Batman - Kings Journal (Patreon)

The first snow has fallen here and Kings Journal is back and thanks to your feedback in the poll the journal moves forward to deal with bara issues of all kinds like comics, games, creating (OC) art and more.

This new direction points directly to one of my favourite bara guys.
And I have been a fan since my childhood when I did not even know about bara.
Grab some warm clothes and move to Gotham City to meet Batman.

Batman is around 1,88 cm tall has black hair and blue eyes. He is strong and very smart, but he has no superpowers at all. He has to trust on his mind and muscles to handle crimes and villains in his howetown Gotham.
But he was not born as a "hero" and he does not refer himself as one.
So how did he become Batman?!

Childhood and Origin
Batman whose real name is Bruce Wayne was the only child of Martha and Thomas Wayne who were murdered by a thief in front of his eyes, when he was a boy. Bruce became an orphan, a very weahlty one, because he is the only heir of the wealthy Wayne family. A family whose history is strongly connected to the history of Gotham City.
A huge "donation" to some city authorities saved him from ending in an orphanage. So Bruce grew up in Wayne Manor raised by his butler Alfred who also filled a parental role for him and Bruce swore to fight crime in Gotham. He trained hard and invented gadgets - he still does both as an adult to keep up with all kind of strong, mad and smart criminals.
To scare them by his look he searched for a suit, that would make his opponents blood freeze in their vains, when they would see him.
One day he saw a bat, that was lost in Wayne Manor and Bruce found his symbol - the bat - and he created a special suit combined with his gadgets and he became Batman.

Justice and villains! Batman the good or evil one?
Batman refuses to use shooting weapons to differ between himself and criminals. He also refuses to kill. These two things define the small line between his villains and him.
Batman fights his enemies at night. He punches them, breaks their bones and than he vanishes in the shadows. A man in a bat suit trying to bring justice to the city and a man who is driven by revenge and anger, too.
Who are you and who will you become, when you do this nearly each night?
Bruce became Batman because of his past. Some unfortunate events made him who he is and the same happened to his villains.
Nearly none of them woke up one morning and became evil without any reason. Each one of them was hit by an evil fate:
An accident, a mental disease, the loss of loved ones, a wish for a better life, science... Each of Batmans villains has an own background story. A story that could maybe happen to everyone and step by step you would become evil or worse or was it society that pushed into the role of a villain although you are convinced to be one of the good guys?!
The fact is that villains like Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, Bane, Poison Ivy, the Joker, Harley Quinn, Blackmask and many more threaten the citizens of Gotham City and Batman has to fight them and bring them back into prison, because the police is either corrupt or unable to bring balance to Gotham.
At the end Batman seems to have similarities with his enemies. They all have a name and wear some kind of a suit and all of them are little bit or totally mad. And they all want their idea of the best for Gotham City.
These exciting villains with believable personalities in their conflict with law and Batman who acts himself in a gray zone between law and crime make Batmans stories so fascinating.

Batman and Robin
Bruce Wayne is the main character of Batman, because he is Batman. That´ s obvious. But he does not fight crime all alone. Alfred his butler assists him from Wayne Manor giving Bruce the informations he need.
There are also 4 different Robins during the Batman timeline. Each one is his sidekick and companion. One of them becomes "Nightwing" later another Robin is murdered by the Joker, at least Batman thinks so...
The relationship between Batman and Robin is not completely shown and offers the opportunity for different angles of view. Bruce can be seen as a teacher and Robin as his student. Bruce ensures that there will be others than him to fight crime in the future. He could also see his younger self in the boys who become Robin. They all have black hair and blue eyes and are kinda lost.
And... Did you ever think about a romantic relationship? I think this is a possibilty. Not for each Robin, but maybe for Tim Drake the third guy who becomes Robin. Why him?
Robin one - Dick Grayson - becomes Nightwing, because he wants to be indepent. There was a teacher and student relationship and that one is over.
Robin two - Jason Todd - was murdered by the Joker... or not?! This murder made Bruce act more and more violently.
Robin three - Tim Drake - was a huge fan of Batman and Robin/Nightwing and revealed their civil identities himself. After Bruce experienced a personal crisis after Jasons death Tim becomes his companion to support Bruce as Batman and Bruce as a private person. He brings balance and joy back to Bruces life. So Tim maybe plays a different role in Bruces life compared to the "Robins" before him.
Plus the fact that Bruces interest in women always were kinda complicated I think there could be some romantic relationship between him and Tim. If I think about all the timeline and dimension ideas during the Batman history I think a gay/bisexual Bruce would enhance his character and traits.

A secret main character

Batman and Robin, Alfred and others are well known characters, but I think there is one silent, but very important character, that is definately one of my favourites: Gotham City
A city?! Indeed. When I watched the animated show in my childhood, when I watched Tim Burtons life action Batman movies, when I played the game on my SNES and later when I played the Arkham City games - I was always in love with Gotham City. A city where it seems to be always winter or bad weather. A city that is traversed by pipes and looks like a steampunk fantasy with its huge art deco and gothic revival skyscrapers. And yet is very realistic with its neon signs and commercials at the houses facades and industrial quarters. This city feels true and it is dark, unhappy, but also gorgeous and it supports Batman and his villains like no other location. If you ever thought the cities design in Final Fantasy was creative you should consider, that they tend to look like Gotham and Gotham is much older than any FF game.
According to the history Gotham City was founded by scandinavian settlers. Most parts of Gothams architecture were designed by the architect Cyrus Pinkney under commission of Solomon Wayne. Remember that part about the Waynes and Gothams history?! Later other architects followed Pinkneys and Waynes vision.
For the real life movies Tim Burtons crew wanted a unique look for the city and they took inspiration from art nouveau buildings like the central train station in Helsinki, art deco buildings and gothic revival style.
In the first comics Gotham was inspired by New York at night and after the work of Tim Burtons crew the city became much more unique.
A new fantastic sight on the city was created by the team of artists for the Arkham City games who followed the idea of gothic revival mixed with art deco and Gotham City got the most beautiful look so far.
Who would Batman and the others be without Gotham City?
I can hardly imagine them in a random average city.
And I have seen that average mess in the movies with Christian Bale, where Batman is just a man in a suit and the city was based on random pictures of Chicago, New York and Hong Kong. I was so dissapointed.

The Batman movies

There have been several Batman movies. My favourites are the ones of my childhood directed by Tim Burton. They take their time to develop each character and the cast is still outstanding. I really recommend you to watch "Batman returns". Batman (Michael Keaton), Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the Penguin (Danny DeVito) meet for the first time and it is christmas time. This ain´ t a movie about happiness. It is about murder, being a freak and about the events that made everyone who they are. This movie has a high artistic level, each camera angle could be a well designed painting and the story is very exciting and fun. A great fusion of art and entertainment.
I also saw all new Batman movies, that transformed Batman into a fighting machine and Gotham into a soldier playground. These movies ain´ t bad but they stressed the action a lot and much of Batman became normal to attract normal people as an audience. There could have been any guy fighting a villain, because these movies have nearly nothing in common with what Batman and his world mean to me.
Well, that 90´s Batman and Robin movie with George Clooney is kinda trashy, but it is still a lot of fun to watch.

The Arkham games
In the Arkham games I feel like home. There is Arkham Origins, Arkham City and Arkham Knight. - There is Arkham Asylum, but I did not play it yet.
My favourite one is Origins, because it is christmas eve and everywhere is snow and (scary) christmas decorations and Batman tries to solve a mysterious case about murder and assassins who lead him into the darkest corners of Gotham where he meets strong opponents like Deathstroke and some people who will later become his villains.
The Arkham games also show Batman as a detective who is pretty good in investigating and how he uses his gadgets to find traces.
In Arkham City (it is winter)- that is a quarter of Gotham - the police decided to make Arkham an "open" prison for the most dangerous criminals. A huge wall separates Arkham from Gotham and everyone is observed from the "Wonder Tower" by an arguable doctor and his plans for all these criminals... and Batman.
Arkham City also has a special mode where you can do missions as Nightwing, Robin, Batman or Catwoman and each one has different costumes from the comics history.
In Arkham Knight (it is Halloween) Gotham City is attacked by Scarecrow and a poisonous gas and even worse - a mysterious soldier with a metal suit inspired by a bat tries to bring an end to Batman.
All these games are amazing.

Batman and me
I could write for hours about Batman and I did for this journal. I could go on and on, because there is so much to talk about.
This journal reflects my opinion on Batman how I see him and what he means to me. His stories combine a lot of things I enjoy like hot guys, snow, architecture, complex characters and a colourful world that is full with gray stages and you never know if it is good or bad and sometimes I pity the bad ones and I pity Batman who comes home hurt from battles and I wonder how he feels. I really like him and it would be great to see him in love with a guy.


What are your experiences with Batman? Do you like him?
Do you want more issues about him, Robin or villains?
Please tell me in the comments.

PS: While Batmans shadow can be seen above the roofs of Gotham I foreshadow him in my art for December.