Gotham Central: that one time when they shot Batman (whoops)

[wordswordswords.insanejournal.com]

If I recall correctly: when the Joker was sniping people in an earlier arc, he also kidnapped a female news anchor, tied her up, and hung her upside down with a camera pointing at her with a bomb nearby. Detective Nate Patton tried to disarm the bomb. Meanwhile, Batman showed up and managed to rescue the woman, but not the detective. The ensuing explosion put Patton in a coma, and eventually his family chose to pull the plug. Nate's partner was Romy. The police department took down the signal and then instructed the officers to treat him as a hostile.













Aaaaaand if it matters, Romy does get her gun back before she gets in trouble, thanks to some diplomatic work from Robin and Stacy the receptionist.

Comments

[jeyl.insanejournal.com]

"Because he's a superhero in a comic book. I know that sounds like a cop out, but I have different expectations for my superheroes than I do real people."

I'm confused now. You say you have different expectations for him because he's a superhero, but you also state that "Bruce is just a person, he's not immune to fits of pique.", which I would summarize as a statement that he's a real person. But now you're saying you don't put expectations like that on him because he's a super hero. Which is it?

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

It's both.

I have different expectations when it comes to his accepted place in the DCU and what he is and isn't held accountable for. He is a human character (meaning he has human failings) existing in a world constructed of genre conventions. We accept certain behaviors from superheroes (breaking and entering, assault, etc...) and still consider those characters heroic and in the 'right' because that's what superheroes do, they operate outside the law and beat up the 'bad guys.' All superheroes judge, and very few ever have to answer to any sort of authority for it. However the best superheroes have flaws and personality quirks (like Spidey's temper or Batman's paranoia) that still make them (fairly) easy to relate to. On a meta level we understand that it's okay for Superman to work outside the law and do things that may be considered illegal because we know he's a good person who (under normal circumstances) won't abuse his power.

I expect Batman to a human reaction to being shot, I don't necessarily expect him to suffer typical human consequences for his actions and reactions (such as as for punching a police officer in the nose). It's not necessarily a moral judgment in this case, I'm not it's okay because he's a superhero, I'm saying on a practical level he WON'T have real world consequences to deal with because he's not in the real world. If superheroes were always held accountable for all the assault, breaking and entering, trespassing and general mischief they do they'd spend all their time in and out of court/prison.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Typos, typos everywhere.