Featured Article of the Month:
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
by David Krell
david@davidkrell.com
Isolating the best version of a character in popular culture is somewhat akin to determining the best pitcher of all time.
The task is futile.
To borrow from a famous phrase, best is in the eye of the beholder.
For Batman fans, the conundrum of choosing the best representation of the Dark Knight recalls Riddler’s challenges in nature and amounts to lunacy rivaled only by that of the Joker.
With that disclaimer in mind, let’s consider that any version contributes something of value, interest, and depth to the rich legacy, history, and interpretations of the Batman character.
If you survey ‘signs of the times’ in the presentation, the pop art television series Batman (ABC, 1966-68) gets the nod. Batman gave audiences camp and parody, showing anything but the familiar, nocturnal, vengeful character stalking criminal prey. In this outing, Bruce Wayne (Adam West) appears to be a bored, rich, nonchalant man who treats his alter ego as a hobby rather than a pursuit. 1960’s popular culture indicators abounded -- surfing, dance crazes, rock music.
If you gauge overall audience as your benchmark, see the movies starring Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and Christian Bale.
Batman Michael Keaton 1989
Batman Returns Michael Keaton 1992
Batman Forever Val Kilmer 1995
Batman & Robin George Clooney 1997
Batman Begins Christian Bale 2006
The Dark Knight Christian Bale 2008
Michael Keaton plays the dual role as if Bruce Wayne is always distracted, never in control unless he becomes Batman. Christian Bale brings a younger, realistic, more aggressive portrayal of the character. Bale’s Batman relies on the alter ego’s company Wayne Enterprises for gadgetry, including the Batmobile.
If you measure by a story’s innovation, few would argue at granting top honors to Frank Miller’s 1986 graphic novel The Dark Night Returns. Miller influenced the comic book version of Batman. Batman went back to his roots and then some as the comic books portrayed Batman as dark, brooding, and focused. He was arguably freakish and super-obsessive.
If, however, you assess a story’s significance by how closely it conveys the true heart, spirit, and essence of the title character, the 1993 animated film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm deserves a close, thoughtful, and detailed examination.
First, a little Bat-ground.
When Bob Kane unveiled his Batman creation in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), readers reveled at this new standard set in the modern era’s superhero genre. For all intents and purposes, Superman started the genre one year prior with his debut in Action Comics #1 (June 1938).
Where the Man of Steel is a fantasy character, a solar-charged alien from Krypton with powers surpassing those of mortal men, the Dark Knight is simply human.
Batman’s origin has remained consistent, no matter the incarnation. After witnessing the deaths of his parents in a street robbery, a preadolescent Bruce Wayne vows to avenge their deaths.
In Batman #1 (Spring 1940), the story entitled The Legend of the Batman succinctly summarizes the sequence of events after the life-altering incident. Bruce Wayne masters the sciences and trains his body to ‘physical perfection.’
Although his family wealth allows privileges, accoutrements, and comfort not afforded the average crime fighter, Bruce Wayne realizes he needs a disguise.
Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible...a...
An ominous event completes his thought; a bat flies through the window. The narration concludes accordingly. And thus is born this weird figure of the dark...this avenger of evil. The Batman.
Clearly, Bruce Wayne’s outstanding inheritance also provides advantages in the area of female companionship, although his Batman persona supplies a definite balance. His dangerous, nocturnal, and urban otherworld will not a relationship become a permanent fixture.
Emotional attachment forms Batman’s Achilles Heel, the antidote to the edge he needs, demands, and refines to fulfill his self-appointed mission as Gotham City’s protector. Simply, Bruce Wayne cannot permit interference with his alter ego mind-set. The slightest vulnerability will cause a chink in his psyche armor, a dulling of his edge, and an opening for his enemies to exploit.
Karen Haber and Robert Silverberg capture this essence in Batman in Nighttown, a short story in The Further Adventures of Batman (1989).
Wayne leaned against the plain white wall and shook his head. A shame, really. So attractive, Ellen. He could feel the heat of her against him even now. But her kind never let up. If he invited her into his world, into his bed, he knew that eventually he would regret the decision. It would all end badly, with him prying her fingers, one by one, away from his life. And he had no time, no room left for any sort of serious entanglements on that level.
Perhaps the most complicated relationship for the billionaire bachelor involves his affinity for Selina Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman. Batman’s duality in pursuing Catwoman as and adversary and a lover evidences in Gotham City Spring: a suite by Mort Castle. It’s a short story in The Further Adventures of Batman, Volume 3 (1993).
And he wanted to make her yowl. He wanted to claim her, to tame her, and make her his, and for an inarticulate instant he understood age-old combat between men and women, understood John Wayne, understood misogyny and a half-dozen other issues that are endlessly blathered about on talk programs hosted by the drippingly sensitive.
She was the Woman Animal and he WANTED her and she scared the HELL out of him!
In addition to Catwoman, a literal parade has marched by the most elusive of eligible Gotham City bachelors and his Batman alter ego.
Vicki Vale.
Silver St. Cloud.
Julie Madison.
Barbara Gordon a.ka. Batgirl a.k.a. Gotham City Police Department Commissioner Gordon’s daughter.
Julia Pennyworth (butler Alfred’s daughter).
Talia (arch-enemy Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter).
Natasha Knight a.k.a. Nocturna.
Indeed, throughout the years, Bruce Wayne has enjoyed the company of beautiful women. His image of billionaire playboy requires such company as does his standing as a leading citizen of Gotham City.
In his 1989 book Tales of the Dark Knight: Batman’s First Fifty Years, 1939-1989, Michael L. Fleisher explores the Batman character for a psychological perspective on Bruce Wayne’s absence of female companionship.
The sudden, violent loss of his mother while he was still a boy, during the period of his childhood when his psyche was grappling with the complexity of his affectional and erotic feelings for her, left Bruce Wayne with a deep reservoir of unconscious hostility toward women. Like many orphaned children, he saw the death of his mother as a personal desertion. He loved and needed his mother, and yet she left him.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm builds upon this heritage in an entertaining, compelling, and effective manner. It adds new pieces to the puzzle of the title character’s human side, making him vulnerable and, in turn, identifiable with the reader.
In particular, the story explores the void left by his parents’ premature death. Andrea Beaumont personifies an answer to that void.
Told in present and ten-year flashback modes, Phantasm displays Andrea as another potential victor of the Wayne heart. Choice between self-imposed duty and self-denied happiness serves as the main conflict.
Batman’s cowl is not his only mask. He benefits from Bruce Wayne’s social status. Indeed, alter ego Wayne is a major player in Gotham City. He uses the status as a veil, seemingly enjoying the so-called ‘good life.’ In an early scene set at stately Wayne Manor, we see the charade played out.
As three women hover around the billionaire, each hoping to be the next Wayne paramour, a rather discontented former lover marches directly to the group and attempts to discourage her sister romance seekers from the prize known as Bruce Wayne.
I’d watch out for Brucie if I were you girls. First, he wines and dines you. Makes you think you’re the only woman he’s ever been interested in. And just when you’re wondering where to register the china, he forgets your phone number. She then throws her drink in his face.
That’s Bruce Wayne’s style.
Ever the gentleman, Bruce excuses himself.
Councilman Arthur Reeves offers Bruce a handkerchief and reveals amazingly precise insight.
Really, Bruce. It’s almost as if you pick them because you know there’s no chance for a serious relationship. At least since that one girl. What was her name? Ann? Andy? Andrea? Yes! Andrea Beaumont! Now there was a sweet number. How’d you let her get loose?
Bruce grimaces at the mention of Andrea’s name and thanks the councilman for the handkerchief with a suggestion. You know where you can stick it.
Andrea’s name prompts a flashback as Bruce looks wistfully at this parents’ portrait. The shot dissolves to a similar pose with his head hung low in front of the Wayne parents’ graves.
At the cemetery, Bruce first meets Andrea Beaumont. He is visiting his parents’ graves. She, her mother’s nearby. Andrea sees through Bruce’s emotional wall.
With all that money and power, how come you always look like you want to jump off a cliff? Andrea inquires.
Bruce’s attraction to Andrea and the appeal of having a soulmate leads to frustration and friction between the vow he made to his parents to avenge their deaths and the void he feels by their permanent absence.
Until Andrea, Bruce managed to keep his emotions in check, designing a plan to allow minimal emotional involvement. Their romance puts Bruce’s plan in jeopardy.
During this time, Bruce makes his first attempt at crime fighting with a rather crude costume. His only problem -- the criminals were not afraid. A poignant scene reveals his emotional confusion on a rainy night as he throws one of what appears to be many costume sketches into the fireplace. Unbeknownst to him, a bat flies by. He cries out his frustration.
It’s gotta be one or the other! I can’t have it both ways! I can’t put myself on the line as long as there’s someone waiting for me to come home!
Newfound emotions prompt another look at the ‘secret vow’ Bruce made to his parents. At the gravesite, he pleas to his parents for forgiveness. Andrea’s presence balances their absence. It doesn’t hurt as much anymore. I didn’t count on being happy, he explains. Thunder answers his appeal.
Andrea sees him and presents another theory. They may already have forgiven him. Maybe they sent me, she says with comfort, reassurance, and love.
At Wayne Manor, Bruce proposes to Andrea. She accepts and offers another perception. She though Bruce never knew what to do with her because she wasn’t in the plan. You are now. I’m changing the plan, he answers.
Metaphorically, hundreds of bats escape the cave under the estate, shocking the young couple. Symbolism apparent, fate and destiny again affect Bruce’s life course.
Andrea’s father, Carl Beaumont, enjoys, maintains, and suffers an alliance with figures of organized crime. He utilizes his financial knowledge to set up dummy corporations.
When Beaumont owes a tremendous debt to his partners that he cannot repay, the situation dictates father and daughter flee to Europe for safety reasons. Bruce Wayne is alone again.
Who helped arrange for their escape? None other than Councilman Reeves, then a member of Beaumont’s legal department. Reeves later sold out Beaumont to the criminal creditors when he needed money for his first election and Beaumont refused him.
In the present day, a cloaked figure with a look and voice like Darth Vader systematically, ruthlessly, and vengefully kills Beaumont’s former associates. Gotham City’s Police Department points its finger to Batman, his relationship with Commissioner Gordon notwithstanding.
Andrea returns to Gotham City and leads her former paramour to believe her father seeks vengeance on those who wronged him. The lead is false.
Andrea is the killer. She retaliates on the criminals who murdered her father and ruined her potential for happiness with Bruce Wayne.
He realizes the truth, painful though it may be. As Batman, he confronts Andrea. What will vengeance solve? he asks.
If anyone knows the answer to that, Bruce, it’s you. she replies.
If you’re wondering how Andrea knows the dual identity and worrying that the Dark Knight betrayed himself, let’s back up a little bit.
Andrea causes the deaths of two members from her father’s former inner circle -- Chuckie Sol and Buzz Bronski -- in a parking lot and cemetery respectively. She deduces Batman’s secret identity when he visits the cemetery to investigate the Bronski murder. A chance visual encounter ensues near the place of her first meeting with the ‘boy billionaire’ and leads Andrea to her conclusion.
After Sol and Bronski, two men remain on the Beaumont hit list -- Salvatore Valestra and the Joker.
Before his accidental plunge into an appearance-changing chemical bath, the Joker was a member of the Beaumont gang. He killed Beaumont.
When Sal Valestra hires the Joker to kill Gotham City’s vigilante assassin, the green-haired, arch-villain acts true to form and kills Valestra instead. The Joker leaves only himself for the ‘Angel of Death’ vigilante to eliminate.
The story ends at the long neglected Gotham World’s Fair grounds, once the site of a memorable date between Andrea and Bruce. It is now the Joker’s haunt.
Batman pleads with Andrea to resist her dark side, but she cannot fulfill that request. A climactic series of cat and mouse scenes finishes with massive explosions destroying the once proud fairgrounds. Goodbye, my love, Andrea says with melancholy. She causes her trademark smoke to envelop herself and the Joker. They disappear. Presumably, they are dead.
Batman escapes through a waterway.
In the Batcave, our hero mourns and beats himself up in the process about not being able to save Andrea. Always astute, perceptive, and comforting, Alfred explains that perhaps she did not want to be saved.
Vengeance blackens the soul, Bruce. I always feared you would become that which you fought against. You walk the edge of that abyss every night. But you haven’t fallen in and I thank heaven for that. But Andrea fell into that pit years ago. And no one, not even you, could have pulled her back.
In the distance, Bruce sees a pendant Andrea wore to symbolize their bond. Although we can only wonder what happened to the Joker, Andrea escaped. The two lovers, once rejoined, are now alone. Once again.
As in the 1989 film Batman, Mask of the Phantasm ends with Batman perched for another flight to fight crime as the Bat-Signal calls him.
For Batman fans, Phantasm ranks as a worthwhile addition for several reasons. Primarily, the film presents a good story. It’s solid, believable, and fitting with Batman lore. It does justice to the character.
Bruce Wayne does not come across as an eccentric rich guy, bizarre aberrant, or freakish vigilante. Phantasm addresses Bruce’s mental state with humor in the first scene. It takes place in the Batcave. Alfred dismisses a television news clip of Councilman Reeves denouncing Batman as a potential madman.
Such rot, sir. Why, you’re the very model of sanity. Oh, by the way, I’ve pressed your tights and put away your exploding gas balls.
Essentially, Bruce Wayne is on a lifelong quest to pursue a goal quite unattainable. Transforming himself into a fantastic, fearsome, and figurative force of the night is the cover for his vow to fight, defeat, and squash the criminal element.
He battles his loneliness by suppressing it, focusing on his vigilante justice plan. Consequently, he removes the possibility of happiness from the equation.
However, no matter how many criminals he apprehends, he will never bring back his parents. Indeed, the very heart and soul of the Batman character finds its source in humanity and solitude. Phantasm shows several scenes to constantly remind us of Bruce Wayne’s orphan status -- graves and portraits of the Wayne parents are prominent in the story.
Andrea Beaumont is a real person who can somehow fill that void within Bruce Wayne. The realization comes just as Bruce embarks on his crime fighting activity. Andrea is neither a heroine like Batgirl nor a villainess like Catwoman when the two first meet during their college days.
Further, Andrea is not a famous photographer like Vicki Vale or a Gotham City socialite like Julie Madison. Simply, she is a lovely, young, sensitive woman with the uncanny ability to absolve Bruce Wayne of his loneliness, pain, and emptiness.
The relationship between Andrea and Bruce is adult, believable, and substantive. Standard symbolism can be seen in this regard, for example, a billowing curtain in the room where Bruce and Andrea rekindle their love and a shot of seaside Wayne Manor the next morning with waves breaking.
The lost love theme and flashback sequences are familiar story telling techniques. Phantasm utilizes them quite effectively.
In addition, the Phantasm story tellers treat the project with great respect from a filmmaking standpoint. The opening shot of Gotham City in its art deco splendor owes a deb to TIm Burton’s directorial interpretations of the Dark Knight -- Batman and Batman Returns.
In turn, Burton’s films paid an homage of sorts in the art design to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927).
Establishing shots in Phantasm are also effective. For example, the establishing shot of Wayne Manor in the party sequence is not simply static. We see a car moving up the driveway to keep the visual flow. Also, the party scene begins with an overhead shot, the camera circling clockwise, then cutting to panning shots of the partygoers.
Parallel overhead shots of Alfred and Bruce in two scenes highlight the emotional impact of Andrea leaving Bruce, first by circumstances with her father and then by choice at the film’s denouement.
Mask of the Phantasm respects its audience. It takes the character a step further in its depth, gravity, and actions. While breaking up a counterfeit money ring at the Shady Lady Casino, Batman causes a painting to fall on a ring member. As Batman walks by, the crook groans and Batman forcefully stomps his right foot on the painting. Also, in the final battle with the Joker, Andrea gives a forceful knee to his groin.
Clearly a tribute to New York’s World’s Fairs of 1939 and 1964, the future motif of the Gotham World’s Fair includes an exhibit of a futuristic car. It captures Bruce’s attention. Clearly, the car provides the genesis, inspiration, and blueprint for the Batmobile.
Moreover, a hallmark of the 1990’s Batmanimation is the use of inside jokes and references. For example, the Warner Brothers logo appears in the final fairground scenes. Batman falls under the aegis of DC Comics, a Warner Brothers property.
Mask of the Phantasm raises interesting questions. Had Andrea stayed with Bruce, would he ultimately abandon his vigilante plan forever? Would he accept a twisted act of fate that robbed him of his parents, and, in turn, his childhood? Would he have been happier with Andrea or with his alter ego?
In DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes (1995), Les Daniels details the progenitor of Phantasm -- Batman: The Animated Series (FOX, 1992-95).
Appointed in 1990, the fledgling team of Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski were thrown into deep water with instructions to prepare a series for a September 1992 debut on the FOX television network.
Timm and Radomski complemented each other like foreground and background. Timm, who had planned to work in comic books but ended up in cartoons instead, came up with a simplified, stylized drawing of Batman that would lend itself to animation. He ended up creating the look for many major characters, including Catwoman, Two-Face and Commissoner Gordon. Radomski was interested in settings; he envisioned a bold, impressionistic Gotham City, achieved by the unusual technique of painting on a black background. This created a dark Deco world where a building could be suggested by a shadowy monolith with only one side exposed to light and drawn in any detail. In simplifying the concept for animation, Timm and Radomski ended up reverting to the Golden Age comic book style pioneered by artists like Bob Kane and Dick Sprang. ‘It’s very stylized,’ says Kane of the cartoon’s look, ‘almost three-dimensional because the shadows and perspectives are brilliantly drawn, with the bird’s eye view and the worm’s eye view that I used early on.’
Daniels also explains the history of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
The new series was so successful that it spawned a theatrical feature for release at the end of 1993. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was designed as a direct-to-video film, but turned out to be impressive enough that additional scenes were shot for the big screen. The $6 million Mask of the Phantasm did not draw the anticipated audiences, perhaps because it was booked in many markets for matinees only. The video version, subsequently released, did prove to be a substantial success.