10 Unique Visions Of Batman

By Chris Quicksilver /

4. Marshall Rogers

Marshall Rogers rose to fame as the penciller for Steve Englehart€™s era-defining 1970€™s Detective Comics run. Rogers work was exuberant, strongly action-orientated and (for the time) heavily stylized. His Batman was strong, intelligent and urbane, he scowled a lot (as Batman has subsequently done ever since), but his Bruce Wayne was also a footloose playboy, who enjoyed his passionate nights with main squeeze Silver St. Cloud. Hey, after a two-decade dry spell, what man among us could blame him? Rogers€™ Batman wrapped his face in his cowl a lot, hiding the Human side of his visage in order to only show his squinted, pupil-less eyes. When drawn correctly, Batman is always a visually arresting character and Rogers was one of the masters of making him look fresh, dynamic and interesting. His Robin (now a guest star as Dick Grayson studied at University) had grown too, into a muscular proto-Nightwing who threatened to (and actually did at one point) burst out from his ill-fitting kid€™s costume. It was as if all his lack of growth during the 50€™s and 60€™s had finally caught up with him! Either that, or he€™d been at the venom pills! Rogers€™ work is some of the most important in the history of the Batman mythos. Not only did he draw the definitive Joker story The Laughing Fish/Sign of The Joker, he also drew one of the single greatest Hugo Strange stories of all time, The Dead Yet Live. He also co-created Clayface III with Len Wein. Later in his career, Rogers drew Englehart€™s oft-maligned (but actually very good) Dark Detective miniseries, as well as one of my personal favourite Batman stories (which just happens to be the great Archie Goodwin€™s comics€™ swansong), Siege, from Legends of The Dark Knight.