In which I get a little self-righteous and claim I know more about Batman than the people writing and editing his comic books.
23 Comments | Posted: February 19th, 2010 | Filed under: Thinking About Comics | Tags: batmanHere’s a sequence from this week’s Streets of Gotham written by Mike Benson and drawn by Dustin Nyugen, in which Batman tortures an innocent man to get some information:
As you can imagine, this pinko liberal has issues with this scene:
- Batman does not believe that people give up their rights. That is what makes him different from The Punisher, Wolverine, Bloodfucker, Kickblade, whoever. At the character’s core is a belief in justice and due process. This is why The Joker goes to Arkham or Harvey Dent gets to defend himself in court and could theoretically walk free. This is, of course, purely a storytelling mechanic that’s been fleshed out as a core component to a character over the years, but that’s how it is and that’s how Batman should be written. Batman’s open to a huge variety of interpretations and that’s one of the reasons that the character works for me: Batman is still Batman as long as he adheres to certain tenets, and one of them is that the justice system applies to everything he does, even if he works outside of it.
(And yes, Frank Miller’s snappy line about rights from The Dark Knight Returns is a great bit of black comedy in the middle of a raucous satire. It is not a basis for How Batman Is.)
- Batman does not torture lightly, if at all. He will terrify, he will defend himself, he will subdue, he will not just slam someone’s head against a table and demand answers, especially if there’s a chance the suspect is innocent. In The Dark Knight Batman goes to pretty extraordinary measures to try to get answers out of The Joker, a man he knows to have committed several murders. It’s an unpleasant, tense scene that’s heightened by the fact that Batman is at the absolute limits of self-control. Gordon even notes that “He’s in control” at one point just before it goes wrong and Batman blocks the door and things get hairy.
It’s important to note that the differences between that scene and this one are myriad: The Joker is an intelligent, cunning psychopath and Roland Davis is a bog-standard Gotham City heavy on which they have no evidence at all. Batman’s actions against The Joker are a last-ditch effort in The Dark Knight whereas torture is presented here as the first option. Gordon’s complicity in a warehouse interrogation in which a suspect is beaten is just as wildly out-of-character for him as Batman’s brutality against a man they’ve not even properly questioned is for the Dark Knight.
- The man is proven innocent at the end of this whole story and not the slightest thought is given to this interrogation and how both the Gotham Police and Batman ran roughshod over someone who had not committed a crime. Benson’s scripting is fairly rough throughout the issue, but to ignore this entirely strikes me as a nearly intentional obtuseness about what is right and what is wrong. Readers accept a certain amount of legal flexibility in Batman comic books, but to out-and-out drop an innocent man’s beating at the hands of a costumed vigilante is sloppy and counter to the themes that have been an established part of superhero comics for years.
This is part of an ongoing trend that I find a bit bothersome. Chris Sims talked about the previous issue and how Batman came close to signing off on a murderer because he was killing bad people. Cry For Justice features the Justice League keeping their villains in stasis as a punishment, stripping their rights entirely for an indeterminate period. Marvel may have had a distinct Neocon bent with some of their material in the last decade or so, but they seem to have had some sort of story and thematic point to make with the ascension of Norman Osborne and his upcoming fall.
Maybe DC has something like this in its future, but that feels kind of doubtful right now.
(Also, yes, I know that’s Dick Grayson as Batman. The guy raised by Bruce Wayne is certainly going to follow in Bruce Wayne’s shoes when it comes to these things, isn’t he?)
nerdy nitpick: “ran roughshod” not “slipshod.”
And yes, I did read the actual post, not just the typos, and agree with you.
Thanks, Alice! Fixed.
YES.
Thank you. I’d picked up the first few issues of this book, because the focus on other characters in Gotham was a great angle. The last few issues have really sat poorly, though. I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt that way.
I think SoG’s going to fall off of my list in favor of the return of Birds of Prey.
If anything, I think Dick Grayson would be even more mindful of the rules than Bruce Wayne … making this scene even more out of character.
What is Mike Benson’s body of work? I’m not familiar with him. Has he written any other notable comics? It just seems like he’s in over his head at the moment.
Mike Benson’s body of work.
The guy raised by Bruce Wayne is certainly going to follow in Bruce Wayne’s shoes when it comes to these things, isn’t he?
I don’t agree with my father about everything, or every important thing.
I don’t agree with my father about everything, or every important thing.
Except you’re not Dick Grayson and your dad isn’t Batman.
Yeah, so it looks like Benson has written a five issue run of a Deadpool series in 2009, and a couple of assorted issues. He looks like he’s kinda getting his feet wet at this point. Clearly, he has a little work cut out for him.
That’s why comic books have editors.
Oh, yes. Sure. I mean, there’s plenty of blame to go around here.
The guy raised by Bruce Wayne is certainly going to follow in Bruce Wayne’s shoes when it comes to these things, isn’t he?)
Agree! Not only does Dick have a crazy sense of loyalty and duty to Bruce Wayne, he has historically been extremely reluctant to assume the mantle. I don’t think the guy who quit the Outsiders because he wasn’t dark and gritty enough would be so cavalier about beating down a suspect in custody.
His other body of work.
Yeah, I’m also waaaaaaayyy down on moral weaklings who get their notion of right and wrong from “24″ and certain recent American executive branches of government. Especially when these peoples’ livelihoods are predicated upon the presentation of ideas. It’s kind of contemptible.
The zeal for torture here is of a piece with the previous issue’s Batman comments of glee over the murder of minor felons. I think our author believes he’s making Batman Gritty As Hell or tough or something. It’s sad that he can’t see that he’s actually presenting DickBat as a man with a poor grasp of nuanced human morality.
I agree with Mr. Church here. I’d say further – hopefully not too much further – that Mr. Benson’s writing shows off a moral cowardice in him that angrifies me, although I hasten to point out that his lust for torture is surely unconnected to any recent political activity. There’s no need for any flame wars about politics here, heh heh.
Anyhoo, the zeal for torture depicted here in the Dick Grayson Batman – henceforth “DickBat” as per the choice of the masses – is of a piece with the previous issue’s Dickbat endorsement of murder being just a fine punishment for any and all felons. While the author (and editor, one presumes) may think that this makes GrayBatson look ver-so-gritty, I just think it shows a GraysonMan who is incapable of nuanced ideas about right and wrong. This incapability reflects back upon Mike Benson, and poorly at that. A man who makes his living writing for an audience at least partially made of children should have to clear a higher hurdle of moral awareness than this fellow did.
It all just makes me feel inflammatory.
It used to be that a story demonstrated the seriousness of a situation by the suffering the hero goes through. All to often now urgency is demonstrated by how much suffering the hero ‘needs’ to inflict on others.
It’s bad enough when this kind of logic is used with relatively new heroic characters, even worse when it’s retroactively applied to a character like Batman, who has long established higher standards of behaviour.
Not only is it out of character, it’s also lazy storytelling. The interrogation scene is a cheap urgency-building filler scene to raise the tension and chuck in some exposition.
As for the loose end… it doesn’t surprise me Benson works primarily in TV. TV shows do this stuff all the time, doing something terrible to a minor character for some temporary plot reason, then never revisiting that plot thread after the dust has settled. TV audiences are expected to forget this stuff, because they’re only half paying attention.
You would have thought someone would have told Benson that comics readers never forget, they’ll tear you apart for contradicting an issue that came out in 1967, never mind failing to resolve something that happened in one issue.
After reading the news about who is now in the driver’s seat at DC and knowing the direction they’ve taken with their comic works, this new grittier grittiness doesn’t surprise me at all.
Did Batman knock that guy’s tooth out or is that just more blood? It’s hard to tell with the dark colors and blur effect.
Either way, NOT COOL, and I should hope Dick Grayson at least treats the guy to an MRI or CT scan or something to make sure he doesn’t have some sort of massive brain hemorrhage.
To be completely honest, I didn’t really get the impression that this issue was written with Dick Grayson in mind at all. He never even refers to himself by his first name, Robin doesn’t show up — the whole thing felt like a Bruce Wayne spec script basically jammed into an ongoing Dick Grayson title, which is pretty awful editing.
I’d like a sequel in which the guy has a process server track Batman down and serve him with a writ; Gordon too, for complicity.
Good piece, Kevin. Editors?! indeed. Does Denny O’Neil still come into DC to train up the young eds? Someone bleeding should, they’re supposed to be protecting the integrity of the characters, not alowing them to be mangled.
Eh, I only read the book for Manhunter.
Why should this surprise anyone? It’s entirely consistent with DC’s embrace of increasingly gruesome, violent, and juvenile content. This is the same company that gave us Sue Dibny, burned alive and raped dead, Pantha’s decapitation, Psycho-Pirate’s brain being pushed out the back of his head, countless dismemberments in the pages of Geoff Johns comics, and supervillains arguing over who’ll get to rape Supergirl first. Why wouldn’t they have one of their icons commit torture? It’s not like DC can sink any lower.
When I clicked on the link I figured this article was gonna be over how Batman would continually dangle villains over the side of buildings to get answers out of criminals. I wonder, how would that fly in the faces of everybody that’s been critical of the US’s conduct in the past 10 years if we’ve been doing that in real life?