Illogical comic book logic

[TiberiusMaximus]

"I got better..."

"I've had worse!"
"You liar!"

You're right, he would. But if he did that he wouldn't get the sadistic childish pleasure of beating up thugs with his bare hands that he's craved since he was a little boy and enjoys dishing out as much as he can. He isn't all that altruistic when you think about it.

"I'm the god**** Batman!"

He's actually just as insane as the criminals he fights, in my opinion. His insanity just tends towards awesomeness, not vile, creepy, evilness. But sometimes it makes him vile, creepy, and evil. He has sociopathic tendencies.

 

[cultcross]

He's actually just as insane as the criminals he fights, in my opinion. His insanity just tends towards awesomeness, not vile, creepy, evilness. But sometimes it makes him vile, creepy, and evil. He has sociopathic tendencies.

This is something I've always read into the character. They touched on it briefly in Batman Begins in the scene where Rachel says 'the man I loved... never came back at all'. The Batman persona is the more powerful and dominant one in many ways, and Bruce Wayne is the real mask. Bruce is as mad as any of his villains, he just is mad in a different way which leads to a different outcome.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Barbara will never walk again because The Holy Alan Moore wrote the story that crippled her and fanboys would lose their shit if DC dared undo His Works. Even though Moore never really thought she would stay crippled forever.

Actually, there have been numerous interviews with DC execs about this - Barbara is unlikely to walk again because she represents a disabled superhero, which is considered a highly politically correct casting coup, so to speak.

But the whole wheelchair thing was already Dr. Niles Caulder's schtick.

 

[Christopher]

But Caulder and the Doom Patrol are pretty obscure compared to the Batman Family. (I only recognize the reference because Batman: The Brave and the Bold did a Doom Patrol episode recently.)

 

[RJDiogenes]

He's actually just as insane as the criminals he fights, in my opinion. His insanity just tends towards awesomeness, not vile, creepy, evilness. But sometimes it makes him vile, creepy, and evil. He has sociopathic tendencies.

This is something I've always read into the character. They touched on it briefly in Batman Begins in the scene where Rachel says 'the man I loved... never came back at all'. The Batman persona is the more powerful and dominant one in many ways, and Bruce Wayne is the real mask. Bruce is as mad as any of his villains, he just is mad in a different way which leads to a different outcome.

This is what I've always seen as one of the differences between Superman and Batman; Superman is Clark Kent pretending to be Superman, and Batman is Batman pretending to be Bruce Wayne.

 

[JoeZhang]

Wouldn't be a particular fun comic to read.

BATMAN, INC. #2
Written by GRANT MORRISON
Art and cover by YANICK PAQUETTE& MICHAEL LACOMBE
1:25 Variant cover by ANDY KUBERT

The dynamic new era of Batman continues! Bruce Wayne considers the possible impact of rent control on social housing. Meanwhile, Dick Grayson attends a charity function intended to highlight the issues of baby milk usage in the third world.

I love the fact there would be variant covers.

The second print would have two more - One would be Bruce Wayne discussing the finer details of a powerpoint presentation he is going to give and the second would feature Dick Grayson explaining to a journalist about social activism. The first would be drawn by Simon Bisley and the second by Rob Liefeld.

 

[Admiral_Young]

We already know that Bruce through the Wayne Foundation has already funded numerous social and economic programs. His fingerprints are all over Gotham City for his philanthropist (did I spell that right?) efforts but I do understand where you're coming from Chris. That would make for an interesting story pitch.

 

[paudemge]

Another comic book logic, "in general, our hero will not face a villain that is out of his league.", above or below.

You don't see batman show up to stop a villain and get tagged by a shot that would stun superman, which of course would turn Batman into mush. Or you don't see Superman show and hit a villain so hard that he turns him into a fine red mist.

 

[Christopher]

We already know that Bruce through the Wayne Foundation has already funded numerous social and economic programs. His fingerprints are all over Gotham City for his philanthropist (did I spell that right?) efforts but I do understand where you're coming from Chris. That would make for an interesting story pitch.

On the other hand, I can see where the incentive for being Batman comes from. Social programs and infrastructure investments like that are important for reducing crime rates in the long term, but that's statistics. There are still going to be individual people victimized by crimes, and so crime needs to be addressed on the particulate level as well as the holistic level. Being Batman is about trying to save individual people from having to suffer what young Bruce Wayne went through.

So one could say that Batman and the Wayne Foundation are a two-pronged crimefighting strategy, taking on both the individual crimes as they happen and the larger factors that lead to crime. Which seems reasonable to me, as long as the balance is maintained.

Sure, in theory, a better strategy for dealing with individual street-level crime would be to underwrite efforts to put more cops on the streets and provide them with better equipment and resources. But one thing that's generally been part of the modern portrayal of Batman (at least in the comics and the Nolan films) is that the Gotham police were extremely corrupt when Bruce was beginning his crimefighting career -- that they couldn't be the solution (and indeed were part of the problem), so someone else had to be.

So no, Batman isn't insane, and it's missing the whole point of the character to assume he is. His motivation, while somewhat obsessive, is a reasonable and beneficial one: he wants to spare innocent people from pain. He operates in a context where vigilantism is a reasoned solution to the problem of individual suffering, since no other solutions are feasible. And, as I heard someone point out when this came up at New York Comic-Con recently (sorry, I forget who it was), Bruce Wayne lives in a universe where costumed superheroes are an established reality, something that's proven viable and caught on as a trend. In our reality, a guy dressing up in tights and a bat cowl and going out to fight crime would probably be crazy, but in the DC Universe, costumed crimefighting is a more normative practice, an established part of the culture.

In short, it's not Bruce Wayne that's crazy and eccentric, it's the environment he inhabits. His behavior is a reasoned, calculated response to that environment.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

This is what I've always seen as one of the differences between Superman and Batman; Superman is Clark Kent pretending to be Superman, and Batman is Batman pretending to be Bruce Wayne.

Personally, I always thought Bruce Wayne is Bruce Wayne pretending to be 1) a shallow playboy cad and 2) a psychotic costumed vigilante. His personality is threefold, not twofold. Incidentally, this is also the way Christian Bale described his performance of the character - one of the reasons his performance is wildly superior to anyone else's. The best Batman stories tend to make this distinction clear as well, whereas ones that play on the simplistic "Batman is the real personality" usually seemed to me to fall pretty flat, except perhaps Arkham Asylum which takes the "Batman is as crazy as those he fights" to an extreme, but effective, conclusion.

 

[Christopher]

Well, it's similar to the question of whether Clark or Superman is the real personality. These days, the general approach is that he's "really" Clark Kent and Superman is a persona he adopts -- but at the same time, there are two Clark Kents, the real one he shows to his parents, Lois, and those in his inner circle of trust, and the public persona he wears as a disguise.

So you can say something similar about Batman/Bruce. Saying that "Batman is the real personality" is really shorthand for saying that the dedicated, driven crimefighter is his true self rather than the playboy dilettante -- that he's truer to himself when he's operating as Batman than he is when he's putting on his Bruce Wayne persona. But he does put on a persona as Batman as well; he uses the costume and the image and the intimidation as a means to an end.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

So no, Batman isn't insane, and it's missing the whole point of the character to assume he is. His motivation, while somewhat obsessive, is a reasonable and beneficial one: he wants to spare innocent people from pain. He operates in a context where vigilantism is a reasoned solution to the problem of individual suffering, since no other solutions are feasible. And, as I heard someone point out when this came up at New York Comic-Con recently (sorry, I forget who it was), Bruce Wayne lives in a universe where costumed superheroes are an established reality, something that's proven viable and caught on as a trend. In our reality, a guy dressing up in tights and a bat cowl and going out to fight crime would probably be crazy, but in the DC Universe, costumed crimefighting is a more normative practice, an established part of the culture.

In short, it's not Bruce Wayne that's crazy and eccentric, it's the environment he inhabits. His behavior is a reasoned, calculated response to that environment.

You have an excellent point. However, when I said he was insane, I didn't mean it quite as simply as it was worded. A person can be 'reasonable and calculating' and be insane. I never said he didn't have a good reason for being Batman, I just said he was crazy. I still think he is, but in a different way than the villains - most of the time. It's not the vigilantism that I think is insane, you're right, it does make sense in that universe. But insane does not mean irrational, nor does it mean evil. I'm talking about his personality, his darkness and his 'demons'. I suppose 'unstable' or 'severely screwed up' would be a better way of describing him than simply insane. He's still one of the good guys.

Batman and Bruce Wayne are not separate personalities. But the 'billionaire playboy' image he presents is as much of a costume as the Dark Knight is. 'Batman' is closer to the true personality, but it's not the only part of that true personality.

 

[coolghoul]

I wonder if comic book fans in the '60s thought about what Bruce' true personality is.

I think Bruce Wayne, the Batman and the billionaire playboy get interpreted based on how people liked it. eg. each era has had different "versions" of it - they are (all of them) right (in the sense that they are all canon and legit) and also wrong (no Batman truly has embodied all aspects of the character that he has been) - it truly depends on what Batman stories the reader likes and what affect their minds strongly. Which brings me really to Neil Gaiman's "Whatever happened to the Dark Crusader" (takes place right after RIP) . It really engaged me - it's a good project idea - all the different 'Batman's and why should their always be a Batman... Doesn't matter which one it ends up being - but There must always be a Batman....

 

[Christopher]

But insane does not mean irrational, nor does it mean evil. I'm talking about his personality, his darkness and his 'demons'. I suppose 'unstable' or 'severely screwed up' would be a better way of describing him than simply insane. He's still one of the good guys.

Batman is psychologically troubled and obsessive, yes, but "insane" is not the correct word to use for that. Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary defines insanity as:

1 : a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as paranoid schizophrenia)
2 : unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility

And their Dictionary of Law defines it thusly:

unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility: as a : a disease, defect, or condition of the mind that renders one unable to understand the nature of a criminal act or the fact that it is wrong or to conform one's conduct to the requirements of the law being violated b : inability to understand and participate in legal proceedings brought against one : INCOMPETENCE c : inability to understand the nature and purpose of a punishment (as the death penalty) to which one has been sentenced d : inability to understand the nature and consequences of one's acts (as making a will) or of events, matters, or proceedings in which one is involved

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insanity

Batman does not meet the legal or medical definition for insanity. His mind is not deranged or disordered; on the contrary, it's one of the most ordered minds on the planet. He is not schizophrenic or delusional; he's very aware of the reality around him and does not imagine things that aren't there. He is not paranoid; while he is hyper-aware of threats, they are all legitimate threats rather than imagined ones. He is competent and functional. He absolutely understands the nature of a criminal act. He absolutely understands the difference between right and wrong and the nature and purpose of punishment. And while it might be said that his grasp of the consequences of his actions -- particularly toward his young sidekicks -- is questionable, irresponsibility alone is not insanity.

So no. Batman is absolutely not insane by any legitimate definition. He does show signs of behavioral and personality disorders. He could be described as obsessive-compulsive. He has anger issues and difficulty coping with grief. But none of that can correctly be called insanity.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Everybody presents multiple personae to the world depending on their surroundings. Naturally we see a different Clark Kent with his family than we do at the office, just as we see a different Superman with the Justice League than we do with Luthor. But in the main, the characters of Superman and Batman present an extreme dichotomy-- the civilian versus the superhero. As I see it, in Superman's case the civilian is the true identity, while in Batman's case the vigilante is the true identity.

 

[Christopher]

I think both takes on Superman -- that he's really a Kryptonian near-god for whom Clark Kent is a constructed facade and that he's really a Kansas farmboy for whom Superman is protective camouflage -- have been explored in interesting ways. Elliott S! Maggin's Superman novels were based on the pre-Crisis approach that Superman was the real guy, and it was fascinating the way Maggin explained Clark as his "hobby," this imaginary person that he put constant, loving attention into creating and portraying and making real -- almost like Andy Kaufman burying himself in a character. Sure, the "Clark is the real guy" approach is more relatable, and in a lot of ways more credible (since he did grow up as Clark Kent of Smallville, after all), but there's merit in both.

But I think Batman has almost always been portrayed as more the "real" person than Bruce Wayne, if only because the older comics kept him in costume almost all the time. I'm trying to think of a version that showed Bruce more as the real guy with Batman as just a facade he created, and the one thing that comes to mind is the Nolan version. That's a version where both Billionaire Brucie and Batman are pieces of performance art created by the real Bruce Wayne to serve his ends, and where he isn't comfortable being Batman full-time but dreams of creating a world where Batman is unnecessary and he can retire and be himself again.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Again...I thought Charles has been walking around in the comics lately? I like the idea of it being some kind of psychic trauma that is keeping him from walking.

Charles regained his ability to walk but lost his powers after House of M. He said that it Wanda's way of showing him what it was like to truely be crippled or something like that. He regained his powers after coming into contact with the M'Kraan crystal.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I always look at Superman as having three different personas. The human Clark Kent who was raised by his parents with strong morale and ethical values and who learned what it is to be human and what they care about during his teenage years, the adult version of this is the construct he has made and much prefers. The alien Kal-El who is the last son of Krypton and has learned to embrace his alien heritage and legacy, and finally Superman, the Man of Steel the public persona of both of these concepts put together. The man and alien living in harmony to protect his adoptive world.

Batman on the other hand...is even more complex than that. Batman has been portrayed and written as the dominant personality with Bruce as the mask. This is I believe mainly due to the trauma caused Bruce's psyche when he lost his parents. Everything was stripped from him in that one moment. Innocence, naivete, in effect a part of him was shut down for good and he adapted a new persona to deal with the trauma, the Bat. The night his parents were loss was the night Batman was truly born. There is a method to Bruce Wayne's madness and that is something that Grant Morrison has been attempting to explore and evolve in his Batman run despite if one has liked it or not. The fact that these two characters are such diverse characters are why they're so attractive to a writer and why I assume fans flock to them and will continue to do so. I hope my thoughts are somewhat clear...

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ This is exactly why I consider Batman the true person and Bruce Wayne the facade. He has been an obsessive vigilante since he was a child. Superman, though, had quite a different childhood. His greatest power is his incorruptibility, so the god-like persona is something he uses to protect and to serve, and then puts away.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Both of them would acknowledge that how they were raised is why they use so different methodology in their crime fighting. Clark had not only had a childhood, but a good one, with great parents who loved him. Bruce was robbed of this and while Alfred is supportive and encouraging he does not possess that parental quality that would have put Bruce down a different path perhaps. Alfred recognized that Bruce's way would be the only way and chose to encourage this as much as he could. It also didn't help the fact that Bruce was gone on his own for so long without any kind of parental guidance. He learned to grow up and take care of himself fast.