Batman hits 700! Your thoughts, please

I grew up reading mostly the Team books, so my experience with Batman was limited to the JLA (satellite era) and to The Brave & the Bold. I was often annoyed by the fact that no matter how the JLA roster rotated from issue to issue (an aspect that I liked), every issue had to have Bats and Supes in it. I began to resent them both for being “too important to leave out,” and I still think both characters are over-used, even though I understand their importance for sales. (I don’t even like to think about how Bruce is part of some mystical trinity that holds the universe together–oy!)

But their omnipresence might not have annoyed me so much if they weren’t so far above the rest of the team, and to this day, I do not like the Batman who is near-nigh infallible (and who is over-prepared for every possible scenario). Perhaps if Bruce and Clark had been a little less superior and more in need of the rest of the team every issue, I’d have appreciated them more. There’s no reason why Bruce, Ralph, J’onn and maybe Dinah could not have been equal players in a JLA detective squad (think of how well-balanced the LSH Espionage was).

Also, as much as I understand the grief/guilt-obsessed nature of Bruce’s psyche, it does get tiring after awhile.

Honestly, I hope he doesn’t return as Batman. I hope he finds a new role in the DCU. And I hope his time-travels help him become a little more light-hearted and–well–human.

What’s the key to his success? Matthew has said that the main reason is that he is not one single character, but has been adapted and molded to fit each era in a different way. I agree with that. Sort of.

I think that the character will always be tethered to Kane and Finger’s dark, pulpy origins. No matter how far he’s stretched, he will always snap back.

The cynical side of me says he’s succeeded because of the omnipresence brainypirate mentioned. If you put one of your characters in almost every book you publish, and you own a good portion of market share, that character will succeed almost through inertia.

But I also think he succeeds because he straddles the hard core “grim n’ gritty” and the bright, shiny hero very well. As brooding and dark as he’s made out to be, he has usually also been written as a very noble, very heroic figure (with a few exceptions). As such, he’s like Robert Pattinson’s character in Twilight: safe, but with a feeling of danger.

Its the paradox of Batman that many complain about, but I believe its the essence of why Batman is often considered the greatest hero of them all. The paradox is best shown in the following statements:

“Batman is awesome because he’s like just this guy, you know…No special powers etc etc.”

and

“Batman is awesome because he’s a genius and a polymath and he will know exactly what to do no matter what. He’s like the most dangerous single entity in all of the DC universe.”

So how can he be both of those. The answer lies in time, progression and how we humans kinda dig ourselves. Fact is few people like Batman simply because a single bullet could take him out. Sure this is where the fascination with him as a character starts (A man among Supermen). But it doesn’t end there. The Punisher doesn’t have any powers, Green Arrow doesn’t have any powers. And while Batman came before those guys he still has something else they don’t have. Something heroes like Doc Savage and Ulysses who pre-date him just a bit don’t even have.

Like I said its also about time, time and progression.

Its because Batman encompasses evolution and apotheosis more than any other fictional character. He’s a man who strives to make himself better much like Doc Savage…But then Batman just kept going. Kept going from animal-clad detective until he was the mirror of a frkn Sun God…Does it get more tethered to the collective unconscious than that? Batman didn’t stop once they pumped the super soldier serum into him, he didn’t stop when he was the best in any single field like Tony Stark or Lady Shiva. Batman was written as someone who kept going and now is in a sense the most ridiculously over powered superhero, while still having the claim to just being a homo-sapien.

But when people reach this conclusion they often find it ridiculous, stupid and then settle for their own Batman…gritty detective or apex of humanity. But I like Batman not as just one of many portrayals but because he through comic history has gone from -just- a gritty detective to the apex of goddamn life itself. And I think that has to be IT that makes him so well liked. He broke the glass-ceiling that says you have to be inhuman to be the most awesome thing ever. Batman is not a man surrounded by gods. Or just another god among gods…He’s a man who’s now besides gods, and he is STILL going. And man is kind of mobile force ourselves while gods are a kinda fixed idea, we haven’t really figured out ourselves yet. And Batman is still the character that strives the most to be more and to do more, because hey that’s what we do. Batman is also completely bazinga which can be a fun read.

Oh and another thing. Often the self-made man in comics becomes a villain whose ambition turns into a bad thing. Interestingly enough though the villains first become a problem when their ability ends but their ego or ambition does not. In a sense Batman as a character in a book is kinda like a supervillain with the twist that he didn’t get to reach his limit. I mean Lex Luthor and Victor Von Doom are basically “Batmen” who at one point found a problem they couldn’t solve or a man they couldn’t surpass and instead of bettering themselves decided to destroy him/it. “I don’t have to be taller everyone else just has to be short mwahahaha”… And so it goes.

Batman is for once an example of man being the most awesome thing in the book. Not just a hero who’s bound by rules and powers set by other creatures. He isn’t even the kind of character that beats a god. He’s the guy that reached god-hood didn’t pick the fight and may now become even more.

Oh and almost all that I have said about Batman can also be applied to Reed Richards. But for some reason Batman gets cooler writers and ends up being portrayed better. I think its because Batman has more appeal because of the punching and the violence. Reed doesn’t get to punch many people. Punching is also something important to all of this.

^Whoa, wall-o-text attack!

Batman #700 will be awesome. It has Morrison/Quitely, the greatest creative team ever.