Why I Hate Batman

I admit, I went through a Batman phase for a while there, not coincidentally right around the time when the first movie came out. It's understandable: I was 14, a comic book fiend, and secretly wished I could be intense and mysterious so girls would like me. Eventually, however, I came to my senses and realized that suspension of disbelief is damned near impossible in Batman's world. Never mind that DC's writers can't make up their mind whether Bats is a mythic creature of the night that no one has ever seen (in his own titles) or a well-known public figure (when he appears in the Justice League).

Whatever. That's all pretty much the standard continuity baggage that comes from popular characters in sprawling superhero universes. No, what bugs me about Batman is he's so damn humorless Even if he is the ass-kickingest guy ever, his character seems so one-dimensional that I could never bring myself to care about him. (Although, oddly, I did find Batman Begins easier to take because they didn't make him the greatest-crimefighter-slash-detective-slash-billionaire "perfect at everything" fantasy that he usually is, but rather the new kid trying to figure things out. Still, it was almost unbearably grim. And I can't see Katie Holmes without thinking "nutjob" anymore, but that's hardly their fault.)

Which is why this Batman parody by Scott Kurtz of PvP tickled me so much. He manages to sum up the trouble with Bruce Wayne in about 10 panels.

That said, in a cruel bit of irony, I'm probably taking all this a bit too seriously, aren't I?