Should more violent criminals be introduced to the cartoons?

[hurricanejbb]

Fans of the comic are obviously aware that Batman does not only fight foes with wierd gimmicks, some of his enemies are total whackjobs who love to kill. The ones that stick out most to me are the serial killers Zsasz and Cornelius Stirk, and the professional assassin Lady Vic. I personally think that these characters would add quite a bit to the next incarnation of the animated series. Stirk would prove quite a challenge because he has hallucinogenic powers to trick and easily kill his targets, and Batman would have a hard time tracking down a man who can appear as any other person. Zsasz would prove more interesting on a mental level, like he did during the Knightfall storyline, taunting the Dark Knight by saying that the two are alike, both stalkers of the night, and accusing Batman of being unable to hold back on his desire to kill for much longer. Plus, the idea of a character covered with hundreds of scars for every throat he's slit walking the streets is a very creepy image. Lady Vic the assassin could be handled well, as long as she's not made into a murderous Catwoman, flirting with Bruce Wayne in her civilian form and trying to murder the Bat at night.

 

[Marvel_Knight]

As much as most of us would most like to see it, we will never. Remember the kiddies also watch any Batman animated show and most likely their parents are watching them, so Zsaz and Stirk will never be animated. We can thank censors for that. Maybe in Adult Swim (even though Batman willl most likely never appear), or the animated comics (should they return).

 

[hurricanejbb]

Couldn't they just shoot it so that all the deaths occur offscreen, and you just hear the scream of the victim? They've done that for a lot of cartoons, all deaths occur out of sight to diminish the violent quality.

 

[DisneyBoy]

I don't think there needs to be more violence, just better storytelling. I mean really, would I love Mystery of the Batwoman if one of the villains was killed off? Nope, and that's cause the story was still lacking.

An episode like Over the Edge is only powerful because of HOW it handles the violence. Characters are impacted, changed and tested. If someone died every episode on Justice League, I'd be more than disappointed.

Death becomes a cheap gimmic, especially considering how often it's thrown in our faces these days. It's everywhere, and when I sit down to a show, if it's there, the writer had better well make it worth my while.

Adding more salt to a soup might work, depending on the soup, but adding too much salt to all your soup recipies isn't going to work. Same thing here.

 

[Fone Bone]

No. Besides the implications of making the show unnessecarily seedy if they introduced a serial killer into Batman it would be of the watered-down Carnage from Spider-Man variety. DisneyBoy's right, give me a good story and I'll be all set.

 

[Simpler Simon]

If someone died every episode on Justice League, I'd be more than disappointed.

Ironically, almost every season 2 episode of JL featured a "death" of some sort, even if it was a minor character.

It's not the violence that makes Zsasz and Stirk hard to translate either, it's their very nature. Zsasz cuts a mark on his skin for every victim he kills, and has a very bloodthirsty and psychotic nature. He's not like the Joker, who can occasionally be played for laughs. This guy kills. And enjoys doing it. Try explaining that to kids.

Stirk I'm not quite as familiar with, I just remember that for his hallucinations to work he needs to feast on a soup of human organs or something? That's kinda what seperates him from Scarecrow, who uses fear gas, and Clayface, who can change form.

The Tally Man I'd like to see animated, but his origin is just too depressing and violent. Some things it's just not worth fighting the censors over, because then you end up with a very dilluted character.

 

[Hordesman]

I've always hated how villains tend to be thought dead, from explosions and such, yet come back episodes later without a word of explanation.

 

[Marvel_Knight]

My point with Zsaz is that,

1. His marks all over his body. He cuts himself.
2. Zsaz kills in very graphic ways that the comic books can handle but not the 'toons.

I mean come on! Zsaz coming after an innocent with a knife would scare the heck out of kids. Even if he actually kills them off screen. As for Stirk, we actually wouldn't need him at all. Maybe. Haven't read much about him.

 

[EddieTheEditor]

Maybe. Batman's too big a name, but if there was, say, a Nightwing series or Azrael series or something for Adult Swim, that'd work. I desperately want to see Zsas, Tallyman, or Nocturna..

 

[The Penguin]

When I read the topic, Zsasz was the first villain I thought of. There is no way he can animate a guy who cuts a mark in himself whenever he kills someone, there is no way you downgrade something like that for kids. We obviously all love the DC cartoons here, but even the youngest of us at 13 are probably not what WB and CN are thinking when developing "The Batman" and other stuff. We'll watch them sure, but using the really sick criminals is not a bone they can throw us.

I would like to see the animated rogue gallery expand though. Black Mask for example should work on a cartoon series (in some ways Roman Sionis would not be totally new, but he's just an example).

 

[Eddie G.]

I've always been suprised they didn't at least throw us a bone by just having the character exist but not show them. I mean it wouldn't be bad at all for Mr. Z to show up at Arkham or on Batman's rogue database.

 

[punkrockgirl]

A few years ago I asked Paul Dini about using Mr. Zsasz and he flat out said no, which was not a big surprise since the character is a serial killer.

http://home.earthlink.net/~schaatzie/Zsasz.htm

It would be cool to see him in animated form though. And Tally-Man would also be a great villain to see in cartoon form but again, his origin is pitch black and his behavior way too violent for the boob tube.

http://home.earthlink.net/~schaatzie/Tallyman.htm

I don't like Cornelius Stirk. He's boring and has no charm IMO. He is also somewhat derivative of other Bat-villains, so I'm not eager to see him on tv.

Unless we ever get an HBO Batman cartoon, I doubt we'lll see these characters animated.

PunkRockGirl

 

[hurricanejbb]

Okay, how about this to fix Zsasz

Since the positon of a serial killer is verboten, how about they make Zsasz a member of the infamous Society of Assassins, a la Curare, hired by a Gotham mobster (could be Rupert Thorne, Vincent Maroni or Oswald Cobblepot) to take out the Batman for interfering with their plans. The marks on his body could still be the same, every mark represents a target successfully taken out. Furthermore, rather than the eerie idea of carving his tally into his skin, what if they were tattooed on? His reasoning could be that the more marks he shows, the greater his prestige in the Society. Sound good?

 

[Bones Justice]

I agree with the general sentiment here. It would be interesting to see more violent villains but it's just not gonna happen in a Batman animated series.

I liked Mystery of the Batwoman even though it wasn't the best Batman story I've seen. I guess some of the reason I liked it was because it's a new story after a long drought, though. I really thought they should have had Batwoman kill someone, even accidentally, to make Batman's concerns about her more believable.

What would you say are the most violent criminal acts seen in the DCAU? Here's some off the top of my head:

1. unedited ROTJ
2. the way Dr. Destiny killed in JL, which when you think about it, is very brutal
3. Darkseid in the JL episode Twilight

 

[Fone Bone]

I agree with the general sentiment here. It would be interesting to see more violent villains but it's just not gonna happen in a Batman animated series.

I liked Mystery of the Batwoman even though it wasn't the best Batman story I've seen. I guess some of the reason I liked it was because it's a new story after a long drought, though. I really thought they should have had Batwoman kill someone, even accidentally, to make Batman's concerns about her more believable.

What would you say are the most violent criminal acts seen in the DCAU? Here's some off the top of my head:

1. unedited ROTJ
2. the way Dr. Destiny killed in JL, which when you think about it, is very brutal
3. Darkseid in the JL episode Twilight

Phantasm was brutal in MOTP as well. Heck, so was Joker.

And some of Darkseid's most evil moments were in "Apokalips...Now!" and "Legacy."

And don't forget "A Better World" Supes.

 

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

I am of two minds on the subject of more violent criminals on the DCAU shows and comics. On the one hand, I think the sterilization of the shows for the sake of the kiddies doesn't do anybody much good, with notable exceptions like the Grayson's death scene in "Robin's Reckoning." I thought it was cheesy in the extreme to have Batman rush up and give everybody Joker antidote in "The Laughing Fish." I would have also preferred to see a less sterile version of Two-Face's origin (beating up a schoolyard bully?), but what we got worked well enough.

On the other hand, I don't think I need to see a real-live honest-to-goodness psycho serial killer on a DCAU show, either. Considering what they've done with mental illness already (the end to "Fire from Olympus" is genuinely creepy, IMO), I don't know that they need to go very much further in that direction without seeming gratuitous.

As for revising a villain to make them somehow more palatable, if you change the methods and the background of a character, do you still have the same character? The changes suggested to work someone like Zsasz into the show might work, but why call him Zsasz then? Why not just make him a new villain to fit the bill?

-- Ed/Ace

 

[b.t.]

Since the positon of a serial killer is verboten, how about they make Zsasz a member of the infamous Society of Assassins, a la Curare, hired by a Gotham mobster (could be Rupert Thorne, Vincent Maroni or Oswald Cobblepot) to take out the Batman for interfering with their plans.

ironically, you've chosen the perfect example to illustrate why killers in general are hard to portray convincingly in american tv animation: the censors are VERY sensitive about death, PERIOD...we've gone through phases when they've asked us to not even SAY the words "death" or "kill" out loud (hence the overuse of euphimisms like "waste" and "destroy")....i loved curare as a character and a concept, but the fact that she was never, EVER allowed to kill anyone on the show ultimately rendered her about as menacing as a wet firecracker...not only were we not allowed even to IMPLY that she killed anyone, or discreetly kill her victims off-stage, but we had to make sure that the audience knew that her victims were only put into comas...we literally had to spell that point out with dialogue....the "world's greatest assassin" became the "world's greatest coma-putter-inner"...

zsasz would be even trickier..."serial coma-putter-inner" just doesn't sound all that scary, does it?

 

[hurricanejbb]

You make a good point, B.T. Did you happen to work for the WB on Batman Beyond? Okay, how about this: Zsasz never kills anyone on screen or off-screen, but the number of targets he's taken out is referenced frequently; he brags about how every extra mark on his body earns him more respec from the Society of Assassins, and contemplates that a target like Batman must be worth about 30 marks. Batman could then show disgust that Zsasz takes pleasure out of tallying his kills to gain prestige for a group of wretched killers. Also, rather than his comic incarnation's butcher knife, he uses military-grade weaponry; armor-piercing shells, motion sensor bombs, ect.

ironically, you've chosen the perfect example to illustrate why killers in general are hard to portray convincingly in american tv animation: the censors are VERY sensitive about death, PERIOD...we've gone through phases when they've asked us to not even SAY the words "death" or "kill" out loud (hence the overuse of euphimisms like "waste" and "destroy")....i loved curare as a character and a concept, but the fact that she was never, EVER allowed to kill anyone on the show ultimately rendered her about as menacing as a wet firecracker...not only were we not allowed even to IMPLY that she killed anyone, or discreetly kill her victims off-stage, but we had to make sure that the audience knew that her victims were only put into comas...we literally had to spell that point out with dialogue....the "world's greatest assassin" became the "world's greatest coma-putter-inner"...

zsasz would be even trickier..."serial coma-putter-inner" just doesn't sound all that scary, does it?

 

[Nick K.]

You make a good point, B.T. Did you happen to work for the WB on Batman Beyond? Okay, how about this: Zsasz never kills anyone on screen or off-screen, but the number of targets he's taken out is referenced frequently; he brags about how every extra mark on his body earns him more respec from the Society of Assassins, and contemplates that a target like Batman must be worth about 30 marks. Batman could then show disgust that Zsasz takes pleasure out of tallying his kills to gain prestige for a group of wretched killers. Also, rather than his comic incarnation's butcher knife, he uses military-grade weaponry; armor-piercing shells, motion sensor bombs, ect.

The last part sounds like Mad Stan!

 

[TimTwoFace]

An episode like Over the Edge is only powerful because of HOW it handles the violence. Characters are impacted, changed and tested. If someone died every episode on Justice League, I'd be more than disappointed.

Death becomes a cheap gimmic, especially considering how often it's thrown in our faces these days. It's everywhere, and when I sit down to a show, if it's there, the writer had better well make it worth my while.

Though death and gore could be a beautiful artistic thing - go see KILL BILL for an example - it's just as effective to imply it but NOT show it. ROBIN'S RECKONING, for example, could be argued to be more powerful by not showing the deaths of the Graysons because it requires us to draw our own conclusions on just how gruesome the act and outcome were. And it got by the censors that way, too.

On the same note, I'd like to see a character like Mr. Zsasz on the series because he's just so...twisted. It's not the violent aspects that were so great, but how twisted his mind is. Maybe he'll be used as a background villain (if nothing else) in the upcoming revamped Batman movie series, after BATMAN BEGINS is over and done with. I wouldn't rule that out.

-Tim