4/20

I should to say that the author of this blog pointed out some interesting thoughts of Joker. His thoughts are really fun although I am not agreed with him. In my mind, the purpose is one of the standard to judge whether someone is a hero or not. The purposes of Joker are looking for some entertainment. Joker takes delight in other people’s pain and Gotham’s mess, he even does not care money. It is clear that a person like Joker cannot be a hero.

I choose a scene that Joker seized Rachel by a gun and asked Batman take off his mask. How a hero threaten another hero through hurt his friend, a weak woman? Then, Joker threw Rachel out of this building from a very high floor when Batman tried to save Rachel. I believe that if Batman did not get Rachel before she fall to the ground, she would die (The Dark Knight).

The author of this blog indicated that “With Batman and Gordon’s help, Joker helps them root out corrupt police officials. Dent even kills some of those officials later in the film”(Nye). Which officals were killed by Joker in this film? Judge Surrillo and Commissioner Loeb. Form the limited information of the Judge Surrillo, she is not a bad person. On the other hand, I think Joker “kill” the white Knight of Gotham on the spiritual plane and he turned Dent became Two Face. I cannot find any goodwill form Joker to Gotham, to citizens or to Batman at all (The Dark Knight).

The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. Warner Bros. 2008. DVD. 

Dean Nye and Esposito Brad.“This‘Dark Knight’Fan Theory Makes The Joker The Hero.” Buzzfeed.com. Buzzfeed, 27 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.

4/13

NKAY96’s blog is interesting that he did all his can to prove Batman is not crazy or a loner. I do not think Batman is crazy either. But I agree a common idea about Batman, he is a loner. As I understand, a loner means a lonely man. That stands for Batman has no friends. NKAY96 proved Batman is not a loner because he has an only friend, Superman. He explained that “but Clark is the only person who I could actually say is Bruce’s true friend” (NKAY96). In my opinion, Clark is not Bruce’s friend.

Use Batman’s movie The Dark Knight as the example. There is a touching scene in the end of this film which may best prove Batman is a loner. “Batman!” “Batman! Why is he running, Dad? ” With the question asked by Gordon’s son, Batman ran into dark. “Because we have to chase him”. “He did not do anything wrong”. “Because he is the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we will hunt him…because he can take it…because he is not our hero. He is a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a dark knight…” Gordon answered (The Dark Knight).

I think the dark color is a kind symbol of loner. After Batman started his escape, his whole person fades into dark. The only light in this scene was lighted on the wall. And the other part all fell into dark. At that time, the music was fevered, ups, downs and continuous. I think the music is the praise of the Dark Knight and his alone sprits. He has no friend, Gordon not, Harvey not, there is no one can become his friend. The final ending of him in this film is escape.

NKAY96. “Batman Character Analysis: He Ain’t Crazy but He Is Complex.” GirlOnComicBookWorld. N.P, 17 Feb. 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. Warner Bros. 2008. Film.

4/11

    I found that I could not get any useful information on the biggest search engine of China when I tried to search something about “Panama Papers”. The website showed nothing about our leaders who involved in Panama Papers. Then, I changed another search engine, Google, and I knew everything like which leaders of my country involved in Panama Papers. I think this is the reason why Chinese government prohibited all Google products in China.

    To return to my subject, there was a scene in Batman: The Dark Knight may connects to this political event. According to Wikipedia, “The Panama Papers are a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents that provide detailed information about more than 214,000 offshore companies listed by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, including the identities of shareholders and directors of the companies. The documents show how wealthy individuals, including public officials, hid their assets from public scrutiny” (Wikipedia). The similarity between the Nolan’s The Dark Knight and political event Panama Papers is the economic issue.

    In The Dark Knight, there was a scene that described these polices made a sudden check to examine the money belonged to the organization of gangsters. At the same time, there was a video call going through between the heads of organization and Liu. Liu said that “I am your only option, moving all the deposits to a secure location” and “no one can know, but me”. Then, he moved those ill-gotten gains to Hong Kong, China (The Dark Knight). There was a piece tense and continuous music during this scene and the light looks normal, just like in a general daytime.  

    Try to hide ill-gotten gains by transfer them to other countries. It is the action that many high level officials would like to take. At that time, we need a hero like Gordon or Harvey, who can bravely disclose and confront these actions. Like Batman, who can help government find a solution to track the ill-gotten gains. In Panama Papers event, we need a hero like the media which play an important role as German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Czar. “Panama Papers.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. Warner Bros. 2008. Film.

4/9

It was my third time to watch The Dark Knight on Thursday. I really like the Joker acted by Heath Ledger. In my mind, Heath’s Joker is my favorite edition of Joker in Batman films. To return to the subject, Harvey Dent, a very interesting character who walked between the hero and villain.   
        Harvey was worried about that Joker would hurt Rachel after Gordon feigned death, so he interrogated the fake policeman to look for the information of Joker like mad. I think he was battling between hero and villain at that time. “You want paly games?” He asked the fake policeman and fired beside himself suddenly. He threatened the fake policeman to tell him something about Joker. He was doing an internal struggle when he said “no, no, I wouldn’t”. In my opinion, if Batman did not catch the coin, he would kill the fake policeman. And I think there was another possibility, Harvey knew the result of tossed coin was back side, he would not immediately kill the fake policeman due to the appearance of Batman. But he would kill him after he became Two Face in hospital. This is his insistence of the coin decision, 50% and 50%.

The scene was very dark and we can only saw Harvey and the Harvey Dent. The music was not much, if any before he second time tossed the coin. Then, music became very tense during the process he tossed. Finally, the music stopped suddenly when the result would appear. Not only the music stopped, but also the process of Harvey Dent becoming Two Face stopped at this time.

The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. Warner Bros. 2008. Film.

4/4

     As a big fan of Japanese animations, I am not good at American comics. I just know some basic knowledges of American comics, for example, the world views of Marvel and DC Comic. I learnt about Batman from Nolan’s three Batman films. But now seems there is no significant relationship between the stories of these three films and the story of original comics.

I should to say that I felt the Batman of Dark Knight Returns looks really different from the Batman in my mind as well as Kim Fu’s feeling. But I still do not agree her opinions, and I do not think the Batman in Dark Knight Returns is a cruel sadist.

     From page 99 to page 102, these panels told about Batman beat Two Face. It was a violent process that Batman even made Two Fact became blind when they were fighting. In most panels of the several pages, there were so much mud and blood mixed together. Of course, Batman is a cruel fighter during he is fighting.

     Although he is cruel fighter, he did not kill Two Face. In page 102, a man looked like a politician who wear sunglasses said that “Once he is mobile, he will be arraigned” (Miller). It is clear that the “he” in his sentence stood for Two Face. We can find that Batman did not kill Two Face from this politician’s speech.

     For sum up, we may say that Batman is a cruel fighter or a cruel hero. But he is not a cruel sadist, and a person who worked hard to protect Gotham City whole time could not be called “cruel sadist”. So I am not agreed Fu’s opinions.

Fu, Kim. “Caped Crusader, Or Cruel Sadist? Miller Makes One Fan Wonder.” Npr Books.12 Jan 2014. Web. 4 Apr 2016.

Miller, Frank, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. New York: DC Comic. 2002. Print. 

3/28

Because of my curiosity, I quickly read the whole comic book this afternoon. Perhaps I did not get the real meaning of Batman’s story due to its strange style (to tell the truth, I should say that the background and characters look really ugly. I am a fan of Batman movie series, this is the first time I saw the comic of Batman), but I think Batman: the Dark Knight Returns is a very good comic which has great explanation of Batman’s heroism.

    In my mind, Batman is a hero in Batman: the Dark Knight Returns. Although he was dragged into dark, I believe this is a story talks about hope. As I said in my preceding essay, I think heroes should have special sprit that can influence others when they get into dark. The most capped two super heroes in Batman: the Dark Knight Returns are Batman and Clark (Superman), but they are totally different. If I describe Clark as the sun, I should say Batman is a little bit of light in the infinite dark night, just like his name “dark knight”. In this story, Superman yields to pressure from American government, but Batman always keep to himself. When the dark night comes, Bruce becomes Batman. So Batman stands for a kind of spiritual power, and he is the only hope in dark night. Instead of saying that this story gave an old and losing Batman, I think it is opposite, this story narrated the rebirth of Bat Sprit. In page 174, there are two short sentences which I really like: “Just his voice” and “Just him”. He is not always right, he is not always strong, and he is not always successful, but people need a hero like him.

Miller, Frank, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley. The Dark Knight Returns. New York: DC Comics, 2002. Print.

3/26
    I have seen the movie series of Batman more than 3 times, especially the Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, before I read this comic book. As an old audience, I think Batman: The Dark Knight Returns has a different style from other stories of this series.

In the Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Two Face keeps his own features. For example, in page 21 of the comic book, he tossed a coin to make a decision. Then, Batman found Two Face’s coin on someone’s corpse and he knew Two Face was came back in page 40. At the end of Chapter 1, the pair of old adversary, they met again.

The colors of page 53 are blue, white, fire and black. From the lower half of this page, there are only blue and black. So reader can see the action of Batman and Harvey clear. Finally, Batman man clasped Two Face. In page 53 Batman tried to catch Harvey (Two Face) when they were falling down. In next page, it seems like he got Harvey and they fell into a window together. Form this scene, I could see that they are not simple adversarial relationship. They may be a pair good friends or partners before they became each other’s opponent. Another possibility is Batman could not let Harvey died due to some reason. For example, he has question that only Harvey can answer him. Or he need Harvey to do some things that only Harvey can do them. But as an informed player, I know they has been very good friends before Two Face disfigured.

        

Miller, Frank, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley. The Dark Knight Returns. Salem: DC Comics, 2002. Print.