DCU Boss James Gunn “Uncomfortable” With How “Religious” Some Fans Are About Batman’s Costume
Having faced the phenomena much more frequently in recent years as he prepares to bring The Dark Knight to the DCU, DC Studios Co-CEO James Gunn has admitted to being more than a little put off by the aggressively “religious” reverence some fans give to their preferred version of Batman’s costume.
The Superman director spoke to this aspect of the DC fandom during a recent appearance on the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast, itself usually hosted by comedians Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer, but only by Segura for the show’s one-on-one with Gunn.
Amidst a larger discussion regarding the DCU’s future, Segura asked Gunn if there existed any possibility that the eventual DCU version of Batman could, at any point, appear wearing his “blue-gray” costume, as first introduced in Detective Comics Vol. 1 #37 before being upgrade to its final, yellow-oval-chest-emblem form in World’s Finest Vol. 1 #141.
Met in turn by Gunn asking him “Is that what you want?”, Segura playfully shot back “It’s just what everybody wants,” to which the director laughed, “It’s not everybody.”
“It’s not everybody because I have somebody saying, ‘Please give us this Batman!’ and they put a picture of the blue-grey Batman on Threads or whatever. And then somebody else says, ‘You’re a piece of shit!’. And I’m like, “He’s a piece of shit because he likes a costume? That’s pretty hard!”
“That’s the thing. There’s a religious aspect to so much of this stuff that’s very uncomfortable; You know, should Batman have white eyes? That’s a big subject of conversation. And it’s like, ‘Guys? That’s really what matters?’ But those are the things they care about. Should his utility belt be yellow? Should he have the yellow crest around the bat? You know, all of that sort of stuff.
“And none of those things are important to me. What matters is the character, the story. And I think we have a really, really good story now for what’s happening with Batman.”
Later elaborating on his own personal preferences, Gunn opined to Segura, “I think that’s one of the the fun things about Batman though, is that there are so many expressions of Batman that are cool, and different ways to access that character is one of the ways in which he’s so iconic.”
“So, I don’t think it’s a matter of the ‘blue and the gray’ or the ‘black’ Batman. I think both those things are really cool. I like the detective, but I also really like the fighter, that’s just the brute. I like the silly 50s Silver Age Batman with Batmite – That’s kind of closer to what the original TV show was like. I like all of these different versions of Batman.
“But I will say in the same way [you had your own] experience with Batman, that was my experience with Batman too. As a kid, because I’m older than you, I remember reading the sort of early 70s Neil Adams Batman comics that were much darker and grittier. And I was like, ‘Oh, I like this Batman.’ You know, I had seen like the sillier Batman, on TV and I’m like, “Oh, this is gritty, cool.” Batman. And that was the thing that made me feel more like, if not an adult, at least a teenager when I was eight or nine years old. It makes you feel like a little more grown up.”
As Segura’s producer brought up a Google image search for Adams’ Caped Crusader-related artwork, Gunn highlighted the comic book legend’s cover to Batman Vol. 1 #227, itself an homage to the cover of Detective Comics Vol. 1 #31, and further recalled, “I really still like that that version.”
“That was sort of a Batman we’ve never seen before. There it is right there. See that one in the upper left corner? That’s the one. That that one there. That that’s it, man. That was my favorite story. That was in a compilation of Batman comics that I read and I just thought it was the greatest ever.”
Currently titled The Brave and the Bold, Batman’s upcoming DCU debut has yet to receive any concrete production announcements or updates.
