Batman wears two hats. The first is the hat the rabid fans put on him, where he is a god pretending to be a human. His powers come in the form of resourcefulness and omniscience, rather than thunderbolts, but he's still a god. That's the version we saw in Grant Morrison's run on Justice League, and it's the version we see in latter-day Frank 'Unedited' Miller's work.
The other hat Batman wears is the hat where, for all of his crazy skillz, he is just a human being. He can be caught off-guard by other normal people. Hell, he can be defeated by other normal people, because even a punk-ass can get lucky.
The most successful interpretations of the Batman let him wear both hats.
The Dark Knight Returns is awesome. Everyone remembers it for the story where Batman holds his own in single combat against Superman (without using Kryptonite for most of it). It also includes a story where Batman is defeated in single combat by a non-super teenage lunatic bodybuilder. There's no contradiction, either. Those two stories handily fit in the same volume, and no-one cries foul.
Part of what helps is the frequent glimpses you get inside the Batman's head during the whole four-issue run. Even as he's pulling off his crazy badass nonsense, Batman's inner monologue is frequently noting how much of what he gets away with is luck, or how desperately he has to work at it all. It gives him a kind of vulnerability that is necessary. That the art mercilessly depicts the potato mash that is made of his face or ribs or whatever when he screws up doesn't hurt on that score either.
The Dini/Timm animated version of the Batman is similarly layered. He can take on a swarm of super-androids in one episode, and struggle against a few normal thugs in the next; and it all feels perfectly coherent.
Some people like Batman because he exceeds the human. Others like him because he doesn't. The most compelling versions somehow reconcile both.
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I read the Dark Knight Returns last year for the first time. Damn, that was an excellent book.
ReplyDeleteI was struck by its similarity to Alan Moore's 'The Watchmen', both released in the same year. They both have incredibly similar stories and themes. I felt that the Dark Knight was however, quite superior.
I think part of that reason is the self consciousness that Batman allows. You write of him narrating his fight with Superman and hence almost de-mythologising it. In the same way, this device, the analytical self observation that the Batman constantly indulges in, a device that is common to Batman, allows the themes to be explored in much greater depth and complexity.