Batman's Tragic Origins

[history79]

Comments

[donnblake]

Remember kids, the rich aren't capable of experiencing emotional attachment to people, or trauma when their loved ones (trick question! Rich people don't have loved ones, see the first part of this sentence!) are killed in front of them.

[sagrada]

And I'm pretty sure they weren't even modern distant career-maintaining parents, either. Thomas came home to work from his hospital downtown and Martha mostly did social work that didn't exactly take 24 hours or take her to exotic lands.

And Commissioner Gordon's line from Arkham Asylum is very pertinent, when Detective Bullock snidely comments on the tragedy of being picked up from the station by one's butler "Shut up, Harvey. He's eight years old and all alone."

[lucean]

And just beaten referring to the exactly same things. Damn you, internets.

[sagrada]

(No offense meant against working parents, just referring to the literary shorthand used in fiction)

[lucean]

I just found this webcomic to be insanely insulting and not even really funny. Apparently if you're rich kid whose parents get brutally murdered in a senseless crime, it's actually a cause for celebration. Also, I do not know if a parent you can fire is somehow an ideal parent for an ideal childhood. And were is this thought that Thomas and Martha Wayne were never around, every flashback showed to be extremely caring parents.

It did, however, remind me of a really powerful scene in the Arkham Asylum game where Bruce is forced to remember a discussion he heard between two police officers directly after his parents were shot. The other officer is making dismissive jokes about him, as he is now this rich kid, so boo hoo. It kind of drove home something else that has very rarely been brought up in the comics. When Bruce lost his parents, he basically became the richest person in Gotham while still being a kid and thus was not only a target for dismissive comments, but also a lot of people who wanted to take advantage of him. Try growing up as a well-adjusted human being in those circumstances.

[icon_uk]

I think "Gotham" is sort of showing us that side of Bruce... I'm waiting for Child Services to come and investigate him, even with Alfred as legal guardian, which would, in a neat bit of a turnaround, make Bruce Wayne the youthful ward.

The issue with the premise of the webcomic is...

[chortles81]

It'd actually be pretty in character for New 52 Hush.

[icon_uk]

Well, I smiled at it. :)

Yes it doesn't hold up to anything like close scrutiny, but neither do a lot of jokes.

[alicemacher]

Yes, but if a joke doesn't even hold up to casual, non-anally retentive scrutiny, it fails as humour.

[icon_uk]

Humour is a subjective thing, what fails for some, succeeds for others and vice versa.

[lego_joker]

Well, it touches on a couple interesting points before totally veering off into things that aren't particularly interesting or true. So, really, it's not too different from the current New 52 Bat-books.

When it comes to deconstructing Batman, I've always wanted to see someone pick up the ball that Neil Gaiman got rolling in "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader" - that is, what if Gotham actually became less of a shithole while Bruce was off training, to the point where, once he begins his career as Batman, he can't *find* any crime to fight?

[korvar]

When it comes to deconstructing Batman, I've always wanted to see someone pick up the ball that Neil Gaiman got rolling in "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader" - that is, what if Gotham actually became less of a shithole while Bruce was off training, to the point where, once he begins his career as Batman, he can't *find* any crime to fight?

Seems unlikely to happen on any planet I've lived on.

If Gotham is only a "normal American City"-level shithole, possibly he becomes a cop.

Possibly he just becomes a philanthropist. Or an adventurer. Or an X-Treme sports star.

It's like asking "What if kryptonians don't get superpowers under a yellow sun?". The answer is a comic nobody is going to buy.

[lego_joker]

As an ongoing comic - yeah, it's unlikely, but as a one-shot it could be an interesting psychological study if written well.

Under darker interpretations of Batman, one could point out that Bruce's drive to become Batman can't be easily subsumed into mere philanthropy or any "respectable" day job. The guy wants to *hurt* crime, not just stop it.

[korvar]

As you say, it depends on your version of Batman. The one I subscribe to is someone driven by compassion - nobody should have to go through what I did. With some Survivor's Guilt thrown in.

[kurenai_tenka]

They lost me at the implicated that Batman could ever beat Superman to death... xD

[philippos42]

CriticalResearchFailure

[lieut_kettch]

Impossible. Batman Fanboys all know that Batman could beat Superman. But never to death. Batman doesn't kill.

[starwolf_oakley]

A few "takes" on Thomas Wayne has him a kind of "Don't mollycoddle the boy, Martha" kind of father. These were usually done by Denny O'Neil.

[espanolbot]

It's odd, a lot of writers seem to focus more on Thomas than Martha, though they don't seem to go into what kind of parent he is that often. Frank Miller and Jeph Loeb (who owed a LOT of his characterisations of Miller's work) focused more on Thomas, but more on the idea of him being a really good doctor.

In the Dark Knight Trilogy, Martha didn't even get any LINES, while Thomas only had lines of Sage Paternal Advice. But then, that's an issue a lot of the Nolan superhero movies have, with few people being able to have an actual conversation and characters existing to either give Bruce advice or just state what's going on at any given moment. Jonathan Kent was kind of meant to be written the same way, but it was so inconsistant that it came off very uneven.

Paul Dini's preboot work generally did a good job at making both the elder Waynes more like actual people. Ditto Scott Snyder's work. The Gotham TV show also had then acting like actual people, even though they were only on screen for five minutes, with the rest of the show being about Alfred and Bruce overcoming their shared PTSD and getting an actual familial bond.

Personally though, I think I agree with the sentiment I've seen where they should have saved the Wayne's murder for the midseason finale or something, so we'd actually get more invested in the characters as people first. As is we got a brief scene of Bruce, Martha and Thomas acting like an actual family... before they are violently shot to death.

[starwolf_oakley]

Martha getting the short straw time and again is something I hope a Batman movie can "fix." Bruce finds a video message to him from his mother (about something she's never told Thomas or Alfred) that starts the plot going.

Bruce gets this message in a bank safety deposit box, and the bank gets robbed in broad daylight while Bruce is there. Bruce kicks some ass while the message plays.

[veleda_k]

I feel like this comic started off with the kernel of a good idea, then veered off in the wrong direction. It's not that Bruce's life wasn't tragic, but it was hardly uniquely tragic. Losing both his parents to violence is horrible, but in a city like Gotham it's probably far from unheard of. And Bruce did have advantages that other kids didn't. Bruce's tragedy is real, sure, but a tragedy that only the great anguish of Batman could ever possibly understand? Eh.

Unless, of course, the point of the comic is simply that Superman's a jerk.

[reveen]

I think one way this can go is the idea that young Bruce Wayne may not have been quite neurotypical. A "normal" kid who loses their middler-lower-class parents and is raised by his grandmother probably won't become an avenger of the night. But if Bruce Wayne was born with some sort of disorder that makes his reaction to losing his parents a lot more severe than most other kids.

[espanolbot]

That seems to be what they've going for in the Gotham tv show, with the implication that Bruce might be somewhere on the Autism spectrum (has difficulty socialising, intense focus on certain topics, his overly formal way of speaking etc.). They also had the idea to have Bruce approach his parents' deaths like they were an intellectual puzzle rather than going all VENGENCE like some other protrayals.

It's an interesting take on the character, as is the growing familial relationship between him and Alfred (with Alfred slowly settling into the role of surrogate father, what with the show emphasising that he's ALSO grieving the death of his friends, but just Bruce).

[obsidianwolf]

Eh the comic is mostly a pos but as you said there's a kernal of a good idea there underneath the offesnive insulting crap.

Personally I've always been opposed to the Alfred raised Bruce retcons because to me it makes their relationship fucking creepy with Alfred being a terrible parent and the king of enablers to never get Bruce any real help with his mountain of issues. Not to mention how fucking sick it makes Bruce to keep enforcing the you work for me thing every time he's in one of his ass hole periods and needs to pull rank.

To me it would make so much more sense if after the Wayne's death Bruce was carted off to a relative of Thomas or Martha who really didn't care about the boy only the families image. (Uncle phillip is back in continuity use him) who simply let Bruce do whatever he wanted while not paying much attention. IT would let Bruce develope all his skills while still explaining why he turned out so very fucked up compared to everyone else who has gone through that.

You could have Alfred and Leslie as the family friends(former workers) who tried their best to help Bruce but had no real power to do anything about it since their access to Bruce was at the whims of someone who only cared about image so any suggestions that Bruce needed Therapy would have been shot down quickly with threats to take away access if they did anything.

It would even help explain why Alfred is the king of enablers because he couldn't help Bruce as a kid so he'll go out of his way to help him now.

[philippos42]

I heartily endorse the return of the rarely-mentioned "Uncle Philip."

Of course, that would mean going against Miller and Mazzucchelli's "Year One," and various 1990's comics that kept the idea that Alfred had been working for the Waynes that long. That may be a big step for the company.

[jaybee3]

There have been a couple of subtle jabs at Batman's over-the-top reaction to his tragedy (which is increasingly not rare in the modern DCU) when compared to other heroes who have LITERALLY gone through the same thing (except without the billions of dollars and butler to take care of him). The one that instantly pops to mind is in Alex Ross/Jim Kreuger's "Justice" mini-series where is Batman looks down on young Billy Batson on how he "couldn't understand" what drives heroes like him (Bruce) and Billy just responds "I know more than you think". What is left unsaid but what the readers know is that Billy too lost his parents (and sister!) to murder, except he was thrown into the streets and his inheritance taken from him and yet he never felt the need to indulge in the angst and darkness that Batman does because of it.

[espanolbot]

Hm, as I've said above, I think that one of the surprisingly interesting takes on Bruce's reaction to his parents death could be found in Gotham (which is a flawed show, but still has nuggets of greatest in there). The show heavily implies that Bruce is neuroatypical, on top of suffering from some heavy PSTD. This leads to Alfred (who has a subplot of also mourning the Waynes death while trying to adjust to being Bruce's legal guardian) being, well, the King of Enablers when it comes to Bruce's "interests"...

[dcbanacek]

Funny how Superman's first statement applies more to Tim Drake (pre-whatever they're calling the current stuff).

[drtechnobabel]

...Well I thought it was funny...

[philippos42]

Oh, I laughed, but it's pretty messed up. Even with a pocket full of Kryptonite, I'm not sure Batman could beat Superman to death.

[zero_elec]

"Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metrics or forms of measure."

[dr_archeville]

Adding to everything else everyone's pointed out in this: would 8-year-old Bruce really have had access to the family's wealth? Wouldn't stewardship of that fall to Alfred, as both his legal guardians and a trusted Wayne manservant who may well have been named executor of the estate? And even if Bruce could have fired Alfred from his job at butler/valet/whatever, that wouldn't stop Alfred from being his legal guardian.

[espanolbot]

I don't think that he was officially allowed to access it until he was 18/21 years old, which is usually the point he heads off on his "randomly learning Batman skills" world tour.

I think that there was an uncle (not sure if it was Uncle Philip, who was reintroduced in Year Zero) who tried to use his blood relative status to wrest control over Bruce's money away from Alfred, although I don't know if that was really the case.

DARK-NESS! NO PARENTS! SUPER RICH! KINDA MAKES IT BETTER!

[espanolbot]

Kind of hilarious that this was one of the things mentioned in the Lego Movie's Batman song 'Untitled Self Portrait'. I mean, I don't really agree with it, but mocking him for being an orphan is kind of cruel.

Plus it's kind of what the Joker did in his Batman Beyond appearance...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etst4t3ES8Y