Batman: White Knight #8

[cyberghostface]

"I think a lot of my readers are secretly hoping Jack wins. But at the same time, they don't want Batman to completely lose, either." -- Sean Murphy

Comments

[obsidianwolf]

And Immediately thereafter Bruce Wayne is sued by everyone who's civil rights he repeatedly violated as Batman and loses everything. Oh right we are only supposed to address the real world problems with Batman that the writer brings up not any of the rest of them.

I remain puzzled by the point of this mini series since as I've said I'd love a realistic deconstruction of all the inherent flaws in the BAtman fantasy but using the actual Batman and the joker of all people just doesn't work as a means to do it.

[cyberghostface]

Murphy’s already said he wants to do more in this universe, it’s very probable that the legal ramifications will be discussed.

[obsidianwolf]

I won't be surprised if they are brought up in a sequel if it happens but I doubt they'll be at all portrayed realistically or given any real impact. At the end of the days this is still a comic book story.

[cyberghostface]

Well the story’s gone all out with a freeze ray threatening the city so idt Murphy intended it to be straight up realistic.

[obsidianwolf]

Which all comes back to my major issue with this series. It has a very inconsistent feel at times trying to be a good deconstruction of the joker and Batman relationship and at times going full on typical comic.

I'll probably remain rather ambivalent about the whole thing no matter how the story proceeds if it gets any sequels.

That said I do actually hope we get more stories like this (though hopefully by different authors in different directions) since personally I really want the big two to really start using the fact both have a multiverse to do some interesting Elseworld/what if storylines without the constant change everything in the mian comics change it back dance that gets incredibly old.

[lego_joker]

Isn't pick-and-choose kind of at the heart of all comics, though? Silver Age Superman was goofy as all hell and yet he's apparently supposed to worry about the taxman. Watchmen's the poster boy of grim-n-gritty realistic and yet it has Rorschach successfully intimidating a bar of thugs instead of being drilled the moment he sets foot inside.

I believe TV Tropes even has an article on this phenomenon - the "indecisive deconstruction". Basically, it's very hard for an author to deconstruct *every* aspect of a work without playing at least a few straight, because if they hate the work/genre that much they're probably just going to ignore it.

[obsidianwolf]

Yes pick and choosing is a major part of modern comics since continuity is now whatever a writer/editor what have you says it is for a story to work. This story however IMO fails to even maintain the illusion of sticking together.

IIRC the indecisive deconstruction wasn't about having to play parts of it straight since all deconstructions have to do that somewhat but more with works that were attempting to deconstruct things but instead ended uplaying it nearly completely straight.

Which is actually not a flaw of this IMO the biggest flaw of this series is the author's biases are clearly the detrimental factor. There are some interesting story questions that could be asked but by this mini and it's plot line either by using someone different than the joker or taking a "cured" joker in a different direction.

[locuatico]

Actually. I remember reading that Batman wouldn't be breaking as many civil right and/or laws as one would assume. Ironically BECAUSE he is independent from the police other official law enforcement group.

Though, even if that wasn't the case, the most realistic scenario would be that most of those people would probably not be able to afford a lawyer or would not dare to do so because Bruce Wayne can definitely hire himself a super team of lawyers who would be able to law-fu him out of any legal trouble.

Now, the corrupt 1% of gotham, who would DEFINITELY want some payback? they would be calling their lawyers the second the news came out.

[obsidianwolf]

Yes but he is doing things the police do which regular citizens do not have the legal authority to do. Every time he's broken in to search a criminal's base he's broken the law, Every time he collects and analyzes evidence he's breaking the law not to mention realistically making it impossible to use any evidence collected anywhere he's been admissible in court. Every time he detains someone so the cops can come collect them he's breaking the law.

It wouldn't take a lot of resources to sue Bruce Wayne once the world knew he was Batman since A. you'd have ambulance chasers who were looking for a big pay day and B there would be plenty of idealistic lawyer who wanted to take him down and C like you said there are so many corrupt rich and power folks in gotham that even if every poor person somehow couldn't find any way to sue he'd still be sued.

Hell his own share holders could throw a fit and want him prosecuted for embezzling from the company since he's paying for his batman stuff with company funds.

I'm fine with a normal comic ignoring all that since Batman is a fantasy and if you think too hard about the heroic vigilante fantasy it falls apart but White knight already opened the door to all this since Jack used the police's association with Batman against them just like it would happen in real life.

[locuatico]

"Every time he's broken in to search a criminal's base he's broken the law, Every time he collects and analyzes evidence he's breaking the law not to mention realistically making it impossible to use any evidence collected anywhere he's been admissible in court. Every time he detains someone so the cops can come collect them he's breaking the law."

That's the thing....... depending of the case, he did not. realistically, that evidence CAN be used...... because it is not admissible if a COP analyses it without an order. There are actual laws in place that allow a civilian to do the things batman does. Most stories involving evidence not being admissable because of Batman's involvement.... are actually the unrealistic ones.

"It wouldn't take a lot of resources to sue Bruce Wayne once the world knew he was Batman since A. you'd have ambulance chasers who were looking for a big pay day and B there would be plenty of idealistic lawyer who wanted to take him down and C like you said there are so many corrupt rich and power folks in gotham that even if every poor person somehow couldn't find any way to sue he'd still be sued."
My point is that A. & B. would be eaten alive by Wayne's lawyers. C. would be the only group that could realistically give Bruce crap over the batman thing.

"White knight already opened the door to all this since Jack used the police's association with Batman against them just like it would happen in real life."
But that's the thing, it's not as realistic as you would think. There are many aspects of Batman that are unrealistic but, ironically enough, him being allowed to beat the crap out of criminals and such is not AS unrealistic as a lot of people assume.

ETA: In conclusion. while Bruce Wayne would most likely have to face consequences for being Batman, it wouldn't be as sever as one would assume. In a realistic scenario, the worst outcome would more than likely be that he is no logner allowed to be batman... but other than that he would not receive more than a slap in the wrist.

[obsidianwolf]

Really What laws? I'm really curious what laws exist that would allow someone to break into someone's home, take evidence out of there and analyse it to track them down and then assault and detain them to hand them over to cops and have it all be perfectly legal?

Any decent defense attorney would simply argue that Batman planted it. Sure if civilian John Smith handles evidence at a crime scene police can put him on the stand and show what he did and didn't do. Batman takes off with evidence and analyses it in private labs with no government over sight. Unless Batman is going to sit on the stand and show the cops and prosecutors everythign he did and didn't do with the mans of backing it up it would be thrown out.

Him being able to beat the crap out of one or two criminals without legal repercussions might fly since yes folks get away wiath that all the time in the real world. However, Batman hasnt' done it one time he's done it hundreds of times. That's the problem facing bruce Wayne he can't argue he saw a crime being commited and intervened he intentionally saught out people to assault on his own initiative and some of them would have gotten off and have perfect grounds to go after him.

Comic book vigilantes completely fall apart in the real world because the handful of actual vigilantes who've gotten away with it only did it once not a hundred times last month.

[xakko]

"Comic book vigilantes completely fall apart in the real world because the handful of actual vigilantes who've gotten away with it only did it once not a hundred times last month."

I don't want to defend Batman, but aren't there generally special vigilante laws in most comic universes?

[obsidianwolf]

We will occaisionally get a reference to one but they usually are poorly thought out and don't stand up to any real world scrutiny.

[captainbellman]

And that's how what could have been a perfectly good Two-Face Elseworlds story instead turned out to be a predictable Joker fanfic with no significant arc for any of the characters.

[cyberghostface]

Batman and Joker both had significant character arcs.

I like Two-Face a lot but I think this story works better with Joker for a number of reasons.

[strejdaking]

I think using Joker pretty much breaks it.

[jaxjyls]

I kind of felt that this story would of worked better with any other villain but the Joker

[lordultimus]

Wait what just happened?

[cyberghostface]

Basically Joker agreed to go back to Arkham in exchange for giving Harley a pass.

[starwolf_oakley]

Writers toy with "Batman likes beating up criminals" from time to time. It was even a plot point in KNIGHTSEND. Lady Shiva wanted Bruce to admit he enjoyed the violence.

[blueprintstyles]

Am I the only one who sees Alfred's death as kind of Jack and Harley's fault? they made the super villains attack, nearly kill Bruce, then Alfred hooks Bruce up to the machine that was keeping him alive.

[matrix_dragon]

Totally their fault.

[strejdaking]

Look, on one hand, I don't think "why batman wouldn't work in real world" comic needs to exist, especially with the fucking JOKER as a metaphor for police brutality, but hey, I suppose Superman got like million of those. But not even pulling through and backing away like this? That's just lame.