Orson Wells Presents "The Batman"

Who knows what evil

There is some resemblance between Batman and the Shadow which is why I thnk if Welles strongly preferred to be Batman to Joker.
 
Early Batman was very dark, in a film noir way. I have no reason to believe that Wells would treat it any differently. Perhaps Superhero films don't get the bad rap they have as people try to emulate Wells. Instead of getting serials of various heroes, we get more full length films, so we don't have to wait until the 1970s for full feature length version of Superman. Another possible side effect might be that superheroes are no longer seen as the province of children, so the Golden Age of comics lasts longer, maybe no or less effects from Seduction of the Innocent. and less campy stories for all heroes during the 50's and 60's. Of course this means we might lose out on the Silver Age interpretations of such heroes as The Flash, Green Lantern, The Atom, Spider-man, FF and others.

Torqumada
 
I think Spider Man came about after the golden age


He did, but if the Golden Age characters never turn campy or lose their popularity due to a popular and serious film by Wells, there is no need for the 1956 reboot of the Flash which started the Silver Age, which gave us Spider-man. There might be a Spider-Man, but not as we know him.

Torqumada
 
However eventually, it's decided to re-visit/ reimagine the Batman series and Well's movie becomes a major inspiration. Thus we get a far darker Batman Begins analogue with Batman being far more violent, perhaps not using guns but still far more violent.

Well he got something against gun, not against chainsaw :D
 
I would bet against a movie, even if it was really Dark Knightish & successful, moving Detective off Robin. When Robin was intro, sales roughly doubled; recall, most of the comics audience was (& mainly remains) teenage boys. I don't see National sacrificing 'em. If Orson made a very adult-targeted Bats, it'd be closer to the original Finger/Kane character, & might bring in more (adult) readers. You might get a separate, "mature readers" spinoff Bats solo book, tho, until SoI kills it. When Silver Age Bats appears, you might see Robin even being more prevalent (if that's possible), in reaction to SoI. A Robin book? Early NTT? Earlier Nightwing?

Of course, if you bring more adult readers to Bats sooner, a kind of "Watchmen effect", you might get "mature readers" books in other areas, too. IMO, there's 2 possible outcomes there: comics are banned as too violent (loonies like Wertham unable to distinguish adult & kid books), & possibly much earlier underground books doing the EC-type horror & "mature reader" superhero stuff. Or, maybe a "goldener" Golden Age, with more literate books, in the EC/Phoenix Saga/Watchmen vein, much sooner & much longer, including (maybe requiring) independents. Maybe even no "death" or Silver Age... Which could conceivably butterfly the Marvel Revolution...

It'd probably butterfly all the monster comics, too. And it might butterfly all the awful '50s monster movies. Might be lo-budget superhero junk: "Captain Canuck versus The Radioactive Ant Farmer". (Scotty?)
 
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