Batman is the greatest superhero. Sure, there are some other contenders. Spiderman’s mixture of everyman foibles and
web slinging escapism absolutely put him in the running. Wolverine’s blue collar attitude also has his
promoters. And we might even throw a nod
to Superman because he started this whole crazy mess to begin with. But, for my money, Batman is still tops.
Batman has
reigned as the greatest superhero thanks to two important elements: 1) the
introduction of a “why” and 2) his malleability. Batman was the first superhero in the golden
age to explain why he decides to dress up and fight crime. Where other superheroes spent entire issues explaining
the origins of their powers, Batman didn’t have powers to begin with, so Bill
Finger and Bob Kane decided to give him a motivation. Michael Chabon explains the importance of the
question “Why” in his classic novel about young Jewish comic book writers, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &Clay:
“The
question is why.”
“The
question is why.”
“Why,”
Joe repeated.
“Why
is he doing it?”
“Doing
what?
“Dressing
up like a monkey or an ice cube or a can of fucking corn.”
“To
fight the crime, isn’t it?”
“Well,
yes, to fight crime. To fight evil. But that’s all any of these guys are
doing. That’s as far as they ever
go. They just…you know, it’s the right
thing to do, so they do it. How interesting
is that?”
“I
see.”
“Only
Batman, you know…see, yeah, that’s good.
That’s what makes Batman good, and not dull at all, even though he’s
just a guy who dresses up like a bat and beats people up.”
“What
is the reason for Batman? The why?”
“His
parents were killed, see? In cold
blood. Right in front of his eyes, when
he was a kid. By a robber.” (94-95)
Finger and Kane were the first people who realized that a
comic book character could have an interior life. Batman is the first psychologically
conflicted superhero.
But being
the first doesn’t also make you the best seventy years later. Employing a “why” has been put into practice
for plenty of superheroes since Batman, and has lead to Spiderman’s wonderful
mantra, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Batman is also the greatest superhero because
he is so malleable. So long as a handful
of necessary elements are put into place, an artist can make Batman his own in
a manner that is unheard of for other superheroes. There is no Batman; there are merely a bunch
of Batmen. Because Batman’s story may be
told and retold with variation again and again, he never becomes stale. And different versions, sometimes even when
they conflict in their retelling or ideological point of view, seem perfectly
legitimate. It doesn’t break the
mythology if the killer of the Waynes
escapes justice or if that killer, Joe Chill, is later caught by the
police. Both are acceptable retellings
that may transform, ever so slightly, the meaning of Batman’s origin, but,
ultimately, they don’t break the Bat.
So why am I
talking about Batman? Well, as many of
you know, there happens to be a new Batman movie coming out this summer. It’s a little, independent piece called The Dark Knight Rises. (It seems as if everything rises in movies
these days: machines, apes, Cobra).
Well, in the next few months I want to take a look at the two films that
lead up to the final film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. I remember enjoying Nolan’s work on Batman,
although I haven’t watched The Dark
Knight since it was in theaters several years ago. I’m also a fan of Nolan’s work in general, to
varying degrees. On the internet these
days Nolan is either hailed as an artistic God and the true inheritor of the
mantle of Stanley Kubrick (yes, there are people who think this), or he is decried
as an overrated hack. Well, for most of
us he is neither. He has made some great
films and some uneven films (although he has yet to make a terrible film). I also don’t believe that his version of
Batman is definitive. It is the creation
of a singular artist, but it is also nothing more than a single perspective
among many. In my views I will try to
look at how Nolan transforms the Batman mythos to reflect Western anxieties in
the decade following 9/11. But if my
interpretation isn’t up to your liking, then all I can ask is, “Why so serious?”
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