Why You Couldn't Be Batman, Part Four: Crime Alley

Part One: Introduction can be viewed here.
Part Two: Those Wonderful Toys can be viewed here.
Part Three: Of Fists and Feet can be viewed here.

A really big thing happened within the last couple of weeks. DC rebooted its entire universe and released fifty-two brand new issue ones, fifty-two ongoing series restarted from scratch. Of course, "from scratch" isn't exactly accurate. All of the Superman books, as well as Wonder Woman and Aquaman, it seems, have been completely re-imagined, but some of the other, more successful books, have been rebooted in a different way. The series Batman and Robin begins after the events of Grant Morrison's ever-so-long run on the series. This reboot is more subtle, but in ways it is more profound. Throughout the narrative of Batman and Robin #1, Bruce Wayne / Batman describes to his son Damian that he will no longer return to crime alley in order to mourn, that the entire community is about to be transformed. Batman will no longer dwell on the past or the present, on the sadness and the anger and the need for vengeance. Instead, he will focus on hope, on life. In other words, he will emerge from the darkness.

Of course, if you're not a huge Batman fan, this takes a little bit of context to understand. The reason Batman has been known as the Dark Knight is that something horrible happened in his past. The reason he was offered a Sinestro Corps ring for his ability to strike fear was because he experienced a moment of great fear when he was only a child, a moment that is only now potentially ending. When Bruce Wayne was young, his parents took him to see "The Mask of Zorro" at a theater in the district that was once called Park Row. As Bruce and his parents exited the theater, a petty thief with a gun, a man named Joe Chill, attempted to rob the wealthy family. When his father Thomas showed courage and stood up to the thug, both parents were shot, leaving orphaned Bruce Wayne to cry over their dead bodies. As a result of this incident, Park Row was transformed into Crime Alley. As for the boy Bruce Wayne, he was transformed into something else entirely.

The DC reboot also brought us Nightwing #1, which features Dick Grayson as Nightwing, protecting the streets of Gotham after the destruction of Bludhaven and the completion of his time as Batman due to Bruce Wayne's "death." In this issue, we are given an interesting perspective into what happened to Bruce Wayne after the death of his parents. Dick Grayson reflects on his time as Batman by saying how different it was to maintain Bruce's two personae. What he suggests is that both Batman and the public image of Bruce Wayne are masks that Bruce Wayne wears, and that both require work to stay up. After Bruce's parents were shot down in front of him, it seems like his identity disappeared. An angry boy, amorphous and ever changing, left Gotham City in order to learn how best to protect her. He returned with a mask, a banner for justice but also a dark avenger, and this Batman that he created became wed to Gotham, in sickness and in health until death do them part. But also, in order to protect the Batman and free him to do the most good for the sake of his bride, Bruce Wayne put on the mask of the playboy millionaire. He became exactly what everyone always expected a spoiled millionaire to become. Though he had found his destiny, it seems like any real identity was completely sublimated. He had no person any more. All he had was a spouse and a duty.

This pushes us directly into the question that ought to be asked, "Is Batman crazy?" If crazy is defined by acting against the status quo of society, Batman is certainly crazy. If crazy is defined as taking risks in order to accomplish something that, for all intents and purposes, can never be completely accomplished, then yes, Batman is crazy. If crazy is defined as a mental aberration, then we have an interesting discussion. Batman certainly could be crazy. All of the ingredients are in the right place in order to cause a mental instability. He witnessed the brutal murder of his parents. He left the rules and confines of society and trusted only the voices and images inside of his head (including a terrifying bat that has haunted him since childhood). He continues to risk his life on a nightly basis. He wears a costume and lives a life entirely composed of pretending. His second sidekick, Jason Todd, was murdered by The Joker. And on that note, Batman is surrounded by the criminally insane. He is not just kicking and punching them daily and bringing them back to Arkham Asylum. He engages in games with them, conversations. He is pushed by them. And in the end, there is a serious question of whether or not their insanity and criminality is merely an extension of his insanity. Would there have been a Joker if there had never been a Batman? Are they two sides of the same coin? (Yes, that was a blatant reference to Two-Face. Harvey Dent ought always to be thought of when it comes to Batman and insanity.)

In the end, perhaps we need only read Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, where it is suggested that insanity is just one bad day away. The Joker may not know who Batman is or what created him, but he does know that Batman had a bad day once.

Even if we decide that Batman is certainly insane, the discussion does not end there. There is now the question of whether Bruce Wayne merely suffers from psychological issues or whether there is something more, some metaphysical / spiritual entity in Gotham that has chosen him, that has haunted him and even possessed him. There are many sources that refer to some evil bat entity existing in the thoughts and dreams of residents of Gotham. The Arkham family, famous for making the Arkham Asylum in order to treat the criminally insane, have a taint of insanity in the blood, and they speak of some ancient bat beast. It is entirely possible that Arkham Asylum itself houses this spirit and others in much the same way that the Overlook hotel in The Shining housed so many psychic impressions. Scarecrow, the fearmonger scientist, has also been haunted by the bat, and if what I mentioned above is true, such is also the case for every villain Batman has ever sent to Arkham.

In the end, however, it is hard to tell whether Batman is insane or merely dedicated. I believe that sanity and insanity are always in tension in the mind of Batman. Neither truly takes complete hold over his mind. Both are needed. Both are also detriments. I want to believe that the good in Batman will win, and I believe that it has time and again, but I also do not believe that the issue will ever be settled.

If you still want to be Batman, then you had better be ready to have your loved ones taken from you and to be haunted, either by memories or by real ghosts, for the entirety of your life. Perhaps you may not be affected for your entire life. After all, it seems that the new 52's Batman has turned over a new leaf, but at the same time he is already completely broken. It is unlikely that he can gain any personal advantage from changing his life at this point. Of course, I believe that this change is not for the sake of Bruce Wayne. It is for the sake of trying to give Damian Wayne a better life than Bruce Wayne enjoyed. Damian was an orphan too, once, after Bruce Wayne was "killed." But that's the cool thing about comic books. Bruce Wayne / Batman is back, and he has a second chance at life. He is a broken man trying to unbreak the world. It's foolish and admirable, and it is ultimately doomed. And that is who you'll have to be if you're going to be Batman.

In the end, the reason that you can't be Batman is because you want to be Batman. In order to be Batman you have to have tragedy thrust upon you, against your will. You have to exist in a state of mental disrepair that pushes you into believing that you either become Batman or you become The Joker. You are the lesser of two evils, and you exist for a purpose. You do not get to have a life, but you are necessary for the sake of the lives of others. If these things happen to you, I feel sorry for you. It looks like you can be Batman. May God have mercy on your soul.

Why You Couldn't Be Batman, Part Three: Of Fists and Feet

Part One: Introduction can be viewed here.
Part Two: Those Wonderful Toys can be viewed here.

Bruce Wayne has seemingly endless bankroll and a first-rate mind, but so does Bill Gates. Is Bill Gates Batman? He most certainly is not. Like Bruce Wayne, Gates gives massive amounts of money to charities that attempt to right the structural wrongs of society - poverty, hunger, etc. Unlike Bruce Wayne, Gates is not a well-oiled machine, a human weapon who places his body, his everything, between the victim and the victimizer. I praise a man like Bill Gates, both because he has given away such a substantial portion of his wealth to people in need and because he does so while being non-fictional, but he's no Batman.

In a way, Batman is understood as police officer par excellence. He is the best detective. He is a fantastic fighter who does not need a gun and who does not kill perpetrators. He transcends law when law is not in the service of justice. Just as one might imagine that there must always be a police force, a group of individuals donning the uniforms of the dead or retired generation after generation in order to pledge solidarity against crime, so also there must always be a Batman. This is why an exhausted Batman had to push on in the "A Lonely Place of Dying" and "Knightfall" storylines, why Jean-Paul Valley / Azrael donned the cape and cowl when Bruce Wayne's back was broken and why Dick Grayson / Robin I / Nightwing became Batman after Bruce Wayne's death.

Whereas there is a police academy dedicated to training young people to replace the old guard, there is no Batman academy. (After writing this, however, I was alerted that because of the events of Batman Incorporated, there now appears to be a Batman academy.) If there were, Azrael would not have become a dangerous tyrant of a Batman. In training to become Batman, Bruce Wayne left his home as an angry young adult, traveling throughout the world in order to learn the best of martial arts, of illusion and of striking fear in ones opponents. This is one of the dominant themes in the 2005 film Batman Begins. The idea that I have gotten from the various manifestations of Batman, in comics, on TV, in movies, is that if there is a better fighter than Bruce Wayne then Wayne has either trained with this person or engaged in mortal combat with this person. Batman is a member of the Justice League, a founding member, and he is generally understood as someone you don't want to mess with. Were he simply a brain this would not be so. Even the most powerful heroes must have some resonating fear that Batman can best them physically, and this speaks well of the Batman's physical prowess.

There was an individual a few years back who had made a great deal of money selling rap records. I wish I could remember his name! But this individual realized that he was in a situation where he could become like Batman. As this story was told to me, I crossed my fingers that the next words would describe the rapper's journey to become an accomplished and self-controlled fighter. Instead, I heard the story of how this rapper had bought a Batmobile and Batman outfit.

I think that Batman's endless fight against crime and the sacrifice of his body is especially important when we think of Batman's mere humanity, of his mortality. Bruce Wayne can be injured by a knife or bullet just like any of us. He is no man of steel. And yet, unlike most of us, Bruce Wayne continues to best the most heavily armed enemies in spite of the obvious and real threat to his life. If you cannot do this, then you are not Batman.

Though I've largely made my point regarding Batman's martial arts ability and bodily sacrifice, I would like to discuss, for a moment, Batman and his relationship to violence. The most important truth about Batman is that he abhors violence. If he believed that violence could be stopped without resorting to further violence then he would no longer fight with fists and feet. Born in blood, Bruce Wayne wants nothing but to serve justice by ending corruption and bloodshed. It should be clear in any Batman story that Batman only wishes to disarm and capture adversaries, that killing is never a viable option. And yet that's not always the case. In the original Tim Burton Batman films, Batman straight up kills villains. There is no way many of these thugs could survive what Batman does to them. The video game Batman: Arkham Aslum is incredibly violent, and even beyond the idea of blowing up villains with concrete walls, the placement and force of Batman's punches and kicks could easily paralyze or kill villains.

I wanted to bring this up in order to caution first against striving to be a Batman who kills, but also to question whether training to become a vigilante who could die any day is anything you should aspire to. This series could be critiqued as holding Batman up as an example we ought to follow. Quite frankly, I don't know that people should learn how to meet violence with violence. In fact, I don't know that people should ever strive for Bruce Wayne's wealth. Even his level of intelligence is something I wouldn't be quick to recommend. It's a good way to feel alone. All the time. I do think that the Batman stories help individuals in moral development, but similar to religion, I caution against a monkey-see, monkey-do mentality.

Of the next post on why you couldn't be Batman, all I can say is that there will be blood. As you can probably guess, we will be dealing with Batman's tragic origin and its consequences.

Part Four: Crime Alley can be viewed here.

Why You Couldn't Be Batman, Part Two: Those Wonderful Toys

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

-The Joker, Batman (1989)

Part One: Introduction can be viewed here.

When one thinks of Batman one is likely to think of the technology that Batman utilizes in fighting crime. First to come to my mind are Batman's utility belt with its myriad compartments and, of course, the Batmobile. Before many of us had personal computers Batman: The Animated Series showed Bruce Wayne sitting in front of a super-computer in the Batcave. In the film Batman Begins we see that the costume itself, the cape and the cowl, are the height of technology. In the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, Arkham Island opens up for exploration as you acquire more tools, eight in total: Batarang, Explosive Gel, Batclaw, Cryptographic Sequencer, Line Launcher, Multi-Batarang, Remote Control Batarang, and Sonic Batarang. DC Universe Online holds batman as an archetype or mentor for heroes. His "power" type is listed as "gadgets."

Batman certainly could not have all of these gadgets without the Wayne fortune and Waynetech, but he also could not have them without a degree of brilliance. It could be argued that Bruce Wayne simply says to Lucius Fox, "I want you to manufacture nasal inserts that can filter toxins," and Fox does all of the work, but Bruce Wayne is usually depicted as being much more active not only in designing his technology but in concealing its intended application in order to protect his identity. Bruce Wayne's process of developing technology involves foreseeing possible battle disadvantages, determining methods of avoiding or combating these disadvantages, designing technology that can carry out these methods, brainstorming other applications of the technology in order to get Waynetech to produce the technology without revealing Batman's secret identity, and finally using the technology in a variety of situations and determining its practical efficacy. Batman's "gadgets" speak much more to the brain of the Bat than to the budget. Were the money absent, Batman would surely improvise gadgets from junk, MacGyver style.

Though Batman is known for his gadgets, he is first and foremost a detective. In Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, Batman presents young, orphaned Dick Grayson, the first Robin, with the choice of being either a detective or an avenger, the reader understanding from the beginning that becoming an avenger is clearly the wrong choice. And how can anyone forget that Batman's first appearance happened in Detective Comics #27. When the film Sherlock Holmes came out in 2009, many agreed that Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes was the best portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective. I looked at Downey Jr.'s Holmes and could see in this character Bob Kane's Batman. Bruce Wayne/Batman is probably the most highly respected detective not only of DC comics, but of comics in general. (What detective does Marvel have that could compete with the Batman?)

In the midst of the superhero discussion there have emerged groups of individuals who believe that Bruce Wayne/Batman is so smart that he does have a super power: super-intelligence. I believe it has been determined that Lex Luthor is the smartest non-powered human being in the DC Universe, but Bruce Wayne isn't very far behind. As a matter of fact, Batman's intellect has defeated Superman's brawn on at least two occasions that come to mind, in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and in Jeph Loeb's Hush. Though interesting, I think super-intelligence robs Batman of much of his significance. Like the New Mutants proved in the 1980s with the inclusion of Doug Ramsey, an extra-ordinary but completely human member on an all mutant team, Batman's importance in the DC Universe proves that human beings can be as important as anyone with supernatural powers, that superheroism is not exclusive to superhumanity.

Batman is incredibly intelligent as witnessed by the ingenuity needed to create and use all of those gadgets, but more importantly he is a fantastic detective, possibly the best. If you have the money, can you be Batman? No. You have to be smarter than anyone you know. Perhaps smarter than you can imagine.

And here's the twist that I hope will give you the desire to patiently wait until I write Part Three: You can be as wealthy as Batman and you can be as smart as Batman, but it is still not enough.

Part Three: Of Fists and Feet can be viewed here.
Part Four: Crime Alley can be viewed here.

Why You Couldn't Be Batman, Part One: Introduction

 
For years I've encountered people who said, "I could be Batman with that kind of money," and for years I've just ignored them, until one day I just couldn't take it anymore, shouting, "No! No, you couldn't be Batman. I don't care what you learned in Project Charlie. I know you're smart and successful and special, but you can't be Batman!"

The "I could be Batman" trend usually intends to reflect the fact that, unlike other DC superheroes like Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, Batman is fully human. He has no super powers and yet he does as much good as any of the more powerful heroes. An unfortunate side-effect of this trend is that it reduces Batman's power to the power of money. As one of the most wealthy citizens of Gotham, Bruce Wayne/Batman simply buys his way out of trouble. This is simply not the case.

Because of the magnitude of wealth in my home town, I've had something of a chip on my shoulder for some time towards people with money, and yet Batman, one of the wealthiest fictional characters in recent literary history, is beyond my reproach. There is so much more to Bruce Wayne/Batman than his riches that I consider his money insignificant. For reasons we will discuss later, money is not important to this hero. It it is not already clear why it is ridiculous that you could be Batman, consider the amount of wealthy citizens that have arisen in the world and compare this to the complete and utter lack of Bat-people in our world.

In the next few weeks I intend to publish a series of essays explaining the precise reasons why you can't be Batman. Stay tuned. It should be fun and interesting.

Part Two: Those Wonderful Toys can be viewed here.
Part Three: Of Fists and Feet can be viewed here.
Part Four: Crime Alley can be viewed here.