Movie Time
Batman's Power Struggle
Last week a coworker approached me and asked if I thought Batman was a superhero. I was flabbergasted. “Of course Batman is a superhero,” I said without hesitation. This person then went on to tell me how wrong I was, and proceeded to give me reasons why Batman wasn’t a superhero. He then called someone else over and posed the same question. That second person agreed with him and then they both proceeded to give me shit about it.
Batman 3 The Dark Knight Rises
First let me say this, I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever have to write an article stating why Batman was a superhero. I didn’t even know that there was a segment of the population that felt that way. However, I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked; at one point a few misguided souls thought that the Earth was flat. I really just thought that Batman being a superhero was one of life’s constants.
The main argument I hear against Batman being a superhero is that he doesn’t have any powers. That, in my humble opinion, is a load of crap. Batman is a genius. His mind and deductive reasoning ARE his power. Get Stephen Hawking out of his wheelchair and have him fight crime, and he would be a superhero as well. Not only does Batman have his mind as a super power, he also has a secondary power: his ability to multitask. He can be up all night saving the city, and then continue with his philanthropy work during the day without skipping a beat. Oh yeah, he finds time to bang supermodels in between!
People also say that Batman is not a superhero because anyone can do what he does if they had the resources. Guess what? If you are a genius, are in prime physical condition, and fight crime: congratulations... you are a superhero.
Batman is also a superhero because he fights super villains in addition to petty thugs. The super villains have powers such as superhuman strength (Bane, Killer Croc), the ability to fly (Man-Bat, Killer Moth), the ability to control plant life (Poison Ivy), et cetera, et cetera. It takes a superhero to defeat a super villain or else the police would be able to take care of these guys and we wouldn’t need Batman. If Batman wasn’t a superhero, and just “an average guy” then why does the police call on him to help them out?
For those of you who are into mathematics, I have devised a formula to prove that he’s a superhero. Are you ready for this? SUPER+HERO=SUPERHERO. Super: Batman is super. He fights crime, has cool gadgets, and wears a neat costume. These items all make him super. Hero: Batman has saved Gotham City on several occasions. He has defused bombs, prevented the city from disasters, and has rescued kittens from trees. He is a hero.
Batman is super + Batman is a hero= Batman is a superhero.
As with a lot of debates, there are usually two sides to the dispute. The debate over whether or not Batman is indeed a superhero is one of them. Look, I get the argument against Batman not being a superhero. I see where you’re coming from and I get your point. But the simple fact of the matter is that you are wrong. Batman is, and will always be a superhero.
According to actor Christian Bale and director Christopher Nolan, this summer's The Dark Knight will find Batman struggling with the blowback from his one-man war on crime.
Batman Begins ended with a warning from Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) to Batman (Bale) about "escalation" in crime and villainy now that there's a man in a batsuit prowling Gotham City. "This escalation has now meant that he feels more of a duty to continue," Bale told the New York Times.
Bale added, "And now you have not just a young man in pain attempting to find some kind of an answer, you have somebody who actually has power, who is burdened by that power, and is having to recognize the difference between attaining that power and holding on to it."
Nolan said Batman will be grappling with the "unintended consequence" of his actions. "As we looked through the comics, there was this fascinating idea that Batman's presence in Gotham actually attracts criminals to Gotham, attracts lunacy," Nolan recalled. "When you're dealing with questionable notions like people taking the law into their own hands, you have to really ask, where does that lead? That's what makes the character so dark, because he expresses a vengeful desire."
Escalation comes in the form of The Joker (Heath Ledger). The Times confirms that Ledger had completed work on the Bat-sequel before he died in January, and that Nolan feels a "massive sense of responsibility" to do justice to Ledger's final lead performance. The director calls Ledger's portrayal of the Joker "stunning" and "iconic," as well as "terrifying" and "amazing."
Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes' best feature is also its most divisive; it gives Superman most of the best powers. He can fly, melt objects with his heat vision, freeze objects with frost breath, and has super strength. Historically fans of Batman haven't been particularly fond of his Kryptonian rival, so giving this much freedom to Superman threatens to tip the scales in his favour, rendering Bats a secondary character. Thankfully, this is not the case at all, and through a series of clever choices, Lego Batman 2: DC Heroes promises to capture what makes each of its enormous catalogue of heroes and villains so special.
Last time out, Batman was a bit of a dullard compared to his more colourful villains. To make up for that this time around he can switch between various suits, each granting a different set of powers. Batman's green-goggled sensor suit allows him to appear invisible to sensors, see through certain surfaces with x-ray vision, and activate switches from afar. His electricity suit causes him to absorb charges and later deploy them to power machinery, and his power suit launches rockets that can crumble specific parts of the scenery to reveal grapple points underneath.
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Supposedly knocking a Lego dude's head off constitutes breaking Batman's cardinal rule 'thou shalt not kill.'
Robin can gain different suits as well. A blue acrobat costume allows him to carry off slicker combos or form a glass sphere around him, which can be used to knock enemies over or activate switches than require steadily rolling over them in place. Elsewhere, his hazard suit grants him the ability to walk underwater and comes attached with a Super Mario Sunshine-esque hose for cleaning up.
The demo I saw begins with Joker crashing the 'Man of the Year' awards where Bruce Wayne is about to be celebrated for his contributions to Gotham. Pandemonium spreads throughout the dining hall, while Harley dances onstage in the background. Amusingly, everything Batman and Robin punch - be it a chair, table, or musical instrument, dramatically explodes into flames, leaving collectible Lego bricks as debris.
The first enemies the dynamic duo encounter are mimes. This is a reference to the Lego games of yesteryear as Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes will be the first title in the series to have full voice-acting. Sadly, this wasn't shown in the demo, and the cast list has yet to be announced.
While the stage begins with Batman and Robin tracking down Joker and his goons, he also encounters the Riddler and Two Face along the way. Each story level will be longer and more varied than they've been in past Lego games, with greater variations in their setpieces. "We wanted a sense of epic adventure, of drama, of escalation throughout our levels," said Traveller's Tales' Jonathan Smith. While lengthier stages could easily drag or be inconvenient for parents who want to get their kids to bed on time, Traveller's Tales has introduced checkpoints within each level, and quite frankly, it's about time.
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While the full cast has yet to be revealed, I'm rooting for Vigilante to show up at some point.
If the story-based levels seem tight and refined but perhaps overtly familiar to longtime fans of the series, the hub worlds should provide a breath of fresh air. Our tour of the hub begins in the batcave where waterfalls crash down at all angles while a series of platforms support the world's greatest detective's vehicles and computers.
We switch roles to Superman and fly into a cave, splash through a waterfall, and emerge upon a dimly lit Gotham City expanding in all directions. The dreary cityscape is adorned by colossal stone statues of Lego men bent at odd angles supporting the mammoth structures above them. "We wanted to highlight the drama and grief that exists within this place," Smith explains. Traveller's Tales' take on Gotham is at once a modern metropolis with skyscrapers and street lights infused as well as an ancient city with towering monuments recalling Greece or Egypt.
Famous landmarks are spread throughout like the freakishly tall Wayne Tower, the Acme chemical plant where the Joker was reborn and the Monarch Theatre where Bruce Wayne's parents were killed. From a technical perspective it's not quite as awe-inspiring as what we saw in last year's Arkham City, but it just might be conceptually more interesting.
Exploring the hub has a Crackdown-ish vibe to it, with an open world environment, manually controllable camera, and emphasis on collection. Where Crackdown had hundreds of orbs secreted away in Pacific City's nook and crannies, Gotham contains 100 hidden gold bricks. In one case we see Superman fly into the air and use his heat vision to melt the cranium off a stone mini-figure supporting a bridge to find a gold brick inside. At a glance it would appear Superman's outlandish mobility and temperature-altering powers would make him so omnipotent as to render all other characters useless. The truth is Superman is powerful, but he can't do everything. He can't switch suits for one. This ensures that Batman and his gadgets are still the star attraction.
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Mark Hamill hinted that he may reprise his role of the Joker post Arkham City. Could this be it?
To further balance the Man of Steel against his less super-powered brethren, the open world environments are filled with trails of puzzles that require other characters to bypass. Superman may be able to fly atop a building and find a switch, but if it's covered in goo, he'll need to use Robin and find a hazard suit in order to use it. While Superman is agile, he's really more of a scout (or Reagan's "big blue boy scout" as Frank Miller has it).
There's also a Grand Theft Auto element to these hubs where you can steal cars from characters and zip around in them. While it has yet to be shown off, Warner Bros has promised that all of Bats' vehicles will be available as well from the batmobile to the batwing to the batboat. GTA may have been touted as a sandbox, but its adherence to a structured narrative and realistic world were somewhat at odds with the playful freedom. The hub-world interludes in this virtual toy box seem more fitting to this sense of exploration and horsing around.
The addition of other DC characters may seem like a desperate attempt to toss in extra content for a iterative sequel, but Traveller's Tales seems to have learned a lot over the years about what makes these games work. The tight puzzles, colourful sets, and smorgasbord of different characters and abilities continue to charm and delight, while the addition of Superman promises to expand upon an already solid template. It's another joyous toy box from the Lego series, and this time it looks like an impressively expanded one too.
It's mind-blowing at this stage that gamers still can't seem to get enough of the Lego series of games. After all, Traveller's Tales hasn't strayed much from the basic gaming template it introduced with its first Lego Star Wars instalment in 2005, and in the games industry, innovation is as expected as it is prized. In spite of this, every Lego game that rolls off the assembly line requires players to bash blocks, collect studs, build stuff and solve the odd puzzle. The latest release from the Knutsford-based developer, Lego Batman 2: DC Heroes, barely deviates from this rubric.
