"I am... the goddamned Batman... and I can do anything..." (plus an intro to AKOTAS!)
Over in his journal, scarfman observed:
Just because a character can do anything, just because he has no physical limits, doesn't mean he's an uninteresting character. It just means you have to do stories about what he won't let himself do ... or, about the circumstances when he will let himself do that.
You just have to be a good writer.
That got me thinking.
In the Inter-Crisis Universe, especially toward the end there, Batman had taken over from Superman as the "character who could do anything". He was better at everything than anyone else, in any human field of endeavor, and in many or most superhuman fields, as well: you couldn't beat him, because He Was The ********* Batman, and he'd Find A Way. He was never wrong, and he never had to turn to outside expertise -- other than the data-mining he farmed out to Oracle, because sitting in front of a computer had become so commonplace that it was no longer Cool Enough For The Bat.
On another note entirely, this is an excuse to plug one of my favorite webcomics.
scarfman, you see, is Paul Gadzikowski, the creator of Arthur, King of Time and Space (a.k.a. AKOTAS), which is easily on my top five list. The very first strip sets up the premise better than I ever could summarize:
(Click above to start the quest.)
The minimalist art style looks crude at first, but is deceptively sophisticated: all of the characters have distinctive features, and even without the color-coded livery each wears, all of the major cast members (and most of the minor) are readily identifiable as the action segues from setting to setting.
Moreover, their personalities are equally distinctive, and very quickly established.
Mr. Gadzikowski fully intends to cover the full quarter-century that the classic sources ascribed to Arthur's reign -- across the centuries and timelines, of course. He Does His Homework, which, as many of you know, racks up lots of points in Your Obedient Serpent's book. Better yet, he annotates, discussing how certain events differ in Mallory and other source, why he chose certain approaches in AKOTAS, and even occasionally explaining why he skipped over some events entirely.
Right now, the comic is moving into Arthur's War With Rome, which is, to be honest, one of many things I didn't even know was part of the mythos until I read GURPS CAMELOT way back when.
Give it a try. Don't let the art turn you off; it grows on you. And smart writing is more important, anyway.
Just because a character can do anything, just because he has no physical limits, doesn't mean he's an uninteresting character. It just means you have to do stories about what he won't let himself do ... or, about the circumstances when he will let himself do that.
You just have to be a good writer.
That got me thinking.
In the Inter-Crisis Universe, especially toward the end there, Batman had taken over from Superman as the "character who could do anything". He was better at everything than anyone else, in any human field of endeavor, and in many or most superhuman fields, as well: you couldn't beat him, because He Was The ********* Batman, and he'd Find A Way. He was never wrong, and he never had to turn to outside expertise -- other than the data-mining he farmed out to Oracle, because sitting in front of a computer had become so commonplace that it was no longer Cool Enough For The Bat.
On another note entirely, this is an excuse to plug one of my favorite webcomics.
scarfman, you see, is Paul Gadzikowski, the creator of Arthur, King of Time and Space (a.k.a. AKOTAS), which is easily on my top five list. The very first strip sets up the premise better than I ever could summarize:
(Click above to start the quest.)
The minimalist art style looks crude at first, but is deceptively sophisticated: all of the characters have distinctive features, and even without the color-coded livery each wears, all of the major cast members (and most of the minor) are readily identifiable as the action segues from setting to setting.
Moreover, their personalities are equally distinctive, and very quickly established.
Mr. Gadzikowski fully intends to cover the full quarter-century that the classic sources ascribed to Arthur's reign -- across the centuries and timelines, of course. He Does His Homework, which, as many of you know, racks up lots of points in Your Obedient Serpent's book. Better yet, he annotates, discussing how certain events differ in Mallory and other source, why he chose certain approaches in AKOTAS, and even occasionally explaining why he skipped over some events entirely.
Right now, the comic is moving into Arthur's War With Rome, which is, to be honest, one of many things I didn't even know was part of the mythos until I read GURPS CAMELOT way back when.
Give it a try. Don't let the art turn you off; it grows on you. And smart writing is more important, anyway.