"Mary Sue" - Does the term have meaning?

[king mob]

Yes. The funny thing about Batman is, the more seriously he's treated the less seriously I take him. I take the Adam West version more seriously than I do the Christian Bale version because at least the 60's series didn't try to pretend there was anything remotely realistic the whole scenario. The various animated series have tended to be more on point in finding a good balance, taking the character seriously but not too seriously, because that's just sill.

There's a school of thought that the Nolan Batman films are works of real social realism when they're just well made blockbusters with delusions of grandeur.

Charlie Brooker sums it up perfectly here around the 38 minute mark.

[The Black Guardian]

If Mary Sue isn't appropriate for comic books, what term should we use when a writer has introduced a new character into an ongoing title and made that character overshadow all the existing characters to an extreme degree? Maybe that isn't even a Mary Sue kind of thing at all, but it's definitely a comic book thing that we should be able to discuss. Just for a couple of examples, Devin Grayson's pet character Tarantula, or Steve Englehart's Mantis.

We should probably call it a comic book that's working as intended and stop trying to attach something negative to it.

[Vibranium]

Yes. The funny thing about Batman is, the more seriously he's treated the less seriously I take him. I take the Adam West version more seriously than I do the Christian Bale version because at least the 60's series didn't try to pretend there was anything remotely realistic the whole scenario. The various animated series have tended to be more on point in finding a good balance, taking the character seriously but not too seriously, because that's just sill.

haha

I remember watching a Zero Punctuation review of Arkham Asylum and Yahtzee made the same point...you get this grim/gritty crime story and then a man dressed as a bat swings in to join the discussion