can certainly roll in the coins from a bevy of Batman-related films and TV series, right?

Or, maybe, creators really are chomping at the bit to get their crack on side characters from Gotham City. After all, “Gotham,” the Fox series, is ending after five seasons that have managed to stretch the question of “But how did Bruce Wayne really become Batman?” to exceedingly intense lengths. And, very soon, the creative minds behind “Gotham” will be bringing us “Pennyworth,” a semi-prequel focusing on Batman’s butler, surrogate father, and super-spy Alfred. While “Gotham” gave up rather quickly pretending to be a pre-superpowers and villains story, my biggest criticism of  it all this time has been the lack of superheroes in a show about superheroes. “Pennyworth,” I can only imagine, will have an even harder time giving us Batman, thirty-years before the Bat-signal supposedly graced the skies of Gotham.         Sure, audiences like Bruce Wayne. He’s an interesting character. And there are lots of interesting stories, not all of them action-packed, that can be told about him. Superheroes, especially those that have been around for 80 years, only stick around because they feel like people who you want to read about or watch. But these characters also exist in a very distinct world. It is a world in which dressing up like a giant bat in order to drive fear into the hearts of a cowardly and superstitious lot of criminals is not only the right thing to do, it is also completely normal. So often these series attempt to pick apart what makes these characters tick in ways that defy the logic of comic books, in which fighting crime as a vigilante is the only move anyone with any sort of special skill can make. “Gotham” feels the need to explain how Bruce Wayne was driven to become the Caped Crusader. My answer is that he doesn’t live in our world and that genre conventions decided he should. These shows, which attempt to drag comic books out of their genre conventions, should be commended for trying something new, but we, and Warner Brothers, should realize that it doesn’t always land. Sometimes, Batman is only interesting because he is fighting crime, not because he was once a sad kid.

That brings me to the new trailer for “Joker,” a film coming this summer to a theatre near you. It looks strangely familiar. There are, of course, the many nods to Martin Scorsese’s cannon, especially his film “King of Comedy.” And, in something that looks like a scene out of “Gotham,” we’ve got the Joker creeping around Wayne Manor, forcing a smile onto the face of a very young Bruce Wayne. Like “Gotham,” this is set in a weird 1980s-Gotham/New York hybrid, and like “Gotham,” we’re being promised an origin for the Joker, a character who historically has had many diverse and varied origins, each one “unprovable.” As a movie, I dare to say it almost looks good...but as a “Joker” film, it’s perplexing. There is certainly room for Warner Brothers to produce a film about a struggling comedian’s descent into mental illness. “King of Comedy” proves it can be done well. But I’m unsure whether we need a film about a proto-Joker obsessed with the Wayne family, or the connection of Batman’s greatest foe to a very young Bruce Wayne long before his parents have even ventured into Crime Alley on that fateful night. To expand the story of Batman, to make it somehow about the city or the Joker or the evils of Thomas Wayne, seems like an unneeded addition. I certainly don’t care about what happens to Bruce Wayne before his origin story, because his origin story is supposed to be his origin, clean and simple. I don’t really care about the backstory of the Joker, unless it will feed into a good story about Batman. And, I really don’t care to see a “superhero” movie that throws out every single element of superhero stories, from action to adventure to superheroes themselves. I want movies that challenge what superhero stories on the big screen can be, but I think we have fantastic examples in things like “Guardians of the Galaxy,” or “Captain America; The Winter Soldier,” or even “SHAZAM!” which have re-framed comic book movies as space operas or political thrillers or kid’s adventures. Superheroes work in a lot of genres, but they have to take certain things with them, and “Joker” seems like it is leaving all of that behind.        

I’m certain I’ll tune into “Pennyworth” this summer, and I’ll buy a ticket for “Joker,” because I’ve been successfully locked into a hobby for many years in which I consume all the Batman-related media, but I’ll be more excited to see the first season of “Batwoman” on the CW this year, if only because that Bat-spin-off is about superheroes fighting crime, the whole reason I started reading in the first place.