Fighting words here. Batman is the best superhero character in history. At least here where I don’t know Shadow. Batman is a wealthy man using a past tragedy to impact his hometown. Granted it’s not a town. He doesn’t have ridiculous powers like Superman or someone else. Even though it couldn’t happen it “could happen” at least as far and believeable goes in superhero world.
Read Knightfall, Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Arkham Asylum Serious House, etc. Or any of the newer Scott Snyder stuff.
Batman has been successful in almost all mediums. The animated series run is one of the most decorated superhero cartoons of all time winning multiple emmys. Heck Mask of the Phantasm just may be the best Batman movie and it comes from that series.
Speaking of movies Batman has plenty of good ones. Is there a better series of superhero films than Nolan’s trilogy? The Dark Knight alone was good enough to essentially create a new category for the Oscars when it got snubbed. Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is put up among some of the best movie villains of all time. And that says nothing of how good Keaton’s films were.
For my money Batman has the best rogue gallery. My bias is obvious but I have the joker as the best superhero villain ever. Who’s more iconic, unpredictable, and evil? Penguin, Mr Freeze, Riddler, Bane, Scarecrow, etc. I would wager the average person can name more Batman villains than any other superhero character by far.
Speaking of trilogies the Rocksteady Batman games are the pinnacle of console video game superhero games. All three of these were game of the year contenders or winners. They don’t just have great gameplay but they have great stories. And who has a better voice or more recognizable animated superhero voice than Mark Hamil and Kevin Conroy?
I will definitely agree that Daredevil on Netflix might be the best TV superhero show ever. I hope that series doesn’t die and can come back in some form on Disney’s service.
I would argue people have zero illusions about what Trump is. The issue is the people that support him just don’t care. I work with a lot of Trump supporters, and I’ve talked with them about their views over beers. They don’t hesitate to admit he’s a selfish, lying sack of shit. They just don’t care… as long as he’s pushing their agenda, whether it’s nominating conservative judges, loosening the reigns on our troops in the desert, or sticking it to immigrants. The means justify the ends for these folks. And besides, the democrats are just as bad, right? Fox News has been telling them democrats want to kill babies and destroy America for years now. The only difference between the shady shit the Trump administration is doing and what Democrats have done (Hilary’s emails, Benghazi, child sex rings!) is that the Trump administration is getting caught. And, they’re only getting caught because the dirty democrats have embedded their operatives in our institutions (deep state!).
I’m sure you know this, but Trump did not win a majority of the vote. He won because he got just the right number of votes in just the right states to put him over the edge. Let’s face it, 80% of America is going to vote D or R regardless of the candidate. Trump built a coalition consisting of the Republican base that was going to vote Republican no matter what, independents who couldn’t stomach Hillary, plus those white voters who felt like they were losing control of “their” country. The later were folks who probably didn’t vote much in previous elections and who took pride in being called deplorables.
I think the right democratic candidate could win by, first, not being Hillary. This could flip the few “true” independents who Hillary couldn’t reach in the last election and turn out democrats who sat out last time. Shit, don’t forget how terrible a candidate Hillary was. She was the subject of an FBI investigation (twice!) during the election. She had tons of baggage and generated literally ZERO excitement within certain traditionally democratic demographics. And second, by convincing the deplorables to stay home because Trump couldn’t deliver on his nationalist agenda.
A few bullet points to consider…
There were more democratic votes cast than republican votes in the 2018 midterms (51.7 million votes to 47.4 million votes). Even more impressive when you consider republicans turn out in greater numbers than democrats in midterm elections
Amendment 4 passed in Florida, giving 1.5 million convicted felons the right to vote. Should be a boon for democrats in a large swing state
Demographics continue to shift. The republican base is getting smaller every election cycle.
…I think the right democratic candidate could win by, first, not being Hillary…
I emphasize “right” candidate because as it stands; looking at the current Democratic Field; they stand to alienate those independents you spoke of and white swing voters if the election becomes too far Left and/or is infused with far too much Socialist rhetoric for them to stomach.
Trump simply plays a much better game of “us vs. them” than the DEMS do (IMO)…and he simply has this huge “X” factor that had him defying just about every Poll and Pundit in 2016.
In terms of the numbers…I fully admit to not being good at factoring these things into my impressions. I go much more by a “feeling” (which is probably why I am so lousy at predicting political winners and losers!)
I don’t care about the story, it was the tidbit about being in the Cult of the Dead Cow that peaked my interest. Dude just got way more interesting, lol.
I don’t think the substance of the democratic nominee’s message matters all that much. Earlier I estimated 80% of the population is going to vote for a particular party regardless of the candidate. The majority of the remaining 20% are going to vote based on style and not substance. My point is, the details of the candidate’s policy positions don’t matter much.
I agree, however I would add that republicans in general do a better job. They’re masters of using the holy trifecta - LGBT, abortion and immigration - as wedge issues to divide Americans. Rebpublicans don’t care about finding common ground and making progress on these issues. They’re just used as political gunpowder to fire up the base.
That was the consensus after Romney’s loss to Obama in 2012. However, trump grew the base by appealing to the deplorables i mentioned earlier. That, and Hillary was a terrible candidate who couldn’t turn out parts of the democratic base.
Put another way, Trump has no values. He’s often referred to as an empty vessel. Actually, the one thing he does value is winning. That my not be so bad if he didn’t view the world as a zero-sum game.
I really need to read up on Beta apparently. Not knowing much of anything about him, I was half hoping he wouldn’t run so the Alpha Beta jokes wouldn’t immediately run into the ground.
I’ve read quite a bit of that list, and I’m not a hater of Batman. However, most of his character was lifted from early pulp novels.
No question, a brilliant series.[quote=“H_factor, post:624, topic:252479”]
For my money Batman has the best rogue gallery. My bias is obvious but I have the joker as the best superhero villain ever.
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Walter Gibson actually flamed them for that. He killed his villains and so had to be creative. Making batman a non-lethal character got around that limitation.
I’m also a humongous DD fan. Maybe it’s the Irish Catholic guilt, or the ninjas? I can’t be sure on that one.
Dinoffrio’s Kingpin is absolutely Emmy worthy in my opinion.
There are some absolutely incredible runs on Daredevil. Funnily enough, they also include a masterful Miller run (the man who made modern batman, as I’m sure you know)
