By: Ricardo A. Serrano Denis
Retelling old tales means, up to a point, updating myths. Making them make sense in the present. But it does not mean they stopped making sense in the first place. New generations deserve to know their heroes' origin stories. In them we find elements that bring us closer to the hero, fictional paths that coincide with real life, and personal parallels that speak to the similarities between us and the men and women whose feats we read about. Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, says, “the effect of the successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the world.” Following Campbell’s words, a hero’s birth can be argued as the beginning of life, provided we acknowledge that a hero’s origin is not necessarily expected to begin at the actual biological birth of the character. Instead it most often comes out of a traumatic event that obliterates what the character previously believed was the absolute definition of life. Trauma in the world of the comic book separates the normal from the spectacular. But it also establishes that the spectacular has a price. So, from the ashes of the previous life the hero is expected to rise like a phoenix, carrying the original trauma and converting it into the new origin, the thing that gives the hero’s life purpose.
Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman run seems to have a deep understanding of what it means to carry trauma as a symbol close to the hero’s chest. In Batman #29 Snyder brings the second part of the Zero Year storyline, Dark City, to a close. After Snyder retells the origin of the Joker and Gotham blacks out after the Riddler turns the city into an actual riddle, Batman must face the possibility his humanity can truly interfere with his success as a superhero. And a superhero he is, although readers often forget the man behind the mask is no more super than the people he has sworn to protect.
What is interesting with Batman #29 is that Batman is improvising. The road Snyder’s Dark Knight traverses is paved with mistakes. And those mistakes are never made by Bruce Wayne, the all too human alter ego of the Batman. Snyder goes lengths to show that the hero’s failures and mistakes belong entirely to the costume and not the man beneath it. As the Riddler plans to cripple Gotham and let an impending hurricane flood the city with no functioning security measures due to the blackout, Batman is seen catching up rather than meeting his opponent on an equal state of affairs.
Zero Year, DC Comic’s reinterpretation of Batman’s origin, is framed up to this point as a set of circumstances that force a young Bruce Wayne to choose between two identities. One supposes a very limited approach to crime fighting (meaning staying as Bruce Wayne), and the other entails becoming an eternal symbol that haunts Gotham into submission and forces it to embrace order (becoming Batman). Now, what will shape this new identity is how Batman/Bruce Wayne relates to Gotham City. DC’s current run keeps Batman’s official origin mostly intact. Martha and Thomas Wayne are murdered in Crime Alley after a mugging gone wrong leaves Bruce a rich orphan. Crime Alley is the “birth place” of the Batman, the place the new life begins and where its traumas make Bruce become a Bat. In this new life Gotham City is Batman’s new father, creating the hero it needed out of the violence the city itself enabled.
Snyder’s Gotham is a dangerous victim as opposed to being another criminal keeping its citizens under the influence of its vices. Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986) falls towards the latter. More directly resembling New York (Twin Towers included), Miller’s Gotham is an accomplice to crime. It reminds an old Bruce Wayne that it needs Batman’s supervision or it will relapse into chaos (which is what happens in the book). Miller’s Batman accepts his responsibility as a psychological necessity that feeds both him and the city. Gotham’s rain, Miller’s Batman says, “is a baptism.” And with it he is born again.
On the other hand, Snyder’s Batman becomes the city’s savior. He still cannot claim Gotham as his, a thing Miller’s Batman does, but saving it means it will be in his debt. Snyder’s Gotham delves into crime just enough to create the hero it needs and not the other way around. Saving the city, then, becomes a rite of passage that turns Batman into Gotham’s sole keeper. Accepting responsibility for it is one of the ways Snyder’s Batman will soon possess Gotham the same way Superman possesses Metropolis. When the Riddler succeeds at exploding Gotham’s retaining walls, for example, and the ocean’s water floods the city in the middle of a hurricane Batman lays the blame on himself. He let the bomb’s signal jammer get lost in a fight against another villain called Doctor Death. He was too late to solve the riddle. But most importantly, he failed to live up to the symbol, to the bat. Being Batman meant Gotham City would be safe. Failing keeps Batman further away from his connection to Gotham. While destroying the machinery that boosts the explosives’ signal Batman says, “I should’ve listened, Gordon! I should’ve taken the call! There’d be no death! There’d be none of this! It’s my fault Gordon! I saw it wrong! You hear me!”
In the frenzy of Gotham’s imminent destruction it is important that Batman accept the consequences of his initial failures. They are not final yet. For when he saves Gotham, and Gotham will be saved, his failures will become that which brings Batman and the City closer to each other, creating a sense of dependency that both defines and gives each a sense of belonging. In the end, Gotham will be Batman just as Batman will be Gotham. Gotham created the Batman so it could survive. Batman, when he earns the city, will reshape it in his image so that his new reality, the beginning of the new life, can find everlasting purpose, a justification for continued existence. One cannot exist without the other now. And Batman knows that his life ends when Gotham falls.
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