hunting the dark knight

H U N T I N G T H E D A R K K N I G H TT W E N T Y - F I R S T C E N T U R Y B A T M A N

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W I L L B R O O K E R

Publishing on the eve of the world premiere of Christopher Nolan’s third Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises in July 2012, Will Brooker’s new book explores Batman’s twenty-first-century incarnations.

Brooker’s investigation into Batman Begins and The Dark Knight uncovers the complex relationship between popular films, audiences, and producers in our age of media convergence. He addresses a myriad of questions raised by these films: did Batman Begins end when The Dark Knight began? Does its story include Burger King’s ‘Dark Whopper’, the Gotham Knight DVD, or the ‘Why So Serious’ viral marketing campaign? Is it separate from the parallel narratives of the Arkham Asylum videogame, the monthly comic books, the animated series and the graphic novels? Can the brightly campy incarnations of the Batman ever be fully repressed by The Dark Knight, or are they an intrinsic part of the character? In other words, do all of these various manifestations feed into a single Batman metanarrative?

Will Brooker is the leading academic expert on The Dark Knight, author of the cultural history of Batman, Batman Unmasked. His other books include Using the Force and Alice’s Adventures. He edited the Audience Studies Reader and The Blade Runner Experience, and wrote the BFI Film Classics volume on Star Wars. He is currently Reader and Director of Research in Film and Television at Kingston University, London.

‘A fAscinAting And incrediBly detAiled AnAlysis

of comic fiction’s most poWerful And successful hero.’

– PaT MILLS, aUTHoR oF BATmAn: ThE BooK oF ShADoWS

‘through the prism of poststructurAlism, Will Brooker cAsts dAzzling

neW light on BAtmAn As myth, BrAnd, And cAnon. hunting the Dark knight

is, quite simply, A BrilliAnt study of the BAtmAn And contemporAry

processes of reBooting, frAnchising And shAping A culturAl icon.’

– MaTT HILLS, aUTHoR oF TRiUmph oF A TimE LoRD

www.ibtauris.comCover design: jeremyhopes.info

138 × 216 SPINE: 19 FLAPS: 0

Will Brooker is the leading academic expert on the Dark Knight,

and author of the cultural history of Batman, Batman Unmasked. His

other books include Using the Force and Alice’s Adventures. He edited

the Audience Studies Reader and The Blade Runner Experience, and

wrote the BFI Film Classics volume on Star Wars. He is currently

Reader and Director of Research in Film and Television at Kingston

University, London, and editor of Cinema Journal.

Brooker_Prelims.indd iBrooker_Prelims.indd i 5/3/2012 5:57:46 PM5/3/2012 5:57:46 PM

‘A fascinating and incredibly detailed analysis of comic fiction’s

most powerful and successful hero.’

– Pat Mills, author of Batman: The Book of Shadows

‘Through the prism of poststructuralism, Will Brooker casts

dazzling new light on Batman as myth, brand, and canon. Bruce

Wayne encounters the likes of Foucault, Bakhtin, Barthes, and

Derrida in an epic team-up across these pages. But more than

just a theoretical excursion, this is a skilful, passionate argument

for setting the Batman free from repressive, restrictive views

of who and what the character can be. From author-function

to Joker-function, Brooker illuminates the strategies and crea-

tive choices of “scriptors” such as Christopher Nolan and Grant

Morrison, showing how they select, rework, and recombine ele-

ments from Batman’s longer history and continuity. Hunting the

Dark Knight is, quite simply, a brilliant study of the Batman and

contemporary processes of rebooting, franchising and shaping a

cultural icon.’

– Matt Hills, author of Triumph of a Time Lord

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H U N T I N G T H E D A R K K N I G H T

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BATMAN

W I L L B R O O K E R

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Published in 2012 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010www.ibtauris.com

Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

Copyright © 2012 Will Brooker

The right of Will Brooker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 84885 279 2 (HB) 978 1 84885 280 8 (PB)

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryA full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Typeset by Newgen Publishers, ChennaiPrinted and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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C O N T E N T S

Acknowledgements vii

Prologue: Batman of Many Worlds ix

1. The Nolan Function: Authorship 1

2. The Batman Matrix: Adaptation 44

3. Dark Knight Lockdown: Realism and Repression 89

4. Carnival on Infinite Earths: Continuity and Crisis 134

5. The Never-Ending War: Deconstruction and

the Dark Knight 178

Epilogue: Time and the Batman 211

Notes 220

Select Bibliography 248

Index 251

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P R O L O G U E : B A T M A N O F M A N Y W O R L D S

Who is the Batman? Imagine him. You have a sense of him; who he is,

what he looks like. Perhaps you see Adam West in a soft grey costume

and shiny cowl. Perhaps you see Frank Miller’s hulking, middle-aged

vigilante from the Dark Knight Returns graphic novel, George Clooney

posing awkwardly in a sculpted plastic suit for Joel Schumacher’s

Batman & Robin, or an armour-encased, snarling Christian Bale as the

brutal, militarised protagonist of Christopher Nolan’s films.

Perhaps you play videogames, and see the Batman of Arkham Asylum, a muscle-bound tough guy with a flowing cape; or you

remember the lantern-jawed hero of the animated series, built like a

city block but agile as a cat. Or you’re a hardcore comics fan, and you

imagine the very different Batmen drawn by Frank Quitely, Dave

McKean or Jim Lee.

Or you’re simply a Batman fan, a lifelong lover of Batman, and

when you close your eyes and conjure him, he’s a combination of

some or all of the above, folded in with countless other variants from

other media, other moments, wrapped up with your own personal

vision of what he looks like; this icon, this idea who has been guard-

ing the cities of our imagination for over 70 years.

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HUNTING THE DARK KNIGHTx

In Pearson and Uricchio’s The Many Lives of the Batman, Eileen

R. Meehan identifies a ‘deluge of material’ around the character,

which

. . . has generated a complex web of cross references as the major

text, [Tim Burton’s 1989] Batman, ricochets back in cultural

memory to Bob Kane’s original vision of a caped vigilante, then

up to the more recent dystopian Dark Knight Returns, with ironic

reference to the camp Crusader of television and all the interven-

ing Bat-texts. This web of cross references creates an intertext

into which we fit ourselves, positioning ourselves to construct

different readings of the film and positioning the film and its

intertext to suit our own particular purposes.1

Jim Collins, in the same volume, is faced with ‘seemingly endless

re-articulations’ of the Batman:

multiple narrativizations of the same figure produced over a fif-

ty-year period, appearing as simultaneous options, a simultane-

ity made more complicated by the fact that these narratives were

not just continuations of an Ur text . . . this array of texts could

obviously generate any number of narrative analyses . . . 2

Pearson and Uricchio themselves claim to be witnessing ‘the most

divergent set of refractions of the Batman character . . . now, newly

created Batmen, existing simultaneously with the older Batmen of

the television series and comic reprints and back issues, all struggled

for recognition and a share of the market.’3

All of them discuss Batman in terms of multiple but simultaneous

variants; Batmen of many worlds, coexisting across alternate earths.

All of them were writing around the time of Tim Burton’s 1989 movie.

That was over 20 years ago, when Batman was a mere 50 years old.

That was before Burton’s sequel, Batman Returns of 1992; before Joel

Schumacher’s commercially and critically disastrous Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997) killed off the film franchise. That

was before the various animated series (1992 onwards) and their

comic book spin-offs, and long before the Arkham Asylum video game

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PROLOGUE: BATMAN OF MANY WORLDS xi

of 2009. That was before the comic book Batman – whose continuity

runs on a different track to, but occasionally intersects with, that of

live action movies, animated series and video games – went through

numerous changes, including (in the last five years alone) meeting an

English, Argentinean and Sioux version of himself (The Black Glove, 2007), losing his mind (Batman RIP, 2008) then dying (Final Crisis, 2009), to be replaced by his former partner and his newly discov-

ered son (Batman and Robin, 2009), before returning from the dead

to launch an international Batman franchise (Batman Incorporated,

2011). It was before the DC Comics universe relaxed its rules (in

52, 2006–7) and reintroduced the idea of multiple worlds, many of

which host alternate-universe Batmen (from the criminal Owlman

of Earth-3 and the Nazi ‘Leatherwing’ of Earth-10 to Batman Junior

of Earth-16 and the Victorian Batman of Earth-19). Perhaps most sig-

nificantly, it was before Christopher Nolan’s two films Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), with their own range of spin-offs

and merchandise that, again, maintained an ambiguous relationship

with the other, previous and coexisting texts of Batman.

A lot has happened to Batman in the last 20 years: for one thing,

there are a lot more Batmen. The multiplicities identified by Meehan,

Collins, Pearson and Uricchio have multiplied; the sense that

Batman is ungraspable, elusive, everywhere (and therefore poten-

tially nowhere) has intensified. On one level, Batman is everything

he has ever been – a combination of a thousand variations, an over-

lapping of alternates. But at the same time, those countless variants

are policed, reduced, controlled and contained. They are branded by

author, artist and director: Miller’s Batman, Nolan’s Batman, Lee’s

Batman. They are arranged in hierarchies, some personal and some

public: many fans draw up their individual top tens and list their

preferred versions, but more powerful voices also impose, or try to

impose, a framework of quality, fidelity, ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ on the

many texts of the Batman.

‘Truth’ and ‘reality’, of course, because such terms are meaning-

less in relation to the Batman: a 70-year old fiction, with countless

authors, about a millionaire who fights crime in costume. But dis-

courses around the real Batman, the original Batman, the Batman

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HUNTING THE DARK KNIGHTxii

faithful to ‘the source’, persist; they are circulated, shared and rein-

forced by fans, authors, artists, journalists and editors. These conver-

sations debate – and depending on the cultural power of the person

or organisation involved, they decide – which Batman, or Batmen,

are official, in continuity and in canon. They decide how the official

versions of Batman relate to each other. They decide which type of

Batman is the current dominant, and which one is aberrant. The

approved Batman is promoted, and the Batman that doesn’t fit is

pushed aside.

I use the word ‘hierarchies’, but in practice, the relationship

has taken the form not of a top-ten ranking but a binary opposi-

tion. For the last four decades of Batman’s 70-year career, the

‘good’ Batman – the official Batman, pushed most vigorously by

DC and Warner Bros., and preferred by many fans – has been the

dark Batman, the gritty, violent vigilante: Denny O’Neil and Neal

Adams’ ‘Darknight Detective’ of the 1970s, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns of 1986, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight of 2008.

The ‘bad’ Batman, ironically, has been the fun Batman, the playful

Batman, the camp Batman: the light-hearted 1950s comics that led to

Senate Subcommittee censorship for homoerotic content, the POW!

AWWK! Pop Art of Adam West’s 1960s TV Batman, and the gaudy

pantomime of Joel Schumacher’s two 1990s Batman movies.

This book examines how that policing, promotion and pushing-

aside works, using Batman as a case study to explore broader issues

of cultural meaning and cultural power. It studies the character

across a range of media, exploring Batman Begins and The Dark Knight within the context of the twenty-first-century Batman, from comic

books to pizza promotions. As such, it asks a number of questions.

Unlike most new films, Nolan’s Batman movies were released into

a complex network of existing, ongoing narratives, which continued

during and after their cinema exhibition. These narratives offered

similar but distinct representations of the main character, his world,

his history and his supporting cast. The films also carried their own

substantial secondary texts in other media, again to a greater degree

than most new releases. These included not just the usual posters,

trailers and merchandise, but also a comic book (Batman Begins and

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PROLOGUE: BATMAN OF MANY WORLDS xiii

Other Tales of the Dark Knight) that compiled a graphic adaptation

of the film with a selection of existing Batman stories, a DVD of

animated shorts (Gotham Knight) that bridged Batman Begins and its

sequel, and an online Alternate Reality Game (‘Why So Serious’)

that invited fans to step into the story-world of The Dark Knight, months before it reached cinemas. How do concepts of authorship

operate in this matrix of cross-media texts? Do conventional models

of the individual author still circulate, and if so, what purpose do

they serve?

Nolan’s movies were promoted as faithful adaptations of the

comic book; this was a key aspect of their branding as distinct from

previous Batman films. But what does adaptation mean, when the

‘original’ Batman is not a single literary novel but seven decades

of stories? When new tales of the Batman appear every month in

comic books and regularly in other media, does the normally one-

way linear process shift into a multidirectional borrowing, whereby

the film in turn shapes comic book, video game and animated

continuity? What model of adaptation best explains this complex

relationship?

Although ‘fidelity’ seems meaningless in this context – it is surely

impossible to be faithful to such a diverse wealth of stories – the con-

cept was fervently stressed by producers and fans alike, coupled with

discourses of realism: a word that came to stand not just for Nolan’s

film aesthetic, but for a distinct characterisation and interpretation

of Batman, which linked Nolan’s films with a selective tradition of

comic book texts. It signalled that Nolan had captured the ‘dark’

Batman, as opposed to the Schumacher Batman, the 1960s TV show

and the light-hearted comics of the 1950s and 60s. What strategies

were used to establish this ‘dark’ Batman as the dominant – not as

an addition to Schumacher’s interpretation, but as a clean reboot

that attempted to wipe Schumacher’s from public memory – and did

they work? Why was it so important to enforce this single reading of

Batman? What was at stake? Who did it serve? And what does it do

to the concept of Batman – as a 70-year compendium of contradic-

tory stories – when we close down his authorised, approved meaning

to a selective reading from a handful of recent texts?

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HUNTING THE DARK KNIGHTxiv

This book is born from, and about, a specific historical moment.

It focuses primarily on the Batman of 2001–2011, against the back-

ground of the ‘war on terror’, and it examines the ways in which

the contemporary Batman grapples with this particular sociopoliti-

cal context. But it also goes back through the character’s history;

through the darkness, through the play, back to the early stories.

It argues that the complexity of Christopher Nolan’s allegorical

engagement with the contradictions of the war on terror in The Dark Knight Returns is reduced to a one-dimensional political agenda –

whether left or right, blue or red – if we insist on reading it only

through the filter of the ‘dark Batman’ discourse. Through an exami-

nation of the comic book continuity that ran alongside Nolan’s sto-

ries, the book draws out a new reading of Batman and his defining

relationship with the Joker. Drawing on theories of carnival and

deconstruction, it exposes the oppositions that sustain the ‘dark

Batman’ against his playful opposite, and shows that they are fluid

rather than fixed. More radically, it suggests that they have always

been that way, and that the instability of this opposition is at the root

of the character, inherent in the key traits that are consistent from

the first Batman story to the last, and informing the Batman who

is made up of all those collected stories. To make Batman into one

thing, I argue, is a violation. To reduce him to a single dark dimen-

sion is to imprison him.

The book has five chapters. The first and second examine the

ways in which Nolan’s films and their paratexts were situated among

the multiple surrounding and preceding texts of Batman, through

discourses of authorship and adaptation. The third examines the

ideas of fidelity and realism that were used to tie Nolan’s films to

a specific and narrow trend – the ‘dark’ persona – in Batman’s rep-

resentation and characterisation. In the fourth and fifth chapters,

I suggest that Nolan’s films can be prised open through a reading

of the Batman/Joker relationship that is prompted and supported

by the Batman comic book continuity that ran, semi-independently,

alongside the movies. This reading opens up a new interpretation

not just of Nolan’s films but of the seven decades of Batman mythos

to date; the body of stories that makes up ‘Batman’ provides evidence

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PROLOGUE: BATMAN OF MANY WORLDS xv

for such a revisionary reading, even as it changes our perspective on

them and challenges our view of the central character.

So, to summarise, the book examines how Batman’s meanings

were locked down, why it happened, who benefited and what it did to

the character. It then stages a breakout. Its aim is to set Batman free.

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I N D E X

9/11 31, 178, 186, 199–200, 201, 207–209

Ackerman, Spencer, 201–202, 207Adams, Neal xii, 40, 59–60, 62–63,

70–71, 79, 113, 116, 122, 128, 134, 168, 182, 213

Alfred 49, 63, 71, 78, 88, 92, 121, 124, 163, 167–168, 197, 204, 206

Al Ghul, Ra’s 20, 50, 59, 61, 63–64, 70, 72, 88, 99, 109,113, 116–117, 122–123, 130, 168, 213

All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder 59, 72, 77, 80, 88, 153, 174–175, 182

Al Qaeda 201, 218Amazon.com 21, 33, 34, 56Andrew, Dudley, 45Arkham Asylum (2009 game) ix–x, 1,

40, 77, 85–86, 87, 153Arkham Asylum (graphic novel) 57, 65,

68, 74, 112–113, 124, 127, 128, 137–138, 142, 153, 163, 169, 175, 193, 217

Arkham City (2011 game) 77, 87Atlantic, The 201auteur 4–5, 9, 14–15, 20–23, 25, 31,

39–40, 42–44, 86, 100, 103, 118authorship 2–9, 12, 16, 19, 20–21, 24,

26–28, 31 34, 38–39, 40–45, 56,

66, 72, 75, 88, 90, 112, 117–118, 147–148, 151, 186, 215

AzureOnline 200

Bakhtin, Mikhail 6, 47–48, 135–136, 137–139, 140–142, 144–145, 146–151, 155, 170, 186, 190–191

Bale, Christian ix, 10–12, 23–24, 31, 38, 57–58, 69, 71, 87, 93–94, 97–101, 103, 105, 203, 218

Barker, Martin 51Barthes, Roland 6–9, 17, 21, 40, 43,

48, 68, 147Bat-Bible 75, 111, 154–155Bat-Girl / Betty (Bette) Kane 115Batgirl (general) 81, 83–84, 121, 124,

196Batgirl / Barbara Gordon / Oracle

86–87, 129, 142, 168, 206Batgirl IV / Stephanie Brown 87,

174Bat-logo 79, 80, 83, 85Batman (1960s TV series) xiii, 2, 24,

36, 60, 62, 68, 74, 79, 82–83, 86, 92, 101, 104–105, 110, 116–123, 126, 129, 130–131, 140, 153, 155, 158, 168, 179, 181–182, 218

Batman (monthly comic) xi, xiv, 49, 72, 79, 81, 88, 133, 151, 154, 160, 163–165, 166–168, 173

Brooker_Index.indd 251Brooker_Index.indd 251 5/3/2012 9:38:47 PM5/3/2012 9:38:47 PM

HUNTING THE DARK KNIGHT252

Batman (1989) x, 15, 24, 29, 35–36, 54, 74, 83–84, 86, 101–102, 104, 109, 115, 117, 120, 127–128, 181, 197, 217

Batman: A Death in the Family 124, 154, 168

Batman & Robin (1997) ix–x, 15, 22, 25, 36–37, 49, 55–56, 101–102, 103, 105, 117, 181

Batman and Robin (monthly comic) xi, 79, 81, 87, 173

Batman Begins (2005) xi–xiii, 1–2, 9, 10, 13–29, 31–32, 34, 36–37, 49–50, 53–56, 58–59, 62–69, 71–72, 83–85, 87–89, 91–95, 97, 99–106, 108–112, 117, 124, 126–127, 129, 140, 149, 154, 156–157, 165, 167, 179, 181–182, 198–199, 205, 218

Batman Begins (DVD bonus material) 18, 21, 54, 56, 58–60, 62–63, 67, 71–72, 97–98, 106, 112, 156

Batman Begins (novelisation) 18–19, 53, 84

Batman Begins (production informa-tion) 12–13, 16, 23, 25–29, 31, 62, 90, 94–95, 98, 100–101, 106, 129, 132–133, 156

Batman Begins (published Screenplay) 18, 20, 53, 73, 84, 90, 181

Batman Begins: The Movie and Other Tales of the Dark Knight (comic book adaptation) xii, 18–20, 24, 73–74, 84

Batman Forever (1995) x, 22, 25, 75, 92–93, 105, 130

Batman Incorporated xi, 79–81, 84, 114, 155, 173, 196, 211–214, 216

Batman Returns (1992) x, 28, 35, 75, 84, 86, 181

Batman RIP xi, 81, 167, 171, 173–174, 195

Batman: The Black Casebook, 163–164, 174, 214

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns ix–x, xii, xiv, 16, 20, 41, 59, 62, 64–67, 70–74, 104, 109–114, 116–117,

124, 128, 131, 142, 154, 156–158, 161, 163, 175, 179, 181, 186, 197

Batman: The Killing Joke 86, 112, 124, 129, 142, 145, 154, 168–169, 174, 197

Batman: The Long Halloween 1, 59, 61, 63–65, 67–68, 71–72, 86, 109–113, 116, 124, 142–144, 154, 156, 159, 197

Batman: Year One 1, 16, 20, 24, 49, 57–59, 61–65, 67–68, 69, 71, 109–113, 115–119, 124, 126, 130, 140, 142–143, 150, 154, 156, 159, 167, 173, 186, 195, 197, 217

Bat-Mite 81, 115, 122, 126, 164, 167, 170–172, 179, 216

Batmobile 64–65, 71, 87, 94–95, 98, 100, 130, 138

Batwoman / Kathy Kane 168Bazin, André 96–97, 99BBC Online 109Beck, Glenn 202Biodrowski, Steve 109, 203, 207Bolland, Brian 59, 71, 112, 168, 174Boozer, Jack 5, 7Bradshaw, Peter 27, 32Bunch, Sonny 30, 33, 200Burton, Tim x, 11, 15, 17, 22, 24–25,

29, 35–36, 39, 43, 51–52, 54, 56, 58, 74–75, 86, 91–92, 94, 101–104, 106, 109, 115, 117, 121, 126, 128, 130, 134, 181, 197, 217

Bush, George 200–204, 207–208, 217

Caine, Michael 10–11, 71, 88camp 2, 22, 25, 33, 50, 60, 82, 93–94,

102–103, 104–105, 108, 110, 114–124, 126–128, 130, 134, 140, 150, 166, 168–171, 175–176, 179, 181–185, 190, 205, 215–217

carnival xiv, 126, 135–145, 149–150, 155, 166, 170, 174–176, 179, 184, 186, 190–191, 193–195, 215, 218

Cartmell, Deborah 44–45, 51Catwoman / Selina Kyle 35, 78, 138,

142, 144, 169, 186, 216Cheney, Dick 69, 201–203, 207Christopher, James 30


INDEX 253

Cinefantastique 110, 203Clayface 132Clooney, George ixCollins, Jim x, xi, 70, 73Collora, Sandy 152Comic Book Resources 154Commissioner Gordon 24, 57, 59, 62,

64, 69, 71, 142–143, 175, 186, 197, 199, 203–204, 206, 209, 210

Crisis on Infinite Earths 114–116, 119, 123, 126, 133–134 149, 151, 154, 157, 159, 161–162, 168

Crowley, Nathan 95, 102

Dargis, Manohla 109Darius, Julian 66, 68, 72, 160–161,

181–182Dark Knight, The (2008) xi–xiii, 1,

13–14, 24, 29–31, 33–35, 37–39, 54, 69, 82–85, 87, 115, 133, 157, 169, 177–178, 182, 186, 191, 193, 198–199, 200–204, 207–210, 215, 217–218

Dark Knight, The (monthly comic) 79, 84, 86

Dark Knight, The (novelisation) 84Dark Knight, The (production

Information) 31Dark Knight, The (published

Screenplay) 84Dark Knight Rises, The (2012) 54, 77Dawes, Rachel 63, 204, 206DC Comics xi–xii, 2, 12, 21, 31, 42,

49, 56, 60–61, 75–77, 82, 85, 90, 114–115, 131,138, 148, 152, 154, 156, 162, 214, 218

DC Database 154, 159deconstruction xiv, 178–179, 182–183,

186, 188, 190–191, 209Derrida, Jaques 6, 46, 177–178, 180,

182–183, 186–194, 198, 207–208Detective Comics (monthly comic) 1,

19, 50, 72, 79, 115, 154, 159, 160, 164, 175

Didio, Dan 2, 21Ducard, Henri 20, 72

Ebert, Roger 30, 33, 110Eco, Umberto 41, 118, 155, 157–158Elliot, Kamilla 45, 51Elseworlds 156, 162, 213, 214Empire 15, 102, 110, 130E! Online 27

Falcone, Carmine 61, 64–65, 130Falconer, Duncan 165–166, 169fandom 2–3, 12, 18, 25, 32–33, 35–43,

54–55, 56, 68, 74, 76, 84, 88, 110, 121, 130, 152, 154, 161, 164, 176, 181, 214, 217–218

fast food xii, 1, 81–82, 85, 154Film4.com 102Finger, Bill 19, 167, 175Fiorella, John 152Flash 41, 90, 165folk / folklore 65, 135–136, 140–142,

144–145, 148, 152–153, 155–157, 170, 177, 184, 198, 213, 219

Following (1999) 9, 13–14, 26, 28, 32, 36, 210

Foucault, Michel 7–8, 11, 16, 25, 43, 89, 106–107, 147, 176

Fox, Lucius 71, 87, 94, 206Freeman, Morgan 11, 71, 87–88

gay readings xii, 92–93, 104, 107, 119–128, 134, 135, 162, 163, 164, 166–167, 176–177, 179, 183, 191, 194, 196, 216–217

Genette, Gérard 10, 18Georgakas, Dan 51Geraghty, Christine 51Gerstner, David A. 3, 5, 8, 44Gibron, Bill 31–32Gibbons, Dave 69Giordiano, Dick 70Gordon, Ian 54Gotham City 26, 61–64, 80, 82,

87, 91, 100, 102, 109, 115–116, 129–130, 139, 143, 153, 168, 170, 172, 181–182, 193, 195, 197, 203–204, 206, 210, 212

Gotham Knight (2008) xiii, 1, 53, 85, 157



Gotham Knights (comic book) 59, 78Gough, Kerry 75–76Goyer, David S. 11, 16, 19, 21–23, 39,

57–61, 63, 65–66, 71, 73, 90–93, 109

Gramsci, Antonio 125Gray, Jonathan 10, 18, 43, 67–68,

81–82, 105Green Arrow / Oliver Queen 175Green Lantern / Hal Jordan 80, 90,

116Green, Michael 197Guardian 27, 55

Hamm, Sam 116, 119, 122Harley Quinn / Harleen Quinzel 86,

137, 154, 171Heath, Justin 33, 34hegemony 125–126, 131–132, 172,

209Holmes, Katie 10–11, 23homosexuality 104, 107, 121,

124–125, 127, 134Hush (Character) 168Hutcheon, Linda 50, 52, 67–68

Independent, The (British) 29, 31–32

Inception (2010) 34, 37Infinite Crisis 159–160Insomnia (2002) 9, 12, 14–16, 20, 22,

26–28, 36–37, 67, 210intertextuality 6, 8, 44, 46, 48, 50–51,

67, 87–88, 133, 135, 147, 149, 157, 180, 182, 212

Ip, John 200–201, 203–204, 207

Jancovich, Mark 55Jennings, Ben 152–153JLA: Earth 2 151, 162, 184Johnson, Derek 49, 75, 76, 78, 88Joker xiv, 29, 33, 38, 50, 64, 80, 86–88,

116, 124, 127–128, 134–135, 137–139, 142, 144–145, 150, 167–177, 179, 184, 186, 190–200, 203–207, 209, 215, 218

Jorgen, Jack 45Justice League 214

Kane, Bob x, 12, 17, 19, 39–40, 43, 56, 74, 106, 109–110, 117, 119, 122, 132, 153, 167, 175, 182

Kaveney, Roz 112Keaton, Michael 24Kerstein, Benjamin 200Kilmer, Val 218Kingdom Come 59, 113, 213Klavan, Andrew 202, 207Klock, Geoff 112, 128, 160–161, 175Kodac.com 13Kristeva, Julia 6, 45, 47–48

Landesman, Cosmo 200Lau 200, 203–204Lawrenson, Edward 13Ledger, Heath 24, 29–31, 38–39, 87,

169Lee, Jim ix, xi, 21, 59, 60, 68, 72,

77–78, 80, 175Lefèvre, Pascal 53, 69–70Legends of the Dark Knight (monthly

comic) 72, 75, 78, 124, 143, 156–157, 213

Leitch, Thomas 45–46Levi-Strauss, Claude 5Levitz, Paul 12, 21, 56, 60–61Loeb, Jeph 58–62, 65, 68, 72, 77–78,

80, 111–112, 124, 175Los Angeles Times 28, 102

Mad Hatter / Jarvis Tech 175Man-Bat 132Many Lives of the Batman, The x, 74,

76Maroni, Sal 204, 209Mazzucchelli, David 58–59, 62, 69,

71, 111, 113, 143McAllister, Matthew 55McCarthy, Todd 16McKean, Dave ix, 72, 112, 113McKee, Alan 112Medhurst, Andy 119–121, 123–124,

127–128, 134, 147, 217Meehan, Eileen R. x–xi, 74Memento (2000) 9, 12–15, 20–22,

26–28, 32, 36–37, 67, 210Metz, Christian 5


INDEX 255

Miller, Frank ix, xi–xii, 2, 16–17, 20, 24, 39–41, 43, 49, 56–59, 61–63, 65–67, 69, 71–75, 77–78, 80, 88, 104, 106, 109–114, 116–119, 128–132, 134, 143, 153, 155, 157, 159, 161, 174–175, 179, 181–182, 216,

Milligan, Peter 113Moore, Alan 41, 66, 75, 112, 117, 169,

174, 217Morrison, Grant 39–40, 42–43,

65, 87–88, 112, 133, 151, 160, 162–171, 173–174, 176, 179, 184–186, 196, 211–216

Mottram, James 20, 181Murphy, Cillian 72

Neeson, Liam 10–11, 99Newman, Kim 15New York Times, The 109Nicholson, Jack 29, 127–128Nolan, Christopher ix, xi–xiii, xiv,

1–2, 9–17, 19–43, 46, 48, 49, 52, 54–63, 65–67, 71–73, 77, 79, 82, 84–95, 97–106, 108–110, 112, 115, 117–119, 127, 130–134, 147, 149, 154–155, 157, 169, 174–175, 177–179, 181–183, 186, 191, 198–199, 201, 206, 209–210, 214–215, 218

Nolan, Jonathan 39Norris, Christopher 179, 182, 187–188

Obama, Barack 152, 200, 202, 203, 207, 217

Oldman, Gary 11, 24, 57, 59, 62, 69O’Neil, Dennis / Denny xii, 19–21,

39–40, 43, 49, 59–65, 71, 73–75, 79, 104, 106, 109–111, 113, 116–117, 122–123, 128–129, 134, 154, 159, 168, 179, 182, 213, 218

Palmer, Martyn 14, 100–103, 130Palmer, R. Barton 52Pearson, Roberta x, xi, 74–76, 79,

83, 154Penguin / Oswald Cobblepot 86,

137–138, 142

Peters, Jon 54Pfeiffer, Michelle 35Pfister, Wally 94Philadelphia Inquirer, The 200Pierce, Nev 109pop 33, 82, 168, 179, 215–217Popmatters.com 31poststructuralism 6, 17, 44, 46–47, 51,

62, 66, 180Prestige, The (2006) 25–29,

31–33, 210

queer meanings 107, 128, 162, 166, 176, 179, 183, 191, 194, 196

Quesada, Joe 76Quinn, Anthony 31, 32

Rae, Neil 67–68Reynolds, Richard 41, 112, 118, 152,

160, 162Rickey, Carrie 200Riddler / Edward Nigma 137, 142,

168–169, 218Robin (general) 36, 63, 78, 84, 88, 93,

104, 121, 123–124, 134, 160, 175Robin I / Nightwing / Batman

/ Dick Grayson 36, 63, 77, 79, 80–84, 87, 104, 107, 121 123–124, 126, 128, 136, 143, 164–165, 167–169, 172, 174–175, 196, 212, 216

Robin II / Red Hood (Jason Todd) 121, 124, 168

Robin III / Red Robin / Tim Drake 83, 87, 124, 168, 174, 196 212–213, 216

Robin IV / Damian Wayne 79, 81, 83, 87–88, 174, 196, 212–213

Robinson, Jerry 167Rolling Stone 93Romney, Jonathan 29–30, 32Ross, Alex 59, 113Rotten Tomatoes 27Roven, Charles 99

Sabin, Roger 51Sale, Tim 59, 61–62, 65, 69, 71–72,

77–78, 80, 111–113, 124, 175



Salon 28, 32Sandhu, Sukhdev 14–15, 32, 103–104,

109–110Sarris, Andrew 4Scarecrow / Jonathan Crane 37, 50,

57–58, 61, 63, 71–72, 130, 137, 169, 198–199

Schneider, Steve 202, 203Schreck, Bob 42, 60Schumacher, Joel ix–x, xii–xiii, 15,

17, 21–22, 24–25, 29, 34, 36–37, 39, 49, 52, 55–56, 62, 88, 90, 92–94, 101–106, 108, 110, 117, 119, 121–122, 126–127, 129–131, 140, 153, 179, 181, 216

Sight and Sound 4, 13, 105Sinfield, Alan 107, 123, 126–127, 132,

138, 147, 209–210Singer, Marc 166Slate 28, 31, 199Smith, Patti 203Somigli, Luca 48, 70Staiger, Janet 8, 44Stam, Robert 45–48, 52Stevens, Dana 28, 31, 33, 199–200Stevens, Matt 27Sunday Times 100, 200Superman (character) 41, 66, 80, 82,

90, 116, 118, 129, 155, 158–159, 185, 217

Taylor, Robert Brian 129–132Telegraph, The (London) 14, 109–110terror / terrorism xiv, 33, 178, 186, 191,

198–202, 204, 207–208, 210, 218Times (London) 14, 30Time Out 28Toh, Justine 198Total Film 102, 109

Travers, Peter 92Truffaut, François 3–4, 96Turan, Kenneth 28, 102–103, 109Two-Face / Harvey Dent 64, 88, 128,

137–138, 142, 182, 186, 201, 203–204, 206, 209

Uricchio, William x–xi, 74–76, 79, 83, 154

Variety 15, 16, 103viral marketing xiii, 1, 53, 82, 84

Wall Street Journal, The 54–55, 202Walters, Ben 28Warner Brothers / Time Warner xii,

2, 11–12, 15–16, 19, 28, 31, 49, 55–56, 72, 102, 152–153

Washington Independent, The 201Washington Post, The 30,Washington Times, The 30, 200Wertham, Fredric 104, 121, 123–124West, Adam ix, xii, 2, 24, 68, 79, 82,

86, 101, 104, 118, 120–121, 123, 126, 129, 131, 153, 155, 158, 168, 179, 181–182, 218–219

Whedon, Joss 42Whelehan, Imelda 44–45, 51Wikipedia 154, 158–159, 171–172Williams, Raymond 111, 125–126,

131–132, 172Wollen, Peter 5Wonder Woman 90, 116, 185Wood, Robin 4, 13, 29

Yglesias, Matthew 201–202

Zacharek, Stephanie 28, 32Zimmer, Hans 23


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