I love Batman. Always have. Always will.
I sucked it up and watched all but one of the 80’s/90’s Batman movies Batman & Robin. (Why anyone would look at that and think it was good is just crazy) and used to collect the comic books off and on, watched the crummy 60’s TV show in reruns when I was a kid, so don’t even try and not call me a Batman lover. Not in a Batman/Robin…you know…well…not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with-that kind of way, but I’ve always enjoyed Batman. Bruce Wayne went from wimpy kid one minute to crazed future vigilante in the next with the death of his parents. He donned the cape, the mask, he became what criminals would fear, and he ruled, which was the best part.
Superman…yeah, he’s alright, but Batman was a normal person wailing on somebody. You could feel your blood pump and the adrenaline go up as he started in on, as the Fantastic Four’s Thing would say, “clobberin’ time.”
Batman never really cared much about the consequences of his actions like Superman did. Clark was always the fine upstanding man that he was raised to be and was supposed to be. He was good and kind and saw the world in black and white. But the world has never been black and white, sure there are good guys and bad guys, but sometimes the bad guys are on your side fighting for your interests The CIA in the 80’s trying to get rid of the communist Sandanistas in Central America, for instance and sometimes they’re not. Al Queda Sometimes they’re out for world domination and other times they just want money or power or something that makes them look sexy in the eyes of others. And it’s those reasons that would make me want to be a super villain. But not just your normal run-of-the-mill vanilla super villain. No sir. I’m looking to be unique, if possible.
Good guys always have to look out for the innocent bystanders and are racked with guilt if they cause an innocent life to be extinguished in the process of saving others. Look at the fight between Spiderman and Green Goblin towards the end of the first Spiderman movie I’ve read that Warner Bros, the studio that puts out the Superman films, is thinking of taking a hint from the Cristopher Nolan lead Batman films and that they might reboot the Superman series in a darker light. What are they thinking? Superman is sunny, Batman is dark. Is Superman not going to care what he does? He’s the son of Krypton sent to Earth to be this planet’s protector, not some gray-area hero.
Which is why it would be cool to be a supervillain. You just wouldn’t have to care. Your whole reason for living is to gain street cred, or cash, or babes, or something intangible that makes up for that horrific time in your life that made you that evil bastard that you became. And it would be fun because taking out your aggression is fun, even if it’s a planeload of people you’ve never met before, sure, one of them did something that they deserve a huge pounding for. Heat vision to the wing of the plane, that’s the way to do it.
I’d drive a cool car and live in some foreboding super-fortress in the Himalayas and have a legion of warriors at my beck and call and have minions, evil minions, that would do whatever I commanded. They’d probably be ninjas. Or some rogue paramilitary outfit that I have on my payroll. I’d be friends with dictators and international criminals and I’d naturally flaunt it in public, because what’s the fun in being a supervillain if you can’t rub it in the face of the people that you call your mortal enemies?
And I’d have to be best friends with my mortal enemy too, just like Magneto and Charles Xavier. I don’t know anybody who is bald and needs a wheel chair, but I’m evil. I’ll put someone in a wheelchair and then shave his head or something. And after I’ve been caught and put in some foolproof prison where only the hardest of the hard villains reside and my best friend comes and visits me we’ll reminiscence about the old days and I’ll make allusions like I’m planning to escape and he’ll threaten me in veiled terms and we’ll glare at each other and then we’ll laugh as I block his king with my knight in the game of chess we’ve been playing and I breathily whisper, “Checkmate.”
Now that’s a heck of a career right there.
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