Ron: Today we're talking about Batman.
Mon: Yes, welcome to our first episode of Detective Mode.
Ron: Batman is a starting point for all superhero fans and he was for us.
Mon: Yeah, we started off by watching the 1960s show with Adam West, and that really shaped our love for superheroes. It was camp but it was fun.
Ron: Yes, we struggled with the other versions of Batman because we loved the Adam West show so much. But once we started reading the comics, we definitely changed our minds about how we felt about Batman yeah exactly because
Mon: Bruce himself is a complicated character but also a very inflexible person.
Ron: Yeah, that's a good point. Well, Shelfdust has this whole series about Batman's worst enemies, and he has a huge rogues gallery. But finally, we decided that Batman's greatest enemy is himself.
Mon: Yeah, and in this episode, we’re really going to be discussing why we think that.
Ron: Because, as much as everybody loves Batman, and we do love Batman, there are a lot of flaws with this character. In many ways he's making his own life, and the life of the citizens of Gotham, nd the people of the Bat-Family, very difficult.
Mon: Exactly. I mean, when we talk about Batman's enemies, we have Riddler, Joker, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Bane. these are just the compelling ones. There are so many more. But they are his own enemies, his personal enemies, and yes, they wreak havoc on Gotham. But why do they keep coming back?
Ron: And that's actually the only way to look at Gotham City. It's a place where crime happens but justice is never really served. And that's the whole point of Batman to actually bring justice to his city, and looking back at his past, Batman lost his parents. They were killed right in front of his eyes when he was a small boy, and that shaped his future. That shaped the person that he was going to grow up to be, and that shaped Batman. But the set of rules that he set for himself when he was a child… He was a traumatized child, and that completely colored the way he looked at justice, and that's shaped the way he's tackling the villains that attack him, and the city.
Mon: Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's a child's point of view. It's good. I mean, he's innately a good person. He has a code of honour which he usually doesn't break. There's always going to be a chance here and there, where it's going to change.
But while I like that code of honor, I feel like Bruce is working on crime in Gotham from the top down. It's easier for him to be Batman, to use his face to beat up these bad guys and throw them in Arkham. But what is he doing to make the city better?
Bruce is the wealthiest guy in the whole of Gotham. I mean, he comes from the wealthiest family, who have a history of wealth and a history of power and influence over people. So why isn't he using that? Instead he's just, you know, putting these bad guys away in Arkham, and they're breaking out of there, like every three weeks or so.
Ron: Yes. Nobody really stays in Arkham for very long. It's really a revolving door.
Mon: Yeah, and let's talk about Arkham for a minute. Like every iteration of Arkham, be it in the comics, in the games, in the TV shows and films. It's this horrible, wretched place. All it does is re-traumatizes anybody who goes in there. And it makes them worse.
Ron: So, where does the rehabilitation happen? Can you get justice in a city like Gotham without actually rehabilitating these people? All these criminals, you know, Poison Ivy, Joker, Bane, they come from great poverty, great deprivation, and they're trying to make sure that not only they can have some kind of luxury, but they can give it to their cohorts that they work with. So, where is Bruce Wayne? And where is Batman? When those people need help, before they become Joker and Poison Ivy.
Mon: Yeah. And another way that I feel that Batman is not only his own worst enemy, he's also Gotham’s worst enemy is that he's fighting bad guys, he's putting them away, they come back out way stronger. But all he is doing all the time, is using his power and wealth to give himself and the Bat-Family better tech, better weapons. And that's something that's alluded to in the Christopher Nolan films. In Batman Begins where detective James Gordon says that if you're more invincible, they're going to start bringing out more powerful weapons.
Ron: Exactly. And that's actually a concerning issue, especially as we look at the world in 2020. There's so much money being spent on the police force, they have tanks, they have Kevlar, and the kind of weapons that they have access to, they could do real harm. And that's just to protect the city. I mean, that's exactly what we've been seeing in Batman. He has a suit that protects him. He has a utility belt that has all sorts of gadgets. But these are not just for him, he's making the same things for the GCPD. So, what we've seen in real life has actually been reflected in the Batman books for a very, very long time. He's actually making a world around him that allows for, even gives permission to, people to create super weapons, and that becomes dangerous for the common man.
Mon: Absolutely. The most recent arc in the Batman comic series deals with a new character called Clown Hunter, who has been killing Joker's henchmen. And Batman is dead set against it. When the Clown Hunter is introduced, Batman speaks to him about his murderous ways and Clown Hunter tries to explain to him that he lost his parents and he was orphaned. He's homeless, he's squatting in this place because of a fight between Batman and Joker. So, this young boy is collateral damage. And these are the characters that we don't often see, or we don't often see Batman engage with. But this clown hunter character, he's presented as a villain, or a villain-to-be. But he's just collateral damage in a fight that really shouldn't have happened.
Ron: We see that quite often. Even Kite-Man, he’s probably one of my least favorite characters in the DC Universe, he's extremely irritating.
Mon: I can’t believe he's such a huge part of the Harley Quinn TV show!
Ron: It actually did a really good job with him in that show. I was quite impressed. But otherwise, he's not a very good character; he's not very interesting. But his villain origin story comes from Batman. He lost somebody in his life because of Batman. It comes back to the same thing. Is Batman really helping the people of his city? What is he doing for people like Clown Hunter, for Kite-Man so that they don't end up on a path to villainy? How many heroes are in Gotham City, that will actually bring about something good? Apart from the Bat-Family. Even Nightwing, he's left, he's gone to Bludhaven. There's Red Robin. He's usually with his group of superheroes. There's Robin, who well, he doesn't really have a choice. He's Batman’s son. There’s Batgirl. At least, she is trying to do something. But she has a connection to the GCPD, because Gordon is her father. So, in a way, she has a very blinkered view of crime fighting, as well. Again, it comes back to the same thing. What are they doing to actually rehabilitate these people? What are they doing to mitigate the kind of collateral damage that they're causing?
Mon: Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, Batman is working on a surface level. He's not trying to structurally make a change to Gotham itself, and he's one of the rare people who has the power to do that.
Ron: Exactly. I mean he does have limited unlimited resources. So, what is he doing with that money?
Mon: Exactly. And we're always hearing about the corrupt cops in the GCPD and the mayor, who's usually being bribed by the Penguin or whoever. I mean, Penguin becomes mayor in several iterations of Batman series. So, we have to ask ourselves: why is Bruce just standing by and letting all this happen? And, of course, we're talking about a comic book character here, and he is just a reflection of the people who create him or writing. So, is it that much harder to think of a good character, a heroic character, who does the dirty work, but doesn't necessarily do it with his fists?
Ron: Yeah. Gail Simone had an interesting Twitter chat with a few people some time ago about Batman. Quite a few people were asking, why does Bruce Wayne not do something with his money to save the city of Gotham and actually put an end to crime? And she was saying, it doesn't really make for great comic book writing, because the visceral action of somebody hitting somebody's face, or punching them in the solar plexus, that makes for great art, that makes for great reading. Somebody sitting behind a desk crunching numbers, trying to run an orphanage, or pay off some bills, that's not very exciting.
Mon: And also, I know that the diktat from up above in DC is that every comic book needs to have an action scene. Tt's something Tom Kin alluded to a couple of years ago about his series, which is a little bit more cerebral from time to time. But yeah, he said basically every issue must have some action in it.
Ron: I think you can still have some kind of action. While also acknowledging the fact that Bruce Wayne has to do something with the money he has.
Mon: Something more. Because at the moment, what he's doing is, it looks like he's hoarding it.
Ron: It's actually quite interesting because the current Rebirth run has Bruce pretty much losing all his money. All of its been transferred to Lucius Fox. So, what is he going to do now? And another thing that we're seeing is Bruce is actually being questioned about what he's done for the city. He's actually having to rethink his war on crime, and whether it's actually brought anything to the plate.
Mon: Exactly. How effective is Batman?
Ron: We haven't seen him be very effective at all. Somebody like Joker; he's been around for quite a while. There used to be kind of comedic elements to him and the Adam West shows and. And we've seen that character become darker and darker. We've seen The Killing Joke, where he maimed Barbara. He was one of the more terrifying villains that we saw, when he was portrayed by Jack Nicholson, and he was portrayed by Heath Ledger. Let's not go into the Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie, which was not good.
But this is a person who is still a mystery in many ways, but he keeps harming the city, he keeps coming back. He harms people he causes damage, and he ends people's lives. And he causes a lot of pain in the process.
Mon: Exactly. And the worst thing is, at the end of it all, because the DC executives are so keen on keeping the Joker alive in some form or the other, it almost seems like Batman forgives the Joker. Yeah, that's why he always lets him live or sends him to Arkham, but it's not enough. Something more needs to be done about somebody who constantly returns and destroys the city.
Ron: Yes, I mean, he's a dangerous, dangerous man, and he has shown time and time again that he does not care about getting better.
Mon: So, something needs to be done. Maybe Arkham needs to be redone or restructured completely. Bruce has the power to do that. And unfortunately, he really just hasn't. So, in a way, you have to ask, is Bruce enjoying this? Maybe Bruce just keeps these people around so that he remains relevant.
Ron: Yes, it does. But in a way it makes sense because if there are no criminals, what's Batman going to do? There is no need for Batman. The whole point of Bruce becoming Batman was that he would make a city that would one day not need him. But it's been, what, eighty years of Batman and he’s still needed.
Mon: Exactly. In fact, more so, because every time there's a colossal fight or battle, it seems like the city is completely at its end and there are even more new villains coming up. Just now, we've got two new different iterations of villains who are out to take on Batman and able to fight him toe to toe.
Ron: And the other thing is that, the newest villain that's been introduced, we don't really know very much about him, but it seems that he has history with Bruce. So, this is a personal battle that is being fought, and the victim is once again Gotham City.
Mon: There's so much collateral damage in the city, but even if we don't care about the poor faceless Gotham-ites, Batman's own family have been affected by his incompetence.
Ron: How can we forget Jason Todd, his second Robin, a feisty character, in many ways, but he ended up being murdered by the Joker. And because comics, he came back to life; he was resurrected. And he is still, after very many issues, very angry with Batman, who basically is a father figure to him. Because Batman never did anything to the Joker despite Jason dying. And that ended up leading to Jason becoming Red Hood, and he was a villain for quite a while.
Mon: Yeah, and it's funny because Batman basically saved Jason from being a villain. When he was young, his greatest concern was, if he left Jason out on the streets, then Jason would just become a bad guy. He would just be another one of Batman's rogues’ gallery. So, he invited him to the mansion, taught him to become the Robin. And that was great. And then, because of Batman's forgiveness of the Joker, when Jason does come back, he comes back angry, because it's constantly fueled by the fact that Batman refuses to act on what happened to him. Ron: That's how he keeps going. It's this vengeance that has shaped his relationships with almost everybody around him. And it's made him a very, very despondent, angry young man. We've had an issue with writing for Jason. It's not been good for a long time, but he can't grieve properly, he can't be a relatable person.
It seems like, because Batman is basically the flagship of DC, to make him as interesting as possible, everybody else around him is suffering.
Mon: Yeah. And let’s take Barbara Gordon, for example. We, especially nowadays, everybody talks about Jason's pain and Jason's anguish about what happened with the Joker. But people tend to forget what happened to Barbara Gordon. In The Killing Joke, which is a huge favorite among a lot of people.
Ron: It's not a very good book, actually.
Mon: It's quite problematic by today's standards, anyway. But for Barbara, she was left in a wheelchair after being shot by the Joker. And she took that opportunity. She saw it as an opportunity and became Oracle, still a very, very helpful superhero to the Bat-Family. And in the Rebirth comics, she was able to get some surgery, and she's back to being Batgirl.
But the writers, in general, tend to forget that the Joker had a lasting impact on her, as well. And while with Jason, it’s very much about his anger, with Barbara, she has to deal with it. And I don't think she's allowed to be angry at Batman. Even though she should be.
Ron: Yes, exactly! She's always been by Batman’s side, but has he earned that? Has Joker earned her forgiveness? Of course, it comes back to writing, and how female characters are never… It's a huge problem with the big two, that female characters have had certain personality traits that are not very realistic, at all.
Mon: So, it's hard to see them as rounded, fleshed out characters because that's not how the people see them.
Ron: And they have largely been written by men who seem to have very strange views on women. So that's also quite unhelpful. But again, it comes back to the same thing. What is Batman doing for his city, for his people, for himself? Because people are getting hurt. And nothing's being done about it.
Mon: There's the old adage that goes: violence begets violence. And, in essence, that's exactly what Batman is doing. Because every time he brings out his Kevlar and his armor and his fancy batmobiles, somebody is trying to figure out a new way to get through all that.
Ron: You don't want to say that it is an invitation, but because nothing is being done to keep these people behind bars or to find a way to make them better, then, it does become an invitation. Because they know that they're not going to be in Arkham for very long. Somebody is going to break them out or they're going to find a way to break themselves out. And they're going to have an upper hand because they've already fought Batman and now, they've actually learned the things that Batman seems to be working on
The principle that all the henchmen, they're desperate people so they're aligning themselves with the Riddler or Joker or whoever is the villain of the week. But those people, they're easy to grab. They're easy to punch, they're easy to put behind bars. What happens to the bosses?
Mon: Also, we have to ask ourselves: why are there so many henchmen lining up for these jobs with the Penguin and whoever? Where are the other jobs?
Ron: Exactly! That means there’s a high rate of unemployment in Gotham.
Mon: And again, that comes down to structural, systemic issues. Even if the bosses, none of them really do any work, all the henchmen have to do all the hard work and dirty work. So, if they didn't have a huge rotating door of henchmen coming in and out, they wouldn't be too effective.
Ron: We know that Bruce Wayne has a very large corporation, and obviously people are working there. Maybe there are opportunities to make new jobs. Why isn't he taking that up?
Mon: Exactly, exactly. It seems wrong to lambaste Bruce Wayne and Batman so thoroughly, since he is definitely one of our favorite superheroes. But at the same time, I feel like after 80 years of reading pretty much the same thing over and over, I think that, especially the most recent disappointment would have to be when The Joker War was happening in the Batman: Rebirth series. And by the end of it, he’s still a threat, an insidious threat, but he's still a threat.
And it just makes us wonder why DC is so against letting go of this character. Its comics. If a character dies, they'll be back in a year. It's fine. But give us a year where we do something different with Bruce Wayne.
Ron: Yes. And you know what, I would say, make a huge change. You know what this is making me think about? There's been a lot of discussion about colorblind casting in films. And we have seen different versions of certain characters. We've seen Thor, the mantle was taken up by Jane Foster. We've seen Miles Morales’ Spider-Man. Maybe we need a Bruce Wayne who is not so white.
Mon: In fact, we are going to get a few. I don't think they’re canon versions, but we do have a few things coming up in the DC future slate. The publications which will try and expand the variety and diversity of characters, even characters that we are familiar with. I hear that there's going to be a Batman who isn't exactly all white.
Ron: Okay, but again, that's not the main title. That's always going to be a problem because I think, up until this year, we felt like whatever Batman was doing, it was fine. We were okay with it.
Mon: Yeah, as long as the stories are entertaining, we will keep coming back.
Ron: The stories have not been entertaining, that's a different matter altogether.
Mon: Yeah, that's it.
Ron: But since 2020 has happened. Since we’ve seen what an extremely rich, white man can do when he is in a position of power, right now, Bruce Wayne's entire arc really needs to be rethought. Because it is very difficult. The two of us are women of color. We're immigrants. Reading Batman do what he does, it's not relevant anymore. It's actually a slog for me to read Bruce Wayne’s stories. I feel really bad saying that because Batman has been in our lives forever.
Mon: Yeah. Can't remember a memory without Batman in the background
Ron: I have to really prepare myself to be like, okay a new issue of Batman has come out, let me read it. It is really difficult, because there is nothing about this man that I'm interested in or that I care about.
Mon: Yeah, I mean, he's gruff, he's rugged, he's always talking about how he works solo, and he must work alone. He has a gigantic Bat-Family. He would be so much more effective if he actually invited them to help him, instead of fighting on his own. I can't say I look forward to reading the Batman title, either. Which, again I feel really bad. But I think it's because there's a predictability that has crept into his comics. And it's because it's the safety net.
Ron: And it's the same kind of people writing the same kind of stories over and over again. I think, now is the time to really make a change.
Mon: Yeah, behind the scenes. And on the page. To really shake things up and make Bruce a compelling character again and even if it means a romantic getaway with Catwoman for seven-eight issues, we’re fine with it. It's okay! It's still different. If that makes him change his mind about how he does this war on crime.
Ron: Because Catwoman comes from nothing. Maybe that's what he needs. I do like BatCat, and I did like those issues in the Rebirth comics, but we haven't gone anywhere with it. That is the problem. There is so much that can be done with it.
Mon: Catwoman is far too restrained in her relationship with Batman. I think it again comes back to the safety of not pushing the boundaries of what Catwoman can do or can say to Batman. Because half the time I'm like, really? Why is she with this guy? He's Batman but, she deserves better.
Ron: Yeah, she's smart. She's seen a lot of the really bad parts of the city. She knows what can be done to make things better, because she's been on both sides. She's fought by Batman’s side. She's fought to save Gotham City. But she's also fought to steal stuff.
Mon: So that she can survive!
Ron: Exactly. She changes the perspective. Batman has not really had to do that. In a way, I kind of like the Christopher Nolan movies because we saw him leave Gotham City behind, leave his life behind, and actually have to be out on the streets. We see him trying to steal an apple. sharing it with another fellow thief, because he had nothing.
Mon: But in the comics, it feels like he hasn't learned from any of those kinds of experiences, or at least he's so far removed from those experiences now that he can’t really put himself in the shoes of anybody who is in that state.
Ron: Yes, that's true. You were mentioning how we're going to have a future DC book where we're going to see a different version of Bruce Wayne, but I'm not sure what that's going to give us. Because I just read Batman: Overdrive which was quite enjoyable. And it wasn't written by a white man, but the ethos of Batman is somebody who has money, who has privilege. And it doesn't seem like he is able to see beyond that. And that is the problem that we have in 2020.
Mon: Interesting. So even in this Batman? I haven't read it yet.
Ron: Yes, it's a YA book, it's quite enjoyable. He's a young man. This is teenage Bruce Wayne, but he just doesn't see the privilege that he has. And it's a bit jarring when you're reading it, because… Yes he has friends who come from the wrong side of the tracks, who don't have as much money as he does, but he is just so self-absorbed. I think that's what's the problem with Bruce Wayne's money and privilege. He can't see beyond himself, even in his crime fighting. It's not how much of it is for Gotham City, and how much of it is for revenge for what happened to his parents.
Mon: Wow. Yeah, that's it. I'm a little disappointed to hear that, because I was quite excited to read it. I kind of agree with you because , the problem with a character who is self absorbed or the issue with such characters, it's about them being—not being apathetic towards other people's pain and suffering, and their situation.
I think therein lies the problem with Batman. He is so absorbed with him being the sole protector of Gotham when he has so many people he can rely on. He's got Lucius Fox backing him up right now. He has Barbara who is back in the Oracle chair when she really should be fighting as Batgirl. He has all these safety nets. And he's not really doing anything with these partners that he has. And it really just comes back to the same thing that he doesn't see beyond himself. And that has repercussions on the people around him, on his city, and on the villains that he's been fighting all these years.
Ron: Exactly.
Mon: They're always saying, yeah, Batman he has his rules which is why he can't step over the boundaries. But that's not the point. Batman doesn't have to go around killing people to make a point. He needs to just make sure that Gotham isn't a breeding ground for these people.
Ron: Make structural changes when you have the ability to make those structural changes. And we're not really seeing that. I'm not saying that we need entire issues dedicated to Batman trying to build the halfway houses or something. but at least give us an inkling that he is doing something like that. And when they are introducing new villains like Clown Hunter, this is a boy who is murdering people, because of the deaths that have been caused by Batman.
Mon: And he's not just murdering common people. He's murdering people who worked with the Joker.
Ron: And who are also in some way, just regular people in difficult circumstances. So, it's such a vicious cycle.
Mon: Well, it actually reminds me off the first season of Batwoman on The CW. In Batwoman, where Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane, she's Bruce’s cousin, so she's also a person of wealth. She returns to the city and while at first, she really does want to fight as Batman, and then as Batwoman, she also starts making little changes. She buys those halfway houses, she's making a little club, which is friendly towards queer people. So, she makes her own little changes. Unfortunately, we won't be able to see more of that.
But we have a new hero in Javicia Leslie’s Ryan Wilder who is going to be debuting next year. 2021. And she is also affected by the structural issues, the systemic problems of Gotham. And she will be fighting for those people.
Ron: Javicia Leslie is a Black woman. She's playing the first Black Batwoman. And this is the kind of change that we need to see.
Mon: Exactly. Who knows, if Rose had remained as Batwoman into the second season, we probably wouldn't have seen this. But she stepped back and they saw what was happening around the world, and they made a positive change by bringing in a Black woman who can give us a completely different idea of what it is like to fight crime in Gotham.
Ron: And is this something similar with Sophie Moore. They didn't have to have a Black woman in that role, but they did, and we get a completely different perspective because she's a Black, queer woman. We don't get to see characters like that. So for me, the Batman comics, if they really want to make Batman more relevant, maybe, to make sure that Batman doesn't seem like an enemy to his own people, maybe start making a big change like that.
Mon: Yeah, I, for a very long time, I've always wanted to make a sort of Elseworlds story where Batman is like sort of, half-Asian or full Asian, who knows. And the problem is that they will be rich, but because of the systemic racism and societal racism, he's not quite accepted by everybody else which is why he works alone so often. You need to sort of mold it, so it makes a little bit more sense.
Ron: But I would take that even further. What if Batman, an Asian Batman, whose parents built Gotham City, ended up seeing his parents being killed in front of him, because they were immigrants, because they were doing something for the city. We've managed to get a completely new perspective. I'm looking at it this way: we were in Dubai for so long, and there were so many South Asians who stayed there and built the city from the ground up. And it makes a difference to what the outcome of the city is. So, maybe that's what Gotham needs. Maybe that's what Batman needs. His titles need a refreshing change in point of view.
Mon: Exactly.
Ron: Unfortunately for us, though we really do love Batman, we do have to admit that he has not been good for his city, for his close friends and relatives. Or for himself. He's not healing, he's not getting better. He's doing the same thing over and over again, which is quite literally the definition of madness. So, we need to see something new in Batman. We need to see him change. We need to see him held accountable for what he's been doing wrong. And maybe we just need a new Batman.
Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!
Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.
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Transcription by Otter.ai and Ron.