Before the expansion of cheap home media through VHS tapes and DVDs – all long before the advent of digital online streaming – it was common for a film or television show to receive a written adaptation. Many of the famous films of the second half of the twentieth century quickly gained a novel adaptation. Once, these prose editions were the only method of re-experiencing the original, but even with video tapes and discs coming along, adaptations excelled in the money-making department. They became an expected product in the aftermath of a film’s release. Comic books were no different. When Tim Burton’s Batman hit the screens in 1989, at the time it was a unique picture. Superhero movies conjured an image of queasy effects and hammy acting for most movie-goers – it felt (and looked) like a mixture between tacky action and unintentional comedy). But things were beginning to change. 1978’s Superman was a triumph – the film contained none of the tackiness of previous films in the genre; its box office success was stunning. A decade on it was time for the Dark Knight, with ‘dark’ acting as the operative word. Starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, Burton directed arguably the best Batman film to date. Keaton’s Batman didn’t have the charm of Adam West, nor did it have the cheapness. This was the Dark Knight detective from the comic books, fighting crime in gritty Gotham City. As for the comedy, Nicholson’s Joker performance differed heavily from the 1966 TV show. The comedy was there, but it was mixed with cruelty and genuine evil. Batman ’89 is a classic – but how does the comic book adaptation compare?
Batman: The 1989 Movie Adaptation was released in the summer, coinciding with the film’s release. Sam Hamm was one of the screenwriters of the movie. Although DC admired his talents enough to grant him three issues of Detective Comics – the story he wrote was Blind Justice – Hamm isn’t the writer here. Instead, we have the excellent editor of the Dark Knight titles in Dennis O’Neil. Meanwhile, Jerry Ordway is the penciller and inker, perhaps an unexpected choice, but a solid one. To mark the 30th anniversary of the movie’s release, in 2019 DC released a great hardcover deluxe edition of the adaptation.
I’ve have watched Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie several times over the years. It has a great memorable quality to it, with its actors providing some incredible scenes that can never wander out of a viewer’s mind. With its masterful directing and absolutely fabulous score, for me it ranks higher than even Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Two hours in length, the film flies by, but how well can that flow, drama, action, and characterisation be translated into a comic book of about sixty pages? It is obvious from the start that O’Neil will have shorten the story, or at least make it as concise as possible. It’s for this reason that comparing this to the two-hour film would be far from fair, but does the adaptation add anything unique or new to the experience?
The Official Movie Adaptation begins essentially the same as the motion picture – O’Neil sets the scene by painting the grim Gotham City. In Burton’s rendition on the screen, Gotham appeared to be some kind of industrial complex full of questionable architecture, but within these pages, O’Neil sets a scene more recognisable to comic book readers. It starts with a crime on the streets – a robbery. These thieves don’t enjoy success for long because out of the shadows comes the Dark Knight. As in the film, Batman is a figure of folklore legend. Many criminals at this stage don’t even believe in his existence – it’s this kind of Dark Knight that works best, returning to the mystery man of Detective Comics (vol 1) 27. Naturally, the scene of Batman foiling a crime is shorter and quicker than anything from the movie, but it establishes the scene.
One area of success for the 1989 movie comes with its villains. The 1960s TV series brought colour and craziness to the on-screen world of Batman, but such sharp colour would not have worked in this new gothic edition. At first, the villains appear to be an ordinary kind of mob - the organised crime gangs who run Gotham City. You’ve got Carl Grissom, the leader of the mob. But you also have Jack Napier, Grissom’s disruptive deputy with dreams of success. If you can find one aspect of this adaptation which is an improvement over the film, it is that O’Neil doesn’t entrap readers too deeply into dull dialogue about the mob and their rather dry plans. O’Neil quickly paints the picture – Grissom is worried that Jack is growing too noisy, and by working with a corrupt officer in the police force, he plants a trap for Jack to fall into. This is what leads to perhaps the most iconic scene in the 1989 movie – the showdown at Axis Chemicals. It’s here where Jack falls into the trap and attempts to fight back, but only to finish up in a life-changing pool of chemicals which transform him into – surprise, surprise – the Joker!
O’Neil translates this scene of action well. It is aided by the fact that much of the dialogue remains the same, but the obvious issue is the pacing. Events move too fast for them to be properly digested and understood. These great moments of silence or ambience function stunningly in a film, but it is a challenge to pull them off in a comic book. Nevertheless, Jack is driven insane by his transformation; when he returns to Grissom, he shoots him dead and takes over the mob. That famous scene in the movie, whereby Jack emerges from the shadows as the Joker is pretty similar here, but there are some changes in the order of the dialogue. These changes rarely cause any problems, and actually improve the quality of the adaptation because it takes the medium into account. Often, a piece of dialogue that succeeds in film doesn’t work as well in the written word or in a comic book. I have no problems with these changes, but I do have issues with some memorable lines of dialogue being removed all-together. Although such classics such as ‘where does he get those wonderful toys’ and ‘you wouldn’t hit a man with glasses would you?’ are still here, where is the comic but telling scene whereby the Joker asks his chief henchmen for his gun only to use it on him? Or that uncomfortable scene where the Joker sits in the darkness, cursing Batman and planning a grand scheme to defeat him? Tragically, many of these problems cannot be solved because O’Neil only has so many pages, but it is still a shame.
While the fight between the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince is one aspect of the film and its adaptation, another is the romance between Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale. A photographic journalist, Vale is in Gotham on the search for Batman. As in any film from the 1980s, a romance is expected. In fact, if your film hasn’t got an ounce of romance in it, then many people would question whether or not to watch it. Throughout the story you watch as Vicki Vale is transformed from a journalist wanting only fame and awards to a hero of Gotham. Along the way, there is her love with Bruce Wayne and her fascination with his secretive life. Not surprisingly given the page count, the romance moves far too quickly, and it is impossible to digest all of its elements. However, O’Neil adds one element which the film doesn’t delve too much into. With the Joker creating a laughing gas to kill as many Gothamites as possible, Batman uses his scientific knowledge to uncover the compounds of the gas. With that knowledge, he brings Vicki Vale to the Batcave after a run-in with the Joker and tells her to leak the scientific findings to the press. We watch as Batman essentially uses a romantic interest to protect Gotham from further harm – it’s an element which the story doesn’t go into much, but we’ve never seen Batman do this before. He has had countless romances in the past, but very few of them conflict with his life as the Dark Knight. Here, he is using Vicki Vale to defeat the Joker.
Without a doubt, both the film and the adaptation convey a flawless Joker. With his truly threatening demeanour mixed with hilarity and crass jokes, Nicholson’s Joker is the best on-screen version of the character – excluding Mark Hamill. Burton creates his own unique gangster-turned-psychopath oozing with personality and gags – the version here is very similar to the one in the comic books of the dark age. Although – once again due to pacing and a lack of space – O’Neil burns through some of the Joker’s plots at record speed, but the main focus is on Gotham’s bicentennial celebrations, where the villain plans to unleash his laughing gas onto the city. It’s a typical comic book Joker move, and that is exactly what I want from the Joker in a movie. He should be a comical character, but his threat and genuine danger should never be underplayed. The scenes where Batman defeats the Joker – leading to the titanic confrontation upon the roof of Gotham Cathedral – fly by. But before the epic conclusion comes the big reveal of the piece? In a rare moment where the Joker comes face-to-face with Bruce Wayne, the latter sparks up when the former asks, ‘have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?’. This is apparently what Jack/The Joker says seconds before executing his victims. Let’s ignore the fact that the Joker hasn’t uttered these words once either here or in the film. But with this, Bruce realises that Jack was the killer of his parents all those years ago in Crime Alley. This is a shock inserted into the film and it is actually a very creative way of placing in that oh-so familiar scene featuring the death of the Waynes – pearls and all. Naturally, the adaptation couldn’t have avoided this surprise, but as it goes, I’m not hugely fond of it. There was something impactful in saying that the Waynes were gunned down by an ordinary Joe – surname Chill – on the street. It suggested that the virus of crime is deep within Gotham and that no one could escape it. Here, it feels too orchestrated and pre-determined that the Joker has always been the cause of Bruce’s turn to the shadows. I would certainly be more angered at it where it inserted into the mainstream comics, but since the world of Batman ’89 is detached, I’ll begrudgingly let it slide.
So, time for the confrontation. With scant pages remaining, O’Neil moves too quickly through the final fight between Batman and the Joker. On film, it is a grand scene – with its dim lighting, natural dialogue, and dramatic score. The adaptation fails to capture much of that magic, and even the dialogue is pretty disappointing compared to the movie. Some of the Joker’s funny jokes on retirement are removed, and the scene feels quite jagged and less natural than desired. But the essence is there – Batman creatively ties a stone gargoyle to the legs of the Joker just as he is lifted by his helicopter. The weight is too much; so ends the brief but terrible reign of the Joker. With this, the city’s attitude towards the Dark Knight is transformed and he is Gotham’s hero. As for Vicki Vale, she gives up journalism and her story are held in the balance. The ending – like most aspects of the adaptation – is no different to the film.
In a film adaptation, especially if it is a novel, more information surrounding backstory and the internal emotions of the characters is often available. That isn’t something which a comic book, certainly one of this brevity, can achieve. If this was, say, a six-issue miniseries, then perhaps readers could have obtained much more as O’Neil could have delved into past events, flashbacks, and moments of deep dialogue. But what were the chances of DC commissioning a six-issue miniseries adapting a film? I’d imagine very unlikely. O’Neil captures the essentials of the story and translates most of what made the film great into the comic book, but of course the effects won’t be the same. There isn’t the space, but I do feel like O’Neil could have improved it with more memorable scenes and dialogue from the film. O’Neil was thankfully selective in the early pages of the tale, ensuring that the scenes featuring the mob were not too overwhelming. When it comes to dialogue, O’Neil captures Nicholson excellently. He is perhaps less successful with Keaton, who is a bit too emotive and talkative as the Dark Knight. All-in-all, O’Neil recreates the mood and appearance of Burton’s Gotham with brilliance, but I was hoping for more backstory and information not covered in the film.
If the 1989 adaptation shines in any aspect, it would be the outstanding artwork. I said earlier that Jerry Ordway is an odd choice; that is because he isn’t exactly regarded as a Batman artist. At the time, there were grand artists like Jim Aparo and Norm Breyfogle on the scene, and their work captured the dark age tales of Starlin, Wolfman, and Grant superbly. But with this adaptation, Ordway provides some stunning pages. His art leans more realist in appearance, and with that tone he captures the personalities and characters of Batman and the Joker. The characters look easily identifiable and while Ordway may differ from Burton’s vision of Gotham, it is still impressive. Alongside the accuracies of real-life, it is also a dynamic adaptation. Ordway’s storytelling is very similar to the directing of the movie, but with the use of effective dark lighting, and the wonderful colouring by Steve Oliff, the artwork of the 1989 adaptation easily stands as my favourite aspect of the comic book.
VERDICT
Overall, what can be said for Batman: The 1989 Movie Adaptation? It may be restricted by a limited number of pages, but O’Neil translates the basics of the film to paper. He recreates the gothic magic of Burton’s world and captures the personalities of every character in the film. It is a shame that some of great scenes and dialogue are cut from this adaptation. But dialogue aside, O’Neil could not have done much to solve the adaptation’s biggest problem – its length. With more pages, we could have had an adaptation that explored the undiscovered past of Jack Napier, or the internal thoughts of characters like Vicki Vale. Still, with its sensational artwork and all in its favour, it is by no means a bad or even mediocre adaptation…
Next Week: Starman: Lightning and Stars (Starman (vol 2) 39-46, Power of Shazam 35-36). Written by James Robinson, Jerry Ordway, and David S. Goyer, with art by Tony Harris, Wade Von Grawbadger, Peter Krause, Dick Giordano, Ray Synder, Gary Erskine, Matthew Smith, Mike Mayhew, and Gene Ha.
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