I’m super excited to share site contributor Martín Lel’s amazing new video “An Exhaustive Look at the Current Batman Chronology,” which is a two-and-a-half-hour documentary version of Batman’s Rebirth/Infinite Frontier timeline lifted straight from the webpages of my Batman Chronology Project.
Martín has put each year of the Batman Chronology Project’s Rebirth/Infinite Frontier timeline (from Bruce’s birth through to his death) into a straightforward, easy to digest narrative. The video is a tremendous culmination of both Martín’s and my work, and I commend him highly for it, especially the personal flair and touches he’s added. While you never get as many nitty gritty details or scholarly analysis with video, seeing my website adapted into video format does give a certain type of depth that just can’t be attained via a text-based chronological list. After watching through for the first time, I told Martín that his video feels like Chris Tolworthy’s “Fantastic Four as the Great American Novel” theory but applied to Batman. The feature length video not only fleshes out Batman’s overarching story with a pleasing kaleidoscope of expertly edited comic book images, but its narration also highlights several important things that might get missed when one is eyeball-scanning through a long text-based timeline. First, it really impresses upon the viewer exactly how Batman’s trials and tribulations build and connect to each other over long periods of time. Second, it shows how Batman reacts to trauma, learns, grows, occasionally regresses, rebounds, and is generally shaped—again over long periods of time. Third, it shows how Batman’s family is at the heart of his every motivation—and not just the infamous deaths of his parents, but also his very own role as loving father to a handful of kids. As Martín told me, “I 100% believe all of Batman’s history can be read as one big character arc,” and this surely resonates in the video. In short, it’s damn cool to see the Batman Chronology Project play out in this manner.
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What a moving write up! Thanks, Collin.
Yeah, phenomenal. The only problem I have with all of this is Martin’s pronunciation of Selina. 🙂 It’s not Sèlina, but Selìna, of course 🙂
Seleeeeeena! As Holly Robinson used to say, “SeLINa” lol.
Watching it tonight!
So exciting!
Just saw this and woah. Tho I wish he did one of the Pre-Flashpoint chronology too. I think out of all the continuities Batman has had that one is by far and away the most coherent and the easier to accomodate into a grand narrative. Lots of comments about how convoluted Rebirth’s chronology is and that’s true, but Pre-Flashpoint works extremely well.
Hey Jack! Nice to hear from you, hope you’ve been well! Yes, this was an amazing piece of work by Martin, and I commend him for his efforts. There’s probably a different delivery of the narrative (while still keeping the facts in-tact) that makes the über-story an easier “sell” to the layman. I’d say that the main reason for the complexity/convolution of contemporary canon is because its a palimpsest of what’s come before (to a fault). The Rebirth/Infinite Frontier Era is a mash-up of the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Modern Age (including its various Crisis schisms), New 52, Rebirth Era, and Infinite Frontier Era (combined with the effects of the Geoff Johns / Dan DiDio / Scott Snyder power struggle from a few years ago). Not to mention, right now, this is really the first time ever where editorial-up-on-high has said to all creators: “Feel free to use i.e. canonize literally anything that’s ever happened in the past.” Only top line architects typically would do this back in the day—writers like Waid, Morrison, Johns, etc (and they’d likely only do it with expressed consent of editorial). With the “everything is canon” (meaning “everything can be canon”) flood gates open, so to speak, it creates a situation where there’s simply more and more room for continuity error. It doesn’t help that a lot of writers have been obsessed with making their mark on Batman’s earliest days (even though his earliest days have been very fleshed-out already).
To play devil’s advocate a bit, though, this feels like the first time (since 1986, at least) that there’s a general consensus among writers and editors of what the overall DCU history is supposed to be—one that mirrors a unified “Metaverse” publication history of the company. Waid seems to be the frontline general, enforcing this by writing simultaneous stories across multiple eras, a lot of which forms connective tissue throughout the timeline.
If DC ever does another reboot, I hope they have the chutzpah to actually start anew, erasing everything for real. This is something DC has never done before, and it would be refreshingly novel. Imagine the Absolute line as the actual primary DC line. Not a bad idea.