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Powers and Weapons: An olympic level athlete and superb hand-to-hand combatant; rode a "war-horse" which was a powerful motorcycle resembling a medieval war horse.
Hey, I guess that's why Morrison chose to revamp The Knight...that mediaeval connection. Also the fact that the character sounds delusional. (prob. schizophrenic) He makes his bike look like a war-horse, and calls it, um, "the war-horse". Maybe The Knight curls up and does groaning when someone else touches his "war-horse". Or he knows it will be a Bad Day if he sees two yellow bikes within five metres of the "war-horse".
Pre-Crisis: An English crime-fighter who, along with his father, fought crime in England as the Knight and the Squire after being inspired by Batman and Robin . The Squire was in reality the son of the Earl of Wordenshire, a small village in England. Whenever their services were needed, the bell at the Wordenshire Village rectory was rang. The Squire, along with his father, joined forces several times with Batman and Robin, and other "Batmen of All Nations", and was a charter member of the Club of Heroes.
Post Crisis: In the early 1950's, Cyril and his father, along with several other war patriots, became some of the first costumed heroes to emerge outside of the United States. Taking the name the Squire after his father, who had used the name during World War II when apprenticed to Sir Justin, the Shining Knight, he and his father came under the supervision of the newly formed Dome as one of the Global Guardians. The Squire fought crime in his native England
That this crazy US comic-book conception of England/Britain (as the same country, unless a Scottish castle or Leprechaun is needed) can continue in 2004 is just numbingly absurd. Unless it's meant as a quaintly charming parody, not of England but of the old-skool DCU construction of England, I don't see how anyone can hold these ideas in their head and still function.
The whole notion of "England/Britain" in paragraphs like the above -- and the post-Crisis line is barely different from the 1950s version -- depends on seeing the world as a set of isolated, largely self-contained cultures that flourish almost as parallel universes. England has heard of this bally old Batman and some bright spark decides that we should have a version of this American heroic fellow in Albion, what? So drawing on the proud heritage of Brittania, of course he dresses in his father's armour and tricks out a motorcycle as a war-horse.
It can take what, an hour, to drive through Central London on a motorbike. It takes perhaps seven hours to drive from London to Newcastle, three from London to Bristol. How the Knight is going to cover wrong-doing in all of England on a motorbike is beyond me. If he hears on his Bat-Radio-4 about a mugging in Sunderland one evening, and he's hosting a reception down in his home town of Hugh-Grantenshire, he's going to have to struggle into his armour, fire up the "war-horse" and chug off to the scene of the crime: he might get there next morning if he's lucky,
Not only does this scheme suggest that Britain/England is essentially a village -- one guy is all we need to fight crime, and as it all happens within earshot of a rectory bell, it seems England is perhaps a square mile in size -- it's based on a sense that America has virtually no contact with the rest of the world.
The Knight has been inspired by Batman and thinks England needs its own version; but almost since his inception we've seen Batman not just capable of travelling the globe, but of exploring space, time and other dimensions. With territory that vast, surely he could also cover England, and not need some second-rate counterpart. Taking the post-Crisis official continuity, Batman trained all over the world and as a member of the JLA, again, has a global remit -- the Batplane makes him no slouch even compared to his team-mates like Flash and Superman. Just as Flash would surely never consider himself confined to the US when he can step to Japan in half a second, so Batman, while prioritizing Gotham, has an eye on world disasters, conspiracies that threaten all of humanity. The idea that the JLA's a peace-keeping force for the human race but that we still need some village idiot to dress up like Batman in order to police "England" is pitiful.
Even the post-Crisis story of the Knight supposes a world where America basically stays out of people's business and lets other nations follow its example in their kooky, endearingly flawed way. Oh, how cute, England's got its own Batman! honey, let's get a picture of him in his armor. It's as though the US Army, far from being the global policeman, fought evil only within its own national borders, while England/Britain had a troop of Arthurian soldiers to handle its own problems and defend the White Cliffs of Dover.
I'd wondered how a British comic book writer like Morrison could possibly want to perpetuate this 1950s mythos -- but maybe that's the answer. It's quaintly out of date, but it's more appealing than the truth of 2004. |
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