Comic Books Are Dumb

By Alex Kim, Staff Writer

I am an avid comic book reader. I love comics and have read hundreds of issues, but comics make absolutely no sense. Through comics’ 100-year-long history, the stories have progressively gotten more and more ridiculous to a point where nothing makes sense. 

 

One of the most noticeable and unexplainable things in comics is that multiple stories depict different events…in the same period of time. For example, two canonical Batman stories recount Bruce’s first year as Batman: Batman: Year One and Batman: Zero Year. The two stories are entirely different, so the stories can’t be intertwined. But DC has not discounted either story because both of them are generally well-liked. So the confusion just makes the continuity muddled.

 

In comics, there is also the massive issue of characters never aging. Bringing up Batman again, in real-world time, Bruce Wayne has been Batman for over eighty years. But comic book time moves infinitely slower than real-time. So in-universe, Bruce is only in his late forties. Now, if you look too deep into this, his age makes almost no sense considering that virtually every past Batman story ever still happened. When DC rebooted their universe in 2011, editors made it clear that a majority of classic Batman stories have still taken place in Bruce’s past. 

 

So I will try to recount all of Batman’s notable life changes throughout the years. Bruce becomes Batman at the age of 26. After a few years, Batman adopts his first Robin, and they work together for six years. This Robin leaves and is quickly replaced with the second Robin, who worked with Bruce for five years. This Robin dies, and Batman finds another Robin. Soon after this, Batman breaks his back and is out of commission for at least one year. Batman then returns and operates smoothly for several years. After Darkseid sends Bruce back in time, Batman disappears for two years. When Bruce returns, he has another smooth crime-fighting period (but with a new first-year somehow). And then, he gets amnesia long enough for him to fall in love and get engaged. Later, he regains his memories and comes back as Batman. And that leads us up to the present day. The timeline of events, if you really stretch your imagination, is plausible, but no one in their right mind believes all of that could happen in just twenty years.

 

Countless comic book stories make absolutely no sense. Writers and editors have mostly accepted the fact that comics have and never will make much sense. On the one hand, this is the best thing for comic books and allows new stories to come out and not discount older, classic tales. On the other hand, it’s silly, and it drives me mad.