Batman sneaks out of the old folks' home when they serve Orange Jello

Yesterday, I found myself reading Paul Pope's miniseries Batman: Year 100. It had looked interesting when it was released last year, but I had never read the single issues (read: Jon didn't buy the single issues). It was interesting, especially the style of the book's art, but overall, left me with a hollow feeling, like after I eat the last Pop-Tart in the box.

For those of you who aren't massive Batman fanboys, a brief explanation. Frank Miller (who is a fascist, trust me) wrote two excellent Batman stories: The Dark Knight Returns, maybe the most famous Bat-comic out there, about an elderly Batman fighting Reaganite government forces (bear in mind, it was written in 1986) and damned hippies who want to give the Joker therapy; the other is Batman: Year One, which was pretty much the explicit source for the newest Batman movie.

Okay, so I'm a sucker for Batman, and I'm also a sucker for "What-If?" stories about dystopian futures. The gist of Pope's book is that Batman is still operating in 2039, exactly 100 years after the first published Batman story (so it's not just a clever title). As you might expect, Batman fights crime, but this time crime is in the form of corporations and governments (such a radical view!) instead of guys in purple 3-peice suits and clown makeup.

One of the coolest things about Year 100 was the way Pope dealt with the narrative continuity of Batman. In Year 100, several people are researching the 'history' of the Batman legend (I'll complain about this in a minute), and they find that a "Bat-Man" broke up a spy ring in 1939 (shout out to early Detective Comics), arrested colorful psychopaths in the 60s (old Adam West tv show), and last appeared as an older, heavier man fighting in a landfill in the late 80s(Miller's Dark Knight).

So, you're saying, if this is 2039, Batman's got to be pushing, in a technical sense, really freaking elderly. Assuming he was at least in his mid-20s when he started fighting crime (after all, it takes some time to dedicating yourself to perfecting your mind and body to avenge your parents' deaths), Pope's Batman is financing the costs of batarangs with Social Security checks. Yet, when he's seen in the book (and it's somewhat clear on the cover above), Batman looks to be in great shape. If anything, he's lost weight and toned up since Dark Knight. In the book, Batman himself wears fake vampire fangs when fighting crime, presumably so his enemies will think he's inhuman (another reason Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Confession is awesome). But IT'S NEVER EXPLAINED WHY BATMAN IS STILL JUMPING OFF ROOFTOPS. He's 130, people! Old people sleep and watch Matlock (or, if you're my grandfather, complain about customer service). They do not kung-fu fight corrupt federal troops.

Secondly, NOBODY in the year 2039 remembers Batman. This is a guy who dresses up in tights and uppercuts the most memorable bad guys around, and nobody remembers him? That's like if nobody today remembered who Richard Nixon was.

What the hell, Paul Pope? I guess if you want good dystopian future Batman, it needs to come from Saturday Morning Cartoons. Thank God for Bruce Timm.