Dr.Strangefate said:He is not training Dick Grayson to be his subordinate, he is training him to be his equal, and he is trying to submit Dick to the training he underwent himself. He does not see any other way to be a hero... we can see that from his disrespect of Superman.
His bitterness of the world makes more sense than a bittersweet optimism. He lives in a city where the cops were about to take an eight year old boy into the woods to shoot him, just to make things easier for him. In a world like that he cannot hope that good deeds will change the world. He needs the beat the city into shape, carving out the bad and dumping it on the street. Frank Miller's Gotham City is a dark, scary place where Justice can only reign when a a man dresses up like a nocturnal beast and beats the **** out of cops.
According to DKR, Batman says in regards to whether heroes were criminals (back in the days when he was a younger man in his prime): "Of course we're criminals. We have to be criminals." This implies that his state of mind is nothing new! People don't say "Hey, batman's going crazy!" People say, "Criminals are showing up beaten to the brink of death, broken in ways we can't even imagine... Wait a second! That sounds like Batman!" If the way he fought crime was new and different, they would have made a point of that, but they made a point that Batman's brutal methods have always led to the corruption of the insane, and led good people to villainy. If the way he fought crime was new and different, people wouldn't believe that it was him, because he had been gone for so long, and brutal criminals were everywhere in the street. All-Star gives us the chance to see why he feels he must fight this way. His parents were victims to the ruthlessness of the city, and so was he. Bruce Wayne had to become the darkness to fight the darkness, and in a city as dark as Miller's Gotham, he has to become pretty damn dark.
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I don't see the point of arguing this, I am pretty sure that Miller said very frankly (no pun intended) that this is meant to bridge Batman: Year One and Dark Knight... I'll try to find the article where he says that, but I am pretty damn sure he did.
However, having reread DKR and DKSB in the past week to write a paper on for school, I would happily prove my point over and over again.
Bravo!
Also, I hadn't heard that about using this to bridge Year One and DKR but it makes sense and is an interesting concept, and fits into what All-Star is supposed to be about.
I have POWERS
