It's still the early days of 2025, but for this lifelong Batman fan, DC may have just made the announcement of the year with the publisher's reveal that writer Matt Fraction will join artist Jorge Jiménez to launch a brand new Batman #1 with a classic looking suit, a new Batmobile, and a focus on superheroics.
Fraction is, of course, the writer who with artist David Aja relaunched and redefined Hawkeye for Marvel back in 2012-2015. And Jiménez has been the ongoing artist of Batman off-and-on for some time now, with an impressive run of his own under his belt - an A-list creative team if ever there was one.
And for me, the preview and concept art that's been shown and the idea for the series that's been pitched, are exactly what I've been waiting for after a long time dipping in and out of the Batman mythos for years now - a "very superhero forward take on Batman," as Fraction stated when the title was announced.
"We've got a new Batmobile, we’ve got a new costume, we’ve got new characters, and we’ve got a lot of old ones too - good and bad; all the stuff that makes Batman the coolest character in comics. We want to celebrate it all."
Music to my long, pointed bat-ears.
The Caped Crusader
Like many comic fans, I grew up on Batman. Being born in the early '80s, I was perfectly primed to fall in love with the hero thanks to the resurgence of re-runs of the classic '60s Batman TV show, the proliferation of superhero action figures, and of course, the release of the all-time best Batman movie (at least in my opinion) in 1989. Bat-culture was everywhere, and I was lapping it up, forming a love of Batman and his supporting cast heavily informed by Adam West, Michael Keaton, and, on the comic side, the 1980 retelling of Bruce Wayne's superhero origins in The Untold Legend of the Batman by writer Marv Wolfman and artist John Byrne.
For me, Batman is the Caped Crusader - a swashbuckling superhero with a keen detective's mind backed up by his indelible physical prowess and an arsenal of fantastic gadgets. Don't get me wrong, I have a strong appreciation for the Dark Knight aspect of Batman; the edgier, grittier, more ominous side of Bruce Wayne. But when I think about Batman, my mind always falls to the version I grew up with - a somewhat lighter, more adventurous hero with a fully realized, vaguely self-contained environment full of colorful allies and enemies.
However, that hasn't been the prevalent portrayal across most media, especially movies, for some time now. The focus has been on stories largely inspired by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, which brought to the forefront a version of Batman who is a brutal, blunt instrument of his own brand of justice.
On the flipside, there have been extremely heightened takes on Batman that have elevated him into the so-called "Bat-God" who is always one step more prepared than his enemies, and who exists at the center of a sci-fi fueled, cosmic Multiverse of Bat-creatures in stories by writers such as Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder.
Meanwhile, writers like James Tynion IV, Tom King, and Chip Zdarsky have broken new ground with stories that have reworked and redefined Batman's environment and supporting cast. And that's not mentioning the host of other versions of Batman that have existed in other titles in that time, such as the current smash-hit Absolute Batman, which totally remakes the character and his entire reality.
The Dark Knight
But in the core Batman title, it seems that even when a creative team strives for a happy balance of the many directions in which the Dark Knight is often pulled, those major modern tentpoles still feel like they're just a few steps away.
Case in point, DC's other big recent Batman announcement, that writer Jeph Loeb and artist/DC president, publisher, and chief creative officer Jim Lee would return for a short stint on Batman for a sequel to their beloved 2002-2003 story Hush, the improbably titled Batman H2SH (huh-toosh?). I think it's pretty clear I'm all for a nostalgic take on Batman, and it's entirely likely that Hush 2 (I can't H2SH again) will have a huge impact in the industry with a lot of positive response.
Still, it doesn't excite me the way that Fraction and Jiménez's Batman does: a re-focused take on the Caped Crusader that strips back some of the recent artifice that has piled up under his cape and puts a fresh spin on the core concepts that make up the character, the same way the big creators that have become so influential were able to do in their way - the way Fraction and David Aja were able to do with Hawkeye over a decade ago.
With so many questions in the movies about who will be the main live-action Batman, whether it'll be any of the existing portrayals or something brand new, the idea of the comic book Batman going back to his roots, down to a refreshed take on his classic costume, sounds like exactly the kind of comfort food this aging Bat-fan has been craving.
Maybe it's in some ways ironic to pin a bit of optimism to a character like Batman, who is so often shrouded in darkness. But at his core, Batman represents the truest kind of optimism, the raw optimism of spirit that one person's determination can change the whole world.
Frankly, all I'm looking for are some damn good comics, so I'd say the odds are in our favor.
Now's the perfect time to dig into the best Batman comics of all time.
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