Why Batman Matters to Me

When we were kids, we all wanted to be Superman. It helped that my childhood featured seeing Christopher Reeve donning the iconic red and blue tights and flying around with Margot Kidder as “Can You Read My Mind?” was blaring from the big screen. It’s easy to fall for the strongest man alive who just happens to be able to fly while being faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive. Yet something happened on the way from childhood to puberty and Superman turned into something not as cool anymore and I found myself gravitating instead to that dark, brooding crimefighter from Gotham City known as Batman.

His origin story is just as familiar as Superman’s. Young Bruce Wayne sees his parents, Dr. Thomas and Martha Wayne, gunned down before his eyes. The boy swears revenge, and using the billions his parents left him, Bruce trains himself to become a physical marvel but also sharpens his mind to become an illusionist, an escape artist, but most of all, the world’s greatest detective. He chose a bat to become his avatar of vengeance when it crashes into the Wayne Manor study because, “criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.” Thus was the Batman born, a 1939 creation of Bob Kane who has gone from carrying a gun to having a sidekick, went from smiling comedian with quick wit to avenging angel who relishes life in the shadows.

My first exposure to Batman: Adam West and Burt Ward

I don’t remember my first exposure to the Caped Crusader but it was likely one of the reruns of the campy 1960s show featuring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. Everyone remembers it, the show with “Bam!” “Zowie!” and “Clang!” coming onscreen when the Bat or the Bird would land a punch, or the show with a Batman that climbed walls while obviously standing straight up, or simply as the show with Bat Shark Repellent and had the Dark Knight dancing the “bat-usi.” Those were dark days, no pun intended, for the Batman, at least for fans of Bob Kane’s original vision of the character.

There were a couple of times during my childhood that I saw Batman in cartoon form. The first might have been from the classic Superfriends cartoons that was a kid-friendly version of the more iconic Justice League of America. There, with Batmobile, Batjet, and Robin in tow, the Caped Crusader would team up with fellow superheroes Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and others to save the world from threats both earthbound and from space. This was probably the age that I first started reading comics in earnest, but for one reason or another, I wasn’t collecting any of the numerous Batman-related titles. Other Batman cartoons were from the 1960s and 1970s that showcased the wide range of villains that Batman faced. It’s been argued numerous times that Batman probably has the most deranged, psychotic, and murderous rogues gallery and it’s tough to find anyone who comes close. Those old toons featured such baddie favorites as The Penquin, The Riddler, Catwoman, and of course, everyone’s all-time favorite nutjob, The Joker.

By the time I reached college, I had to give up comics (too expensive, particularly when one is trying to save money to impress girls. Even after college, I wasn’t reading comics of any variety, that is until a friend shared with me a book that changed my life. That was Kingdom Come.

Batman leads his army to action in Kingdom Come

Writer Mark Waid and artist Alex Ross brought me to a world wherein my childhood heroes had gotten older and the next generation of superpowered beings was too violent and reckless in dealing with ordinary humans. And though Kingdom Come is mostly a story about Superman, it also made me look at Batman once more. It helped me realize that yes, to appreciate Superman, we really have to look at Batman more. For Batman is more than just the darkness in contrast to Superman’s light. Batman is the ordinary human who has pushed himself to be the equal, if not the better, of those not born of this world or aren’t using some alien artifact to alter reality as they see fit.

From a purely Batman-fan’s perspective, there have been so many great storylines over the nearly eight decades that Bruce Wayne has been in the cape and cowl that picking one favorite is almost impossible. I own all the essentials though: Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, A Death in the Family, Hush. Yet among all of these, one stands out for me… The Long Halloween.

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale give us a Batman who’s relatively new at the crimefighting game. Lacking the experience and arrogance that would come later, Batman works with the unlikely duo of Captain James Gordon (not yet the police commissioner) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (not yet the tragic character who would become Two-Face). The trio have to deal with the mafia-like Falcone crime family led by Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, but are also confronted by a new villain in Gotham City. Dubbed “Holiday” because he kills on a holiday every month, Batman, Gordon, and Dent are put through the wringer as they figure out the criminal’s identity. Along the way, we see some of Batman’s villainous rogues rendered in scary detail by Sale’s pencils.

Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent, and Batman. An
unlikely trio from The Long Halloween

The beauty of The Long Halloween is that every month, Batman deals with some new wrinkle just when we think he’s close to determining who Holiday is. It tests the friendship and uneasy partnership of this trio, making Dent’s inevitable downfall all the more tragic even if you’re expecting it from the first few pages of the story’s first issue. Loeb’s plot and story merge seamlessly with Sale’s dark and moody pencils as we go from month to month while also examining different aspects of Batman’s psyche. All of this wrapped neatly in a twelve month period with tragedy written all over it.

It’s been a long time since I finished college and I’m now collecting five Batman titles: Batman, Batman: The Dark Knight, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Batman Incorporated. In spite of his recent “death” and “return” in the comics, most people think Bruce Wayne has continued to be Batman from 1939 until today. And as much as I enjoyed Dick Grayson’s time in the cowl and cape, I was never delusional to think that Bruce was dead, buried, and never going to reclaim his mantle.

So even if I now collect one Superman book (Grant Morrison’s Action Comics), I enter my 37th year on this earth and still find myself enjoying things related to the Dark Knight more. Perhaps it’s because of the tragedies the character has endured from the time he saw his parents murdered. Maybe it’s as shallow as the many gadgets in his utility belt or the billions he has from inheriting the Wayne fortune. Or maybe it’s merely because I’m one of those guys who thinks “Damn, Batman wasn’t born on Krypton, wasn’t given a power ring, didn’t have an accident that gave him super speed, or wasn’t even born with a mutant ability, yet he still fights crime every night.” He's really just a man. That, I believe, is at the core of the character, and makes me paraphrase a sentence used a few times in The Long Halloween, “I believe in Batman.”


I'm submitting this baby for Fully Booked's Bloggers Challenge on Batman because the current artist for Batman: The Dark Knight, David Finch, is coming to town. For more on Mr. Fince, check out http://www.fullybookedonline.com/davidfinch