Pope still wasn't drawing THE Batman. He's drawing A Batman. For a series about a dark future blah blah blah.

This is not THE Batman either, even if it IS more palatable to most folks:

Here is a literal interpretation of Pope's art:

There's nothing inherently wrong with this. He drew an Elseworlds story, basically. He wasn't going to go near the monthly Batman title (well, not if he was smart). But Batman seems the icon to accept variation and still survive unimpeded.

The thing I get from Pope here and in other shots is that his Batman is more animal-like, less Man and more something else.

The other aspect of all this is the seams and the laces and the wrinkles and crap is a style in vogue right now. It's all over comics and will remain all over comics. Cap with pouches? You got it. Does it offend me? Not really. No more than the dated hip populist dialogue that is going to date comics worse than anything produced by Marvel in the '70s.

I like the theory behind the art, even if some of the art doesn't strike me. There's a lot of manga crap in there I could care less about. But I like the "animal" Batman approach.

Myself, Dick Sprang's Batman is THE BATMAN. There's many artists who do a great classic Batman, Newton and JB and Barreto and Colan and Mazzuchelli among them. And Frank Miller's Batman, in DKR, because an old Batman is a great Batman.

This is a blip on the radar in any appreciation of Batman, but if Pope's "classic" Batman is the same sort of grimy animal, then it falls into the weird category along with Kelley Jones. I can enjoy it for what it is while admitting no Batman, or human, ever looked like that.