Bruce
Seriously
TOO SOON
batman
Batman: Gotham Adventures #26
Omg Bruce, pick up a baby carrier or make a sling out of Robin’s cape or something.
OK but this… THIS right here is motherfucking Batman. Not Captain Angry Nihilist screaming randian bollocks at Morally Ambiguous Superman in the rain, not some motherfucker who runs people over with the batmobile because he doesn’t give a fuck. THIS is Batman, this right here. A man who experienced soul-rending, awful loss in his life and decided to dedicate it to saving as many people as he possibly could from experiencing the same pain.
Batman would hold a baby as best he could, and graciously accept advice when someone told him he was doing it wrong. Batman would ask Alfred for advice on the baby bottle. Because it’s not about him, it’s about doing the best he can to help anyone who needs it.
idea: the joker, compelled even against his own interests to do whatever he thinks would be funniest. the joker may be a sadist with a really shitty sense of humor but even he knows a high-quality punchline when he sees one. his obsession with batman is rooted in batman’s unfailing ability to trick the joker into a better gag that gets him captured. the joker gets chased into a room with plenty of really great hiding places and escape routes, but also a slender pole in the middle of the room. he has to hide behind the fucking pole. he’s gotta. how can he not go for the hiding behind a pole gag. there’s three doors but there’s also a joker-shaped hole in the wall that will make it look like he broke through the wall. it’s a four-story drop into a bakery dumpster full of pies. the joker is obsessed with batman because deep in his heart he knows that batman is actually funnier than he is but instead he spends his time standing on rooftops in the rain being a stoic piece of shit. the joker is salieri, and batman is a mozart that decided to go into carpentry.
personally, i do not think this idea has to make the joker less menacing as a threat, because:
- comedy is hard. for a punchline to land the situation and the timing have to be just right. the pole is only the punchline to a series of elaborate escapes. the hole in the wall is only the punchline if the joke is desperation, if joker’s been running from batman for hours and days and he’s starting to flip about it.
- it has to be something the joker can’t use against anyone else, because good lord can things backfire spectacularly.
- everything only works once unless they can get a good running gag going.
- because they are punchlines they are inherently ridiculous and so when it works batman looks like a genius but when it fails he’s left looking and feeling like the Gotham’s Biggest Jackass. do you know how long it takes to cut a joker-shaped hole in a wall. that is not a last-minute project. that shit takes time. if joker doesn’t go for it then he just spent hours vandalizing on joker’s behalf for no reason and now he’ll have to spend hours hiding his shame because no one can ever know.
- the joker has a shitty sense of humor. i don’t mean unfunny, although i kind of do. i mean he is a shitty person. that’s why he’s a villain. the joke is that he hurt you. the joke is that you care. the joke is that it’s so easy to hurt you. the joke is that he doesn’t care. if you would just care less, you could be in on the joke; but you’ll never care as little about everything as the joker does. the fact that you think anything matters, that’s the joke. the fact that some things are important to you, that’s the joke. look at how seriously you’re taking the stupid thing he’s doing. that’s the joke. you’re the joke. everyone’s a joke except the joker, because he’s in on the joke. he is the pinnacle of the shittiest possible form of south park humor, and jesus christ does that make it hard to find something salvagably funny in the messes he makes.
- clowns are inherently menacing
I wonder if the people who believe that Bruce Wayne’s sole contribution to society is sulking on rooftops and beating up bad guys are aware that in the DCAU Bruce actually owns an apartment complex run by a friendly, kind woman that houses former inmates after they have completed their sentence at Arkham Asylum. Tenants at Wayne Gardens are also eligible for a program that helps them locate jobs, including positions at Wayne Enterprises.
Look, you’ll get no argument from me that at times Batman can be far, far more abrasive and rude than necessary, and there have been adaptions where writers depict him as a macho, hate-fueled machine motivated by his disgust towards the criminals he enjoys beating to the point of hospitalization (rather or not those depictions are accurate portrayals of the character or revenge fantasies on the writer’s part is the subject of another post entirely).
But to me, that’s not what Batman stands for. To me, Batman is a symbol of hope and survival and second chances, and Bruce Wayne’s charitable organizations and efforts towards improving Gotham City are an extension of that. Bruce doesn’t just retreat into the luxury of his manor during the daytime and turn a blind eye to societal problems in Gotham that create the very criminals he fights on a nightly basis–no, he works to improve those conditions so that desperate people don’t have to turn to crime in order to support themselves or their loved ones.
Bruce doesn’t want the front doors at Arkham Asylum to be a never-ending revolving door of the same individuals finishing their sentences only to return and start again because they fall back into old behaviors–no, he wants to provide those recently-released from Arkham with resources and treatment so they’re given the option to start new lives rather than being thrust back onto the streets with nowhere else to go but their former lives of crime.
It’s easy to get distracted by the more exciting aspects of the Batman universe–the costumes, the villains, the awesome Batmobiles–but it’s also important to realize that a lot of the work Bruce Wayne does to help improve Gotham doesn’t take place inside the Batcave.
This is why I love Batman stories that don’t just focus around punching the bad guys, but on how Batman actively works to make the world a better place and reform former criminals. (Hint: You don’t do that by solely putting all the bad guys in jail. It takes a bit more work than that and a lot less machismo.)
