The Adventures of Sexy Batman

November 27, 2019 9:05 AM

What happens if you swap the Batman and Catwoman character models in Arkham Knight? Or the Quiet and Ocelot models in Metal Gear Solid 5?

Bonus Hark! A Vagrant comic

posted by adrianhon (38 comments total)

Incredible.
posted by dobbs at 9:23 AM on November 27, 2019

Brilliant.
posted by stonepharisee at 9:24 AM on November 27, 2019

More of this please.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:25 AM on November 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

Please, any scene form the Witcher series where Big Stony Man interacts with Mincing Woman-Toy.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:28 AM on November 27, 2019 [13 favorites]

Kate Beaton must be informed immediately

Is there some sort of seductive flashlight we can beam into the sky
posted by saturday_morning at 9:32 AM on November 27, 2019 [6 favorites]

These are great; great illustration of why this stuff is so skin-crawly when it's female characters doing it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:36 AM on November 27, 2019 [37 favorites]

This brings so much joy. More of this.
posted by Fizz at 9:41 AM on November 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

Stupid Sexy Batman.
posted by bonehead at 9:43 AM on November 27, 2019 [22 favorites]

More, but admittedly the excerpted part is best.
posted by dobbs at 9:47 AM on November 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

These are great; great illustration of why this stuff is so skin-crawly when it's female characters doing it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:36 AM on November 27 [4 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

Absolutely! I was prepared to see gender norms upended in a good way, but it also confirms that gender norms portrayed in most video games are really disturbing..
posted by helmutdog at 9:48 AM on November 27, 2019 [12 favorites]

What helmutdogsaid.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:57 AM on November 27, 2019

Could they switch the voices, or are those recorded rather than generated?
posted by clew at 10:13 AM on November 27, 2019

They’re recorded. Generated voices still sound very artificial.
posted by adrianhon at 10:13 AM on November 27, 2019

If they did something like this with Half-Life: Alyx, I might actually buy the damn goggles.
posted by mittens at 10:18 AM on November 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

These are great; great illustration of why this stuff is so skin-crawly when it's female characters doing it.

Indeed. Here's a take that I like.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:23 AM on November 27, 2019 [6 favorites]

I have never even heard of Quiet before -- I had to go google her to find out about her terrible nakedness disease -- but even without knowing that, this was pretty amazing.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:39 AM on November 27, 2019

There is potentially yet another level to this sort of thing. I don't know who the mocap actor for Catwoman was, but the mocap actor for Harley Quinn in Arkham Asylum was a man. So, there's a chance that this was a man, playing a woman character, who was then mesh-swapped back to a man.
posted by subocoyne at 10:43 AM on November 27, 2019 [17 favorites]

I love this so much.
posted by emjaybee at 11:02 AM on November 27, 2019

This is fun! The Batman one seems like characters doing gender, but the other one seems just bizarre, no matter what gender that character be.
posted by Sterros at 11:08 AM on November 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

but the other one seems just bizarre, no matter what gender that character be.

She is a mute non-human super assassin that can only breath through her skin and can sprint like 50 miles per hour. Gender is the least weird thing about her.
posted by sideshow at 11:27 AM on November 27, 2019 [4 favorites]

That is the least of what the MGS5 mods can do with body swaps.

For example, someone either got a hold of or made good approximations of the facial scans for Hideo Kojima and Mads Mikkelsen from Death Stranding, and re-edited the rain dancing scene to show how much Kojima loves working with his new actor buddy
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:51 AM on November 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

I've been advised that Kojima's latest Death Stranding game is a bit better at avoiding this.

I'm very very early in the game and so I don't have any data to offer one way or the other but I'm hoping this means he's starting to realize a bit that this kind of exploitation/sexualization/objectification is not acceptable and that it shouldn't be in games.

That being said, I won't hold my breath about it either. He might be better, but I suspect there's still going to be some terrible ass shit in this game because Kojima got to Kojima.
posted by Fizz at 11:58 AM on November 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

Well, "a bit better" is relative. An early dramatic villainous monologue is delivered at strong feeemale (ferengi.jpg) supporting character's (her name is Fragile, and she keeps repeating "I'm Fragile, but not that fragile!" and it's impossible to zinger that line any more than it mocks itself by existing) ass-taking-up-most-of-frame through thigh gap. So I'm pretty sure that whatever Kojima realizes is sort of akin to how he writes dialog: realization/dialog as filtered fifth-hand described to an alien.
posted by Drastic at 12:13 PM on November 27, 2019 [6 favorites]

Ugh Kojima why.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:16 PM on November 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

DS is better in its treatment of women than the linked scene, but that's an exceedingly low bar to clear, and there are still leery, creepy shots of Fragile. At least there's reverse gaze with the constant Sam shower scenes. Nice to see something of an improvement, I guess.

Kojima's dialogue is subpar as usual but I liked Bridget. She's a complicated character, which women don't often get to be in AAA games.
posted by the liquid oxygen at 12:18 PM on November 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

I am reminded a bit of the Hawkeye Initiative, which replaces every comic cheesecake drawing with Hawkeye in the same pose.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:40 PM on November 27, 2019 [8 favorites]

Wait, not the one from M*A*S*H?

Well I won't say I'm not disappointed.
posted by ODiV at 12:54 PM on November 27, 2019 [7 favorites]

Quiet is really the most disturbing, sexist thing Ive ever encountered in a videogame that I otherwise liked. Not just that she's naked, but also rape culture shit. It's so bad it kind of wraps around and becomes commentary on sexism. Also her character is interesting, outside the hideous sexism.

Love this model swap, only thing better would be to get Ocelot's clothes off. You know, so he can breathe through his skin.
posted by Nelson at 1:26 PM on November 27, 2019 [6 favorites]

What if every character could pose like Bayonetta?
posted by lucidium at 1:43 PM on November 27, 2019 [5 favorites]

This is why, no matter how compelling the story or fun the game, I have no interest in either Metal Gear (any of them) or Death Stranding. I never played the Arkham games and now no longer need to even consider them. There are plenty of good games out there that don't have this sort of crap in them.
posted by Hactar at 3:12 PM on November 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

Adam West could've pulled that off.
posted by ckape at 3:41 PM on November 27, 2019 [13 favorites]

Well, I sure feel ashamed of my words and deeds after watching that MGS5 model swap.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:06 AM on November 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

A sexy batman classic, courtesy of Shortpacked! by David Willis
posted by Groundhog Week at 7:48 AM on November 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

Well, Catwoman was always going to be a sassy minx, and making her a sensible modern woman whose clothes have actual pockets would change the character.

Having said that, a genderswapped Catwoman (Catguy? The Cat?) could work; he'd read as imperial-phase Prince with the queerness turned to 11 (though would canonically presumably be pansexual like the Torchwood guy).
posted by acb at 1:58 AM on November 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

Ahem.
posted by Grangousier at 4:33 AM on November 29, 2019 [2 favorites]

Or, indeed...
posted by Grangousier at 3:59 AM on December 1, 2019

These are great; great illustration of why this stuff is so skin-crawly when it's female characters doing it.

I see where you are coming from, but I had kind of the opposite reaction, feeling it as liberating to see Batman move in this way. The original Batman certainly was camp, but have we ever had a sassy Batman?
posted by Blasdelb at 4:52 AM on December 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

You might find this interesting reading, Blasdelb (and others): Tom Holland’s ‘Umbrella’, Womanhood and Me by Kalhari Jayaweera.
posted by ODiV at 8:52 AM on December 2, 2019 [1 favorite]