Future Sidekicks: Younger Audiences & The Batman

Dear Batman,

I love you. I wish that I can see you in real life. I saw you in the movie. I think that you are cute. I had a dream of you. It was when you were my dad and you came back from a place and hugged me. I could not marry you because I’m only 8.

Love,

Sarah Haller

(Published in Batman #444, February 1990)

Since his humble beginnings punishing evildoers with fists wrapped in stylish purple gloves, Batman has been evolving, changing with the times and the minds portraying him. With 75 years of staying power as one of the titans of comic book mythology, Gotham’s own Dark Knight and the world he inhabits has been explored more than almost any other pop culture icon.

Sarah Haller’s letter to the Batman himself through the friendly editors at DC Comics illuminates a fact that is all too easy to forget: Batman’s largest market is a young demographic. The concept of the comic book hero has appealed to younger audiences since the Golden Age, and it’s this audience that continues to keep superheroes financially relevant.

The stories told in mainstream comics largely depend on catering to youthful readers who crave explosive color and clashes between clearly visible heroes and villains. Readers who often want closure and seldom care about continuity. Bruce Wayne and the Bat-family fit this description in many of their portrayals, such as Bruce Timm’s perennial animated television series broadcast in the 1990’s, but Batman has always had a hidden depth and a not-so-hidden darkness.

The signal for change in the portrayal of the Caped Crusader came from Frank Miller and the wondrous yarn he spun in “The Dark Knight Returns.” Taking an older, but not necessarily wiser, Batman into retirement and beyond proved to be the perfect showcase for the shadowy corners that had been lurking in the Batman mythos for decades.

Miller explored the psychosexual horror of the Joker, the brutal motivations behind Wayne’s one-man war against crime, the consequences of a crime-fighting lifestyle on a young and impressionable ward as well as the sheer amount of blood, gore and broken bones that Wayne was willing to wade through to achieve some semblance of order and authority in his city. Coming fresh out of Adam West’s campy characterization on television and years of comic book canon hijinks replete with outlandish schemes and corny jokes, Miller’s vision became a call to action for darker heroes and violent vigilantes in popular fiction.

Christopher Nolan brought a sense of realism to his Dark Knight trilogy that began in 2005, and it’s this gritty vibe that Zack Snyder attempted to slick back and stylize in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” as a follow-up to the Superman shown in “Man of Steel.”

Superman and Batman have always been two sides of the same coin. One the peak of otherworldly power, the other the pinnacle of human potential. One adheres strictly to traditional American family values and ethics, while the other prefers a more morally relativistic approach. The difference between Wayne and Kent is the difference between man and god, a point that was made at some point during one of Jesse Eisenberg’s ramblings as Lex Luthor.

Frank Miller took the Batman that had been around for decades and showed us what we already knew was lurking underneath the surface. Snyder made Superman into a murderer by the end of the first film of a planned DC film franchise. When Superman is willing to snap a neck, in front of bystanders, what could have been expected from Snyder’s take on Batman? Certainly a little less than a kill count that stands at a staggering 21, by most estimates. From car crashes to grenades to the use of an actual firearm on a human being, Snyder’s Batfleck sure did a lot of killing for a man that confronts Superman because he killed someone.

With darkness already inherent for Gotham’s protector, we can expect the future Batman of the DC Cinematic Murderverse that won’t be getting any letters from children like Sarah Haller. Another Batman without a Robin, a Batman that isn’t anyone’s father figure and who is more likely to break a kneecap than offer a hug. There is violence in Bruce Wayne, violence and misplaced guilt that leads to a tormented and ruthlessly efficient vigilante. But it is control over that violence that makes Batman a hero. Bruce Timm’s animated series is easily defensible as the definitive portrayal of Batman, and that Batman never took a life.

Sure, things get a little more complex that Saturday morning cartoons in lengthy comic book story arcs or in live-action movies designed for adult audiences, but what we seem to forget is that for Batman, willingness to do violence exists secondary to the desire to do good and an oath to never take a life. At his core, Bruce Wayne wants to save other children from seeing their parents dead in a dark alley. Before anything else, Batman is a hero. We can only hope that Snyder’s successors at the helm of DC film projects are firm in the belief that heroes don’t kill.