Examples of characterization changing dramatically Depending on the Writer in Batman.
The Batfamily:
- First there's the caped crusader himself. He's had so many writers that he's barely the same character in some appearances. And that's just in the main DCU, and not going into All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, the movies, and various TV shows based on him. To list all the different ways he's been portrayed (is he a really good detective or not? Is he admirable or a Jerkass? Is he the craziest or the Only Sane Man of the Justice League?) would take up way too much space. This is perhaps best represented in the Batman alignment chart
◊- In modern times, his "no-kill" policy is generally pretty consistent. But how he operates within that code can vary by writer. Sometimes he'll be more of a boy scout and only go for blows that knock people out while eschewing more brutal moves that could disable people and will object to someone like Damian's more brutal methods of incapacitation. Other times, he'll break arms and legs without hesitation and do anything short of killing a villain. And in other portrayals, he won't go out of his way to kill a villain but at the same time, he won't go out of his way to save them either, like in Batman Begins.
- Young Bruce Wayne following the night his parents were gunned down. Option A is that young Bruce reacted as any kid would and spent some of the following years traumatized before deciding to travel the world to train and become Batman. Option B is that everything that made Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne died with his parents and what was left was a Creepy Child with Troubling Unchildlike Behavior.
- How long Alfred's been a part of Bruce's life Post-Crisis and subsequent adaptations. Some depicted him joining Thomas and Martha's employ when Bruce was a child, while others show him working for the Waynes before Bruce was even bornnote .
- Former sidekick Nightwing (Dick Grayson) arguably gets it worse. While DC will usually run with one interpretation of Batman in all the books and then shift to another, Nightwing gets to be a relatively happy and well-adjusted leader of men in the bat-books, but shifts into a dark and broody Batman 2.0 in team books. Maybe they are both correct. He's grim and broody, but compared to Batman he looks cheery and well-adjusted!
- Barbara's biological relationship with her father Jim varies. In the 1980s, Jim's age was lowered and as a result, Barbara became his niece who he adopted as his daughter. At other times she's biologically his daughter.
- Jason Todd/Robin II/Red Hood. In the years after being brought back from the dead, his personality was all over the place. Judd Winick, who resurrected him in Under The Red Hood, wrote him as a well-intentioned but unstable Anti-Villain. In Nightwing, he was Ax-Crazy but trying to be good. In Countdown to Final Crisis he was completely rational, and merely a Knight in Sour Armor type of Anti-Hero. Then in Battle For the Cowl, and as written by Grant Morrison in Batman and Robin, he was a full-on villainous homicidal maniac. Since the New 52 reboot, his personality has become much more consistent, settling into the Unscrupulous Hero role.
- Jason's varying personality goes all the way back to his days as Robin. Post-Crisis, Mike W Barr in Detective Comics wrote him with much the same innocent easygoing personality as his pre-Crisis counterpart, while Max Allan Collins and Jim Starlin in Batman made him much more stubborn and rougher-edged to fit his new troubled backstory. And after his death, Jason was painted as having been much more wilful and unstable by later writers such as Alan Grant and Chuck Dixon.
- Damian Wayne, the fifth Robin, gets this too. With his creator, Grant Morrison, he tends to be written as a Sociopathic Hero who is excellent at combat and stealth but lackluster everywhere else. Other writers tend to downplay his skills in combat. With some writers, he's still the unrepentant Jerkass he was introduced as despite years of character development. With other writers (i.e. Peter J. Tomasi), he's actually much kinder than he lets on and struggles to express his genuinely positive feelings for others due to his upbringing.
The Rogues' Gallery:
- Don't even get started on the Joker...
- From the earliest comics to The Dark Knight Trilogy to the various animated series, he's been portrayed as a Harmless Villain, Magnificent Bastard, The Mad Hatter, Affably Evil, Faux Affably Evil, Bored with Insanity, Complete Monster, etc... listing everything he's been would warrant its own section! all of these are probably true. A text story by Grant Morrison in Batman and Son, leading to the Joker's role in Batman RIP, has him deciding it's time for a new persona and considering various options.
- Another aspect also in flux is the Joker's fighting ability. Sometimes he's got a glass jaw and has to hide behind his schemes, sometimes he can hold off Batman or even take him on toe-to-toe, or even take on monsters, gods, and the greatest martial artists in the world.
- The comic book mini-series Batman: Three Jokers explores this trope by suggesting that there have been multiple Jokers - "The Criminal", who is portrayed as a criminal mastermind; "The Clown", who plays deadly pranks on his victims and possibly the Joker that killed Jason Todd in A Death in the Family; and "The Comedian", who believes the world is one big joke and may have been the one to cripple Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke.
- Harley Quinn is not quite as bad as The Joker, but just like him, she's been quite up for interpretation:
- Is Harley a psychologist or a psychiatrist? In Batman: The Animated Series she was a psychologist, but future appearances in all media have zigzagged between the two. Granted, this one is most likely because some writers might not actually know that these are separate professions. note There's also the question of why she studied psychology in the first place, and how she got through school. Her original backstory from Mad Love depicted her as sleeping through college, only seeing psychology as a way to make money as a talk show host. Later origins would overwrite this to portray her as being genuinely interested in the field and incredibly knowledgeable as a result, but still vary on whether she actually did the needed coursework or was a Brilliant, but Lazy student who occasionally blackmailed her teachers to boost her grades.
- Just how smart is Harley? It's almost always agreed upon that Harley is smarter than she lets on but just how much and how sensible she can be varies greatly from story to story. She can be clever but still a bit of a Dumb Blonde, she can be a Genius Ditz, her entire personality can be a façade that she changes depending on the situation, or she could be anything in-between. Similarly, is she clinically insane or is she sound enough to understand her actions?
- In works where the character has left the Joker due to his abusive behavior, whether Harley functions as an Anti-Villain or an Anti-Hero fluctuates from story to story.
- How strong and physically capable is Harley? Is she just an above-average gymnast or an outright Badass Normal with almost superhuman agility?
- Minor Catwoman opponent Cyber-Cat has appeared only a few times, but nobody can seem to agree on her motivation or whether she's actually evil or just arrogant. Is she simply trying to ensure her own technical skills are good enough? Is she a Mad Doctor, or does she want to sell things to terrorists? Who knows?
- While Firefly is consistently depicted as a Pyromaniac, how sympathetic he is varies. He can be anything from a Tragic Villain to a monstrous psychopath depending on the author. How sane he is tends to vary as well; he can range from a cold pragmatist to a madman prone to hallucinations and barely in touch with reality.
- Killer Croc gets altered constantly both in appearance and character. The only thing writers seem to agree on is that he's not very bright and has some sort of skin condition.
- Is his intelligence below average, is he mentally disabled, is he an animal? Is he just a thug, a sympathetic Noble Demon, a thug with a cannibalistic MO, or a savage monster who wants to eat everyone in the room? None of these interpretations are even remotely in line with the pre-Crisis version of Croc, who was a rather intelligent (not super-genius or anything, but still at least average) gang leader that just happened to have a skin condition. He wasn't even green. Nowadays, he's mostly settled into being an Anti-Villain, but even then he occasionally lapses back into a much more evil figure.
- Croc gets it worse than most examples here in that they can't even keep his race consistent. Is he a white old-time gangster film heavy? A black inner-city thug? Or is he just a big green reptile?
- Early on, there was even some debate as to the character's proper name, and he would variously be King Croc, Killer Croc, or, as he was listed in Who's Who, just Croc. And this same Who's Who profile claimed that Croc had no actual powers; he just had leathery skin and was abnormally, not superhumanly, strong. Compare most modern versions and you'll see the obvious discrepancy here.
- Some of this has been explained, albeit through Retcon; Chuck Dixon's Batman run said Croc was in a process of mutation that started out as a skin condition and gradually led to him becoming more reptilian. Why he's now more human than he was when Dixon left him is another story...
- The Mad Hatter. Sometimes he's a somewhat sympathetic Carrol-obsessed loony, who truly seems to think of his mind-controlled henchmen as his friends, however delusionally. Other times he's a murderer and a child molester... with a thing for blonde girls.
- Poison Ivy:
- Poison Ivy's motives and methods have varied significantly between eras and writers. Sometimes she's essentially a plant supremacist who wants to overthrow the tyranny of humanity and bring about a glorious age of botanical rule. Other times she's most specifically an Ecoterrorist, but even there there's significant variability in whether she selectively attacks polluting companies and magnates or launches indiscriminate attacks against urban society. Whether or not she cares about animals and whether she considers them more akin to plants or to humans is also prone to varying; sometimes she views them as part of the same enemy camp as humanity, sometimes she cares about them but not as much as she does plants, sometimes she's a champion of nature in a general sense, and sometimes she just doesn't have much to say on the subject.
- Her eating habits are not set in stone. Despite fanon, it's never been implied that Ivy doesn't need to eat due to her plant-hybrid nature. One comic depicts her as nearly always having an empty plate, but an issue of the comic clearly shows her eating soup. Sometimes Poison Ivy is a vegan but sometimes she refuses to eat plants because she considers it murder. And other times, Ivy is depicted as a "fruitarian," having a diet solely consisting of fruits, berries, and nuts.
- The Riddler... Nerdy milquetoast with a debilitating gimmick who is considered not even worth killing by other members of Batman's Rogues Gallery... or a suave, calculating, and Magnificent Bastard with an intellect possibly comparable to the Dark Knight himself? There's also the fact that some interpretations have him as hyperactive and rather reminiscent of the Joker (think Frank Gorshin and Jim Carrey), while others portray him as more of a smooth-talking, calm intellectual (think John Glover and Robert Englund). There's also the question of why he sends Batman riddles that contain clues about his crimes. In some stories, he's trying to prove he's smarter than Batman by coming up with a riddle too hard for Batman to solve. In some stories, he's driven by an involuntary psychological compulsion and doesn't want to send Batman riddles. In some stories, he just enjoys his duels of wits with Batman and doesn't feel bothered when Batman solves the riddles, while in others he gets angry or disappointed whenever Batman solves them. There are also some stories (like Detective Comics #605-607) where he's just sending Batman riddles as a distraction while he tries to carry out some unrelated crime.
- The Scarecrow's backstory has also varied significantly throughout the ages. Some writers have given him tragic backstories, showing how he was frequently bullied in his youth. Other versions, however, have portrayed him as a man who simply loves chasing birds and became a villain as a Take That! for being fired from his teaching position. Some writers gave him sympathetic qualities, while others portray him more as a Jerkass who does what he does For the Evulz. Then, of course, there's his attitude and behavior. Some versions have him hyperactive, on par with the Joker and the Riddler, while others have him calmer, more collected, and calculating. Then, some writers give him a split personality disorder similar to Two-Face, while others give him a single personality.
- Depending on who's in control, Solomon Grundy can be incapable of saying anything more than "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday" or perfectly capable of rational speech. The differences can get quite jarring at times. Surprisingly, there's actually an explanation for this. Every time he dies, he comes back with a different personality, and it's very hard to stop him without killing him. A recent miniseries is focused on him returning with his mortal personality and trying to break this cycle.
- The first arc of Brad Meltzer's Justice League run began with, surprisingly, Solomon Grundy as the Big Bad and actually the brains behind the whole scheme (which was to steal Red Tornado's new robot/android/cyborg body and place his soul in it so he'd stop dying). It was extremely odd seeing Grundy looking like a buff, albino gangster.
- His Strength Level. He ranges from getting a beatdown from Batman up to solely curb-stomping the whole Justice League, including Superman.
- Talia al Ghul's personality also ping pongs around in the hands of different writers. Usually, she's not as villainous as her father and does truly love Batman but struggles with her Conflicting Loyalty to both. Since her and Batman's son became canonical in 2006, she's become less sympathetic and will sometimes be written as worse than her father, including killing Damian. Damian's conception was originally consensual but was changed into being rape and was then retconned back into being consensual... And THEN retconned into Damian being a test-tube baby!
- Two-Face's "schtick" tends to ping-pong between a genuine split personality, with the Harvey and "Two-Face" personas engaging in discussions (and, in No Man's Land, a courtroom debate) with disputes between them being resolved by the coin, to a single personality with a violently extreme case of bipolar disorder and obsession with duality. Or a mixture. Also, his appearance changes drastically between each adaptation.
- How Two-Face handles his coin flips is also highly variable. Sometimes it's something Harvey does on purpose because he knows his evil side will obey the coin (like it or not), other times it's a psychological compulsion, and still other times it comes off as nothing more than a villainous Character Tic. This also coincides with how likely he is to keep his promises; sometimes he's a man of his word, and other times he'll use Exact Words and other loopholes to get around them. Batman Forever took it even further, showing Two-Face repeatedly flipping the coin until he got the result he wanted.
- Penguin: Does he successfully put on the airs of a gentleman, save for his cartoony appearance, or is he an unreconstructed thug or borderline-savage bird man whose attempts at sophistication are a grotesque parody? Has he successfully convinced everyone except Batman and some of the police that the Iceberg Lounge is a legitimate buisiness (in fact, is it a legitimate business?), or does everyone know he's a criminal and that's what makes visiting the Lounge so exciting? Is his one good quality his genuine love of birds, or does he see his trained avians as disposable tools? The extremes of the latter can be seen in two stories in the prose collection The Further Adventures of Batman: Volume 2 Featuring the Penguin: in "Endangered Species" by Greg Cox, he's utterly disinterested in the welfare of the rare owls he's holding hostage, keeping them in a cramped cage and feeiding them birdseed; in "Robber's Roost" by Max Allan Collins, he finds himself in an Enemy Mine situation with Batman, since they both want to save a different endangered owl from the real villains.
Other Examples:
- Death of the Family: The Batman franchise started in 1939, so this trope had to happen, and this storyline is no exception to the rule. For instance, Catwoman's personality and perhaps intelligence is portrayed quite differently between Judd Winick and Ann Nocenti.
- The Planetary/Batman Crossover "Night on Earth" is essentially an issue-long Lampshade Hanging of this trope as it pertains to Batman; it involves reality 'shifting' around Crime Alley in Gotham City, with the Planetary team meeting variations of Batman ranging from Adam West to Frank Miller to Neal Adams and more besides in their varying universes. However, the actions of the issue still play out exactly the same and perfectly in character for each version of Batman, the point being that for all the different interpretations they're all nevertheless the same essential character.
