Batman and Justice: The True Story

Graeme Newman
State University of New York at Albany

REFLEXIVE STATEMENT
I began my theoretical work on the study of punishment back in
1978. Although I was writing a lot about violence at around the same
time, I never really understood how intimately linked these two
concepts are. It was not until I collaborated with a friend to write a book
about vengeance that it finally dawned on me that the two concepts
were linked through justice." I have often reflected on why it took me
so long to understand what now seems obvious to me. Now I know: I
read too many comic books as a kid, and I watch too much TV!

INTRODUCTION
Crime, violence and sex account for some 30% to 80% of prime
time viewing, according to various researchers. The same themes
dominate comic books, possibly in higher proportions. While much
research has attempted to measure the effects of media violence on its
audience, this research has almost exclusively measured the direct
effects of viewing violence on individuals' behavior (Pearl et al. 1980;
Surette 1992, pp. 107-142). Rarely has such research attended to the
particular messages, both emotional and intellectual, which are
transmitted along with these themes. Often, an unstated assumption
seems to have been that violence on television would promote criminal
violence. The research, with some notable exceptions (see, Elliott 1986;
Rowland 1983; Gerbner 1986; Barrile 1984) rarely asks whether violence
on television might also promote officially condoned (State) violence.
Nor does it question the ideological messages contained in media
violence. The bulk of studies dealing with "ideological" issues have

Humanity & Society, Volume, 17, Number 3, August (1993) 297

298 Humanity & Society

focussed almost entirely on news reporting. Those studies examining

non-news media, while they do assess the effects of media violence on
people's perceptions and attitudes towards crime and justice,
nevertheless tend to assume that the messages conveyed in the media
about crime and justice are clear and obvious. Few studies have
attempted to "decode" the deeper cultural messages embedded in the
popular non-news media portrayal of crime and justice.
This paper is a modest step towards decoding the messages
conveyed by the comic books, television series and 1989 and 1991
movies of Batman, with the view to examining the underlying "cultural
ideology" that seems to condone and even advocate, the use of violence
in criminal justice. I use the term "cultural ideology" in a general sense
to mean the underlying imagery and ethos that seeks to justify the
particular forms and practices of criminal justice. Whether this ethos
represents the thinking of a particular class or group, I leave open for
the moment. Historically, the answer to this question has been
particularly difficult to pin down (Chrisman 1982), though somewhat
more straightforward in the case of news reporting. In fact, much work
on the relation between popular culture and consciousness has been
heavily biased by assumptions about class and class relations made prior
to investigating the material at hand.
I have chosen Batman because this character has a varied media
history beginning in early comic books of the 1940s, a 1V series in the
1960s, culminating in a blockbuster movie in 1989 and an equally
successful follow-up movie in 1991. As well, some "revisionist" comic
books of Batman appeared during the eighties which have, perhaps,
provided some of the more illuminating insights into the Batman saga,
having moved the medium of the comic onto a new plane (Miller et al
1986). We need to understand, however, that the visual media are not a
creature purely of the 20th century: they have been with us for some
several hundred years, and have always had a strong visceral appeal (see
for example, Kunzie 1973).

THE MEDIA AND THE MASSES

The visual media have, historically, had an important role to play in
the communication of ideas to and among the masses. Few until the
19th century, and possibly much later, could read save a small elite and
a few religious orders (Chrisman 1982). The masses of illiterate, usually
thought of in the 20th century as the poor, have received their
 Batman and justice: The True Story... 299

intellectual fodder from comic books from as far back as the 16th
century (Kunzie 1973). Frescoes and paintings, of course, date at least
2,000 years earlier, as far as Western Culture is concerned. With the
onset of mass literacy, however, comics did not recede into the
background. Instead, they experienced a great resurgence in the 1940s
and 1950s. The children of that time embraced them with such alacrity
and enthusiasm that their parents complained that comics were
corrupting their young minds (Wertham 1954).
Newspaper publishers also quickly discovered that their inclusion in
daily newspapers increased circulation dramaticalJy (Reitberger and
Fuchs 1972). With this strong commercial impetus, comics of the
twentieth century rapidly developed into a highly stylized and
sophisticated graphic. Their status as art also reached the giddy heights
of pop art, when Andy Warhol made Dick Tracy the subject of one of his
paintings. That comics have been a highly effective medium, able to
suck in even their critics, is evidenced by the Time Magazine essay on
Superman, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, which totally denied
Superman's violence:
Superman's violence is never cruel, however; he punches
viIJains but rarely does them any real harm. (Time Magazine
1988, March 14)
This observation is of course wrong, as can be seen in Figure l,
which reproduces a small sample of the violence of these superheroes.
Superman and Batman slam villains into waUs, throw them off high
places. Their violence is unremitting.
If we compare the first Batman comic book with the Batman comic
of the 1980s, we see a vast difference. The comic book of the 1980s is a
complex intellectually challenging document, as difficult to understand
as any novel. In fact it is referred to as a novel by Rolling Stone Qune 29
1989)
We should be prepared to consider, at least as a possibility, that
comic books are far from a primitive medium, but are a highly
sophisticated form of communication. What is "primitive" about them is
what is "primitive" about a good novel: they convey the depths of
emotions, stimulate the senses as well as the intellect.
300 Humanity & Society

Figure 1
The Violence of the Superheroes
Top: DC Comics, 1939. Bottom left, DC Comics, 1954
Bottom Right, DC Comics 1969 and 1939
 Batman and justice: The True Story... 301

Movies and television have, of course, transformed the visual media

of the 20th century. In movies we have words, pictures and action
impelled at us from a screen larger than life, characters exaggerated
and unreal, achieving an overwhelming clarity and sensuality through
color, form and music. The medium easily mesmerizes the audience.
The highly sophisticated form of movies today is largely due to the level
of education of the masses through television. We are used to cuts away
from the central plot, can follow several sub-plots at once in the same
movie, take in a news flash or advertisement in the middle of the story,
and still maintain a suspended reality. These are skills learned from
hours of watching television. The modern Batman comic books make
full use of these skills. In fact, one cannot properly understand The Dark
Knight Returns (Miller et al 1986) without a realization that it apes the
format of television, constantly cutting away to and from plots and
subplots.
In short, I am suggesting that the visual media caress and seduce
their audience with a mix of intellectual sophistication and primitive
appeal. In this paper, I will try to show how these media powers are
funneled into the Batman epic. I will first try to unravel the primitive
side of the Batman saga, and after this, examine its intellectual
construction.

BATMAN THE FLYING DEMON

In the old medieval town of Orvieto there is a fresco painted by
Luca Signorelli (c. 1441-1523) in the town's small church. It depicts,
according to the guidebooks, the "Souls of the Damned." The theme is a
common one for the pre-renaissance period: the fight between Heaven
and Hell, with Hell seeming to have the upper hand. While there are
many frescoes and paintings rendering all kinds of demons feasting on
human souls (e.g., Fra Angelico's The Last judgment, Francesco Traini's
Hel~ Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, to name but a few) this fresco
offers an innovation of sorts: it features flying demons, who display all
the grace of a Superman in flight. Other renditions of flying demons in
paintings of the pre-renaissance period exist of course, but Signorelli's is
special because of its uncanny portrayal of the flying demons as at once
very human in form, yet with bat-like features. Robert Hughes, in his
book, Heaven and Hell in Western Art, has observed the striking similarity
between the demon of Signorelli's fresco and the human bat of the 20th
century: Batman (Hughes 1968, p. 281). We can see in Figure 2, in the
302 Humanity & Society

Figure 2
Batman as Demon
Above left: Detail from Luca Signorelli's The Damned.
Above right: DC Comic
 Batman and Justice: The True Story . . . 303

detail from Signorelli's The Damned, the smoothness of line, the exquisite
form given to the human body in flight, not unlike the "flying" or
"suspended" human forms rendered later by Michelangelo on the Sistine
Chapel ceiling. If we compare the rendition of Signorelli 's demon, with a
typical drawing of Batman in the 20th century, the similarity is
remarkable.

SATAN AS THE BAT

The animal like features of demons are widely noted in the
literature on pre-renaissance art (Hughes 1968, chapter 5). They are,
however, usually portrayed not simply as one or the other animal, but
rather as fantastic beings, composites of human form, incorporating
various animal and sometimes inanimate forms as well. Urs Graf, for
example, the 16th century graphic artist, portrayed the devil with
human leg, a bird's leg, goat's or bat's ears, a single horn, and a lizard's
tail. A quick tour through any art gallery will reveal many examples.
Space does not permit reproduction of the many representations of the
devil as bat in art and prints. Suffice it to say Hughes demonstrates that
there have been many such representations, perhaps culminating with
the most striking rendition of Satan as Bat in Goya's Soplones from Los
Caprichos, in 1799.
The origins of these fantastic forms are complex, although it is likely
that they were adopted from the embellished reports of travellers in
medieval Europe who had visited the mysterious East. Also mixed into
the images are the ancient forms of the many Gods and mythical beings
lavishly portrayed in classical Greek and Roman literature and art. For
example, the classical three headed dog Cerberus, said to guard the
gates of Hades (the pre-Christian version of Hell), was used by Dante to
describe the form of Satan. The similarities in ancient art between the
dog's head and the bat's head are also quite marked. We can see this in
the triune god of Hecate, Queen of Darkness from Cartari's lmagini dei
Dei. Again, examples of these are widely reproduced in any collections
of 16th to 17th century prints.
The ugliness was intended to strike terror into the hearts of sinners,
but their fantastic forms were also intended to tantalize and mystify.
Demons inhabited the nether parts of the world: underground caverns,
seething cauldrons, deep chasms of dark rivers and frozen ponds in
which were immersed the tortured souls of the damned. Batman seems
created out of the same ethos, when Bruce Wayne himself speaks, in
304 Humanity & Society

the 1940 Detective Comic that explains "Who He Is and How He Came
to Bel":
Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot, so my disguise must
be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature
of the night. Black, Terrible .. a .. a ..
As if it were an omen, a huge bat flies in the window, and Bruce
Wayne says, "I shall become a Bat!" In the next frame, the commentary
notes: "And thus is born this weird figure of the dark. This avenger of
evil. 'The Batman'."
However, the dark and mysterious nature of the bat-Satan is only
one aspect of its iconography. In fact, it is outweighed by two other
dominant themes: sex and violence.

THE FIGURE OF LUST

In the medieval and even renaissance renditions of Hell, demons
and Satan are commonly shown as having mouths and large teeth in
their genital and excretal areas, as defecating human souls, chomping
on their heads, displaying massive sexual organs of goats and swine,
sucking out the intestines of the damned, and mercilessly whipping the
souls into submission. (Examples: Giotto's Last judgment, Fra Angelico's
Last]udgment).The mouth played a particularly important part, as did
the anus. The "mouth of Hell" was treated literally, as a human/animal
fantastic mouth as such. The anus was seen as the appropriate
repository or way of conveying the idea that the souls of the damned
were treated as they deserved: as filth, trash, excrement, literally. Souls
are cruelly torn apart, even as they appear to be in copulatory poses
(Hughes 1968, p. 205)
These are bodily, sensuous portrayals of highly abstract ideas. It was
a way of portraying the lust of the earthly body run wild. A lust which
could, or should, never occur on earth. The raw, unsullied violence and
sensuality of this iconography is obvious. Rendered in any other
context, these remarkable portrayals of sexual "delights" would be
pornographic. As they stand, they work in the opposite way. Because
they are scenes of terror in a dark and horrible world, they are not of
this world, yet they reflect exactly its hidden desires. As Freud would say,
they are the unconscious, the medieval "id." The religious
iconographers portrayed the hidden desires and motifs that underlay
everyday life. They created medieval nightmares.
 Batman andJustice: The True Story . . . 305
Lust therefore, is depicted as dark and horrible with fantastic power.
It becomes a force in the medieval mind that cannot be eradicated, only
blocked and diverted. Thus it shows itself in fantastic perversions.

THE SEXUALITY OF BATMAN

It has been estimated that, if one were to extrapolate Batman's size
into real life, he would be something like 14 feet talll He is, of course,
all male. But what, exactly does this mean?
One could interpret his being "all male" as rather, "obsessively"
male. In the orthodox comics from the 1940s to 1970s, he is presented
as living in an all male environment, doing men's things (that is, he's a
jock"), but remaining pristine and resistant to sexual activity. The
critics of the 1950s Batman complained that Batman and Robin
represented a homosexual relationship pure and simple (see for
example, Berger 1973; Wertham 1954). Here was a grown man who had
taken as his charge a slightly delinquent teenager (Robin) and
immersed him in the Batman ideology of crime fighting. They lived in
style, with a male butler, a large Victorian house, bedecked with
"feminine" things such as large vases of flowers, and tasteful pieces of
art. Such things were not viewed by the bulk of people in the 50s as a
"manly" lifestyle. Rarely did Batman or Bruce Wayne cavort with women.
It was as if in order to maintain the singleminded obsession with the
pursuit of evil, it was necessary to renounce the medieval evil itself: sex.
The reader will also recognize a similar sexuality in the character of
Superman, whose asexuality was well established until recent years
(though many girls were attracted to him). In the movie Superman 2 he
was made to fall in love with Lois Lane, and in order to sleep with her,
had to give up his super powers. The moral message is that in order to
fight evil successfully, one must first renounce it oneself: thus, the
celibate priest, the masochism of various religious orders who try to
transform the evil of lust into the suffering of pain.
A large portion of Batman's power, therefore, derives not from his
sexuality per se, but from the sublimation of his sexuality into the pure
fight against evil. The sublimation is totally effective in the comics up to
the 1970s and in the 1960s TV series. In the 1989 comics of Miller,
Batman suffers much more pain than ever before. In fact, he seemed
never to suffer pain prior to 1980. A large portion of Batman's character
as portrayed by Miller et al. is that of constant pain and suffering that
results from his singleminded pursuit of justice.
306 Humanity & Society

The various electronic media have had difficulty with Batman's

sexuality. The TV series of Batman and Robin accentuated the "campy"
nature of Batman and Robin (especially with certain well orchestrated
bodily movements, and the somewhat sissy uniforms, not much
different from ballet tights and capes). And Robin was portrayed as a
mindless teenager, who parroted rather foolishly the propaganda of
Batman. This series, often denied as "legitimate Batman" by devotees of
the Dark Knight (Miller 1986), adopted a silly portrayal of male
relationships because it was uncertain how to treat controversial issues
such as violence and sexuality on the new mass medium of television. It
treated violence in a similar way to sexuality. Batman's violence was
dressed up in a silliness of its own: the comic bubbles superimposed on
the screen saying ZAP! KAPPOWI. The overall effect was to engage the
viewer in a kind of cartoon show, in which all manner of violence could
occur and appear totally reasonable, even funny, whose destructive
results were not to be taken seriously. (A similar feat is achieved in many
cartoons, especially the "Roadrunner" series, and even Tom andjerry).
Yet in the 1980s, a decade in which tolerance and understanding of
homosexuality was supposed to be higher than any time before in this
century at least, the makers of Batman in Hollywood did not risk
including Robin in the movie. Nor could they allow Batman to be
"asexual" since the movie, because of its sombre tones and distinct lack
of humor, seems to have been aimed at an adult audience as well as
kids. Instead, after sleeping with his girlfriend (as Bruce Wayne of
course) he is unable to sleep, and is found next morning hanging
upside down in anti-gravity boots. The message is the same, though
slightly more complex. His strange behavior invites us to infer that he is
disturbed (guilty?) by his sexual behavior. He ought really have been
out fighting crime as a Bat. In the Dark Knight Returns, Robin is
portrayed as a girl.
One may infer that the makers of these various Batman movies and
comic books were uncertain about the message they were conveying. A
homosexual relationship would contradict and divert attention away
from the single-minded pursuit of justice. This is probably why Robin
was killed off in the famous DC comics issue number 428, "A Death in
the Family." Significantly, this decision was taken after a poll of the
readers. And if one were to survey the gender distribution of the
readership, the chances are that they would be predominantly young
males. That the Batman displays problems that are especially male, and
 Batman and justice: The True Story... 307

that his solution to his problem is especially male (i.e. violent) is

consistent with the claim that it is primarily a male orientation to
violence that dominates the "ideology" of mass media.
In sum, the power of Batman's sexuality is his abstinence. He is not
homosexual, but asexual. He does not seek power through sex, as have
the great Lovers in Western folklore such as Don Juan or Casanova
(Shoham 1982). Rather, this tremendous force is redirected into a
different and unrestrained lust: violence. It is this special male solution
to the problem of lust that seems to hover over the ideological portrayal
of super heroes like Batman. This "solution" is continued in the 1991
movie, Batman Returns where it is made abundantly clear that both
Batman and his lover-to-be (but never consummated), Catwoman,
momentarily see that, if they could have each other, there may be no
need for them to pursue their respective justice obsessions.

THE VIOLENCE OF BATMAN

In his use of violence, Batman is like an Anneas. He is full of fury,
full of the sense of irtjustice (for a special reason which we will discuss
below, Marongiu and Newman 1987). He is obsessed with the
singleminded pursuit and destruction of evil. He achieves this aim
through violence, especially personally engineered violence. A quick
look at typical frames of scenes when Batman catches up to the crooks is
enough to prove this point (See Figure 1).
He throws the crooks around like sacks of potatoes. He does not
appeal to a higher authority for justice. Batman is justice. The police in
Gotham city know this: when there is trouble, the Commissioner sends
for him using the Bat signal. A fair trial, sentencing and subsequent
punishment of the crooks are of peripheral importance. Rather, the
punishment and judgment are all meted out at once, through Batman's
violence.
In comparison to his sexuality, there is less to say about Batman's
violence as a character trait. It is clear, unmitigated and raw. There is no
sublimation here. Inst~ad it is coupled with a complex ideology (or
possibly mythology) that seeks to justify its power and use. In order to
understand this mythology, we must return to an examination of the
medieval iconography of the Demon:
308 Humanity & Society

THE MEDIEVAL MORALITY OF BATMAN

Admittedly, to make a link between a 20th century comic book
figure and the image of a 14th century fresco is daunting in its
insinuation. Dare we suggest that the imagery is linked through some
600 years or more? While it implies that certain archetypal images may
lay dormant and become "resurrected" in modern form (a distinctly
Jungian principle, the reader will no doubt note), even more significant
is the fact that the Demon is a symbol or image that directly depicts
matters of life and death in Western Culture - or, more accurately, the
morality of life and death. It promotes the idea that humans have not
changed in one important respect throughout the ages: they continue
to be capable of, and tempted by, lust.
The medieval iconography challenges us to link the concept of lust
with the concepts of right and wrong. We are treated to the battle
between demons and mortals, and the apparent imminent victory of
demons over the souls of weak humans. It is a battle for the very spirit of
humanity.
We find constantly depicted in the iconography of the middle ages a
morality where the dualism between right and wrong, light and dark,
beauty and ugliness, was taken to its extreme. There is no gray area. Nor
for that matter, is there much light. We are constantly bombarded by a
morality that depicts the disgust, excess and perversion of evil, and left
to imagine that their absence is good. If we compare the renditions of
Heaven and Hell by the great middle ages painters and poets (e.g., Fra
Angelico or Dante), we see that the comparisons of Heaven and Hell
are inadequately drawn. By far the most sordid, but also detailed and
exhuberant "action" occurs in Hell. In contrast, the portrayal of Heaven
is invariably insipid, bland, flat and humorless. There is little life, and
certainly no action in these paintings full of stiff, expressionless
"Heavenly" figures.
We might also note that by far the majority of the medieval portrayal
of morality is also male dominated. The major players in the
iconography are men (particularly those doing violence). Of course, the
key political holders of authority in the medieval times, including those
who had the education to both portray and express the morality of the
time, were also men. It is reasonable to conclude that this medieval
morality fits neatly into the thesis that the doctrine underlying the
Batman is essentially male dominated, choosing a characteristic male
solution to interpersonal and individual problems: violence.
 Batman and Justice: The True Story . . . 309

Philosophers and historians concluded from this iconography that

the morality of the Judeao Christian era of that time was almost entirely
Manichean: that is, good could only be defined in terms of and in direct
and graphic reference to, evil (e.g., Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evi~
and in this century, Fanon's Wretched of the Earth). It was its mirror
without form, so to speak. The composition of this mirror seemed to
point to a way that was in fact inhuman: for it meant the repression of
lusL .
It is not surprising, therefore, that the drama of the medieval
frescoes was that of the constant and losing battle of good against evil.
Furthermore, it is not surprising that the demons of the netherworld
displayed traits that are all too human. It is as if man is fighting against
himself.
The fantastic characters in the Batman comics (and other similar
comics such as Dick Tracy and Superman) feed off the dualistic nature
of the Judeao-Christian ethic: the construction of the one is intricately
mirrored in the other. The devil after all was considered to be a fallen
Angel. He had the wiles and brilliance of a god, even the powers. The
difference is that these powers and brilliance are perverted into excess
and into destruction. In the great Christian tradition, evil is good
perverted.
We see this in the character of the Joker. Here is a brilliant person,
but his obsession is with the destruction of humanity, the perversion of
science (the 20th century equivalent to the sacred}, and above all the
obsession with ruining the trust between and among people. He is a
joker taken to the extreme (again, an excellent emulation of the
Christian ethic, copied from Aristotle - moderation as the golden rule,
excess as bad), a devilish smile etched savagely on his face. This is a
tragic, twisted figure.
The Joker is not just an idiot who can be ignored and easily
conquered by Batman. Rather, the Joker reflects the very same forces
and character structure (violence and excess) that drive the Batman. In
the 1989 movie, the Joker snarls at Batman, ''You created me," and the
Batman notes in reply that the Joker, by killing Bruce Wayne's parents,
had created him. The Batman therefore has to muster enormous power,
superhuman effort, in order to oven:ome his foe. This is why he is both
sexually superior (i.e. a greater abstainer, whereas the Joker is
surrounded by call-girl types}, and physically larger and powerful. The
duality of characters is a familiar theme in many great epics. The evil
310 Humanity & Society

villain in Star Wars was Luke's father, for example. This construction of
opposite forces which have yet one and the same source plays itself out
in the personalities of these characters. In addition it provides the raison
d'etre of Batman's double life, indulging in the manly pursuit of physical
prowess (body building to the extreme) and use of personal violence by
night, and pristine gentleman by day. This is almost a reproduction of
the medieval model of light and dark, "good" and "bad", except
through the guise of pursuing evil at night, Batman is able to work a
sleight of hand: he appears as "good" at night, even while he performs
those kinds of acts that would otherwise be forbidden by daytime
morality - the unmitigated use of personal violence. But why do his
acts of violence appear "good" to us? The reason is, to quote a well
known maxim, "the more things change the more they stay the same."
Things have changed. Religion no longer dominates everyday life as
it did in the middle ages. It has been replaced by science. The deep
struggle over morality continues, but on a secular foundation. Because
science showed little interest in the realm of morality until very recently,
the religious order presumed to underlie the intellectual message of the
middle ages has been replaced not by science, but by that destroyer of
morals: politics (see Macintyre 1984). In the Batman comic strips, we
are faced with the political drama of ·~ustice" against "injustice." And in
the 1991 movie Batman Returns this political ideology is forced into the
open: the liberal mayor is weak and indecisive, manipulated by an evil
capitalist. The capitalist in turn sells out the people of Gotham city to
the Penguin. And the fickle masses are all too ready to elect as their
mayor the Penguin, who is the epitomy of the bizarre, evil criminal.
This is a deeply conservative message: the moral weakness of liberalism
is eclipsed by the moral strength of evil. Liberalism can be saved only by
Batman's "good" violence. And the fickle masses who would vote an evil
criminal into power, must be saved from themselves: hence Batman's
violence is good twice over. But there is a deeper reason why Batman's
violence appears to us as so manifestly good and just.

THE SUPER HERO MYTH

We have so far considered the essential elements of Batman's
character structure and the emotional forces that provide him with the
power to overcome adversity. We have now to examine perhaps the key
to his life's mission, his causa sui so to speak, which derives from a
classical myth as old as Western Civilization. It is a seductive myth,
 Batman and justice: The True Story . . . 311

because it rests on a seemingly incontrovertible "fact" of injustice. And

when Batman transforms this myth into a personal mission, it becomes
an obsession which the audience cannot help but admire. ·
The obsession begins with an apocryphal event in which injustice
shatters his life. In an early Batman comic, we see this event: Bruce
Wayne (a privileged child, born into a well-to-do-family), when he is but
9 years old, sees his parents robbed and murdered before his eyes. How
can the immanent injustice of this violent act fail to imprint itself on the
boy's mind forever? Indeed, it does, and at the same time it personalizes
the concept of injustice. The overwhelming personal tragedy and
evident injustice of the event produces a seemingly logical result: justice
comes to be defined as the pursuit and destruction of the individual
who perpetrated this terrible act on his parents. Yet there is an even
more insidious twist to this solution to the "definition" of justice. It is
extended by Bruce Wayne, when he has built his body up to
superhuman proportions, and strengthened his resolve, to mean the
pursuit of all those who perform these acts of violence on defenseless
individuals. As the young Bruce, kneeling at his bedside as though
saying a prayer, states:
And I swear by the spirits of my parents to avenge their deaths
by spending the rest of my life warring on all criminals.
Thus it is no longer a personal act of one piece of violence for
another, but rather a crusade having its origins in a personally Iife-
shattering event. The basic elements of this injustice myth can be found
in the traditional stories of many cultures. They are emulated in the
stories of Jesse James, (whose mother was mercilessly beaten by Yankee
soldiers), Moses, The Lone Ranger, Anneas and many more.
A significant implication of this historic and mythic way of dealing
with wrongs is that it is self perpetuating, as students of vengeance
cultures all over the world have discovered (Marongiu and Newman
1985). It will be noted that the Joker, in the 1989 movie spends the
entire movie trying to "get even" (driven by vengeance that is) with
Batman for having pushed him into a vat of acid. And in the 1991
movie, the Penguin goes beyond the Joker, for he seeks not only to get
even with Batman, but with all manJdnd by planning to kill all the first
born. The parallel with biblical stories is surely not coincidence, nor is
the opening scene where the Penguin, as a baby, is disposed of by his
parents, in a river. His crib floats out of sight - a scene copied too well,
312 Humanity & Society

from the scenes of the movie The Bible when Moses floats away into the
bull rushes, destined to become a great leader. It is the apocryphal story
of the Penguin's rejection by his parents that drives his character,
eventually taking him beyond politics. He does not seek power for its
own sake (as does Max, the greedy capitalist in the movie), but rather as
a means to satisfy his obsession: to avenge his having been discarded by
his parents. Thus, because both Batman and the Penguin are driven by
their own deeply cultural (as opposed to personal) obsessions, there can
be no holds barred.

BATMAN AND JUSTICE: THE TRUE STORY

One can see, therefore, the excesses to which the Batman inevitably
moves in order to satisfy his desire - no, lust - for justice. This is what
forms the basis of his obsession. His pursuit of justice is as much
intellectual as it is physical. In fact, by the time we reach the 1980s, his
pursuit has become more symbolic than substantive. That is to say, it is
enough for his shadow to be cast over the path of a fleeing criminal, to
fill the criminal's heart with fear. It is possibly also for this reason that in
the 1980s comic books, especially The Dark Knight Returns, much of the
fight against and for crime is conducted through the media, political
speeches by city officials, talk show programs etc. The war has become,
one sees, not only one of physical violence of one person against
another (which before this time was the central focus of the war, with
the implication that the strongest physically would win), to a
propaganda war, a war of ideologies. Here it has become apparent that
the physically strongest would not necessarily win the battle of good and
evil. In fact, it would appear that the battle in this "new" comic forum
has begun to repeat the battle that was fought throughout Europe
during the "dark ages" of the inquisition: a battle of words and
propaganda, seen as a battle over the very minds and spirits of people.
We find also a definite development in the cultural or social
circumstances in which Batman operates. In the 1950s comics, Gotham
City is portrayed as an exciting vibrant place. Sure, there's crime to be
fought, but there are interesting people to be seen, shows to see, great
buildings all around, everything functioning smoothly - except the
pursuit of criminals. Though at first Batman was not immediately
accepted by the law enforcement establishment of Gotham City, this was
only a passing idea in the early Batman comics. The law enforcement
authority took from him as its due, the beaten up criminals he caught.
 &tman andjustice: The True Story... 313

We must also remember that in those days, criminals did not have to be
read their rights, there was no "Miranda." It may well be, therefore, that
the way Batman went about rounding up criminals was, with some
exaggeration, not drastically different from what the police did
themselves in those days, especially in big cities.
In recent publications, and to a much lesser extent in the 1989 and
1991 movies, the contrast between the way Batman carries out his law
enforcement and that of the authorities is vastly different. The use of
violence is officially eschewed by the law enforcement authorities. Yet it
is abundantly clear that because of this (so the propaganda of the comic
suggests), the criminals are getting the upper hand. It is only because
Batman uses violence that they are almost kept under control. If it
weren't for his superhuman efforts the city would dissolve into chaos. In
fact, the Dark Knight and both movies clearly portray Gotham City as
well on the way to decay and destruction. The backdrops in the movies
are full of large ugly and obtrusive factory-like constructions which
belch forth steam, drip water and leak oil. Many of the scenes are
reminiscent of scenes of the movie "Escape from New York." Buildings
are in an advanced state of decay. Furthermore, the social fabric of the
city is in disarray. Corruption of government officials is rife, whereas
this is rarely mentioned in the early Batman comics.
In Gotham City of the 1980s, because of infighting and bickering,
and a decided lack of clarity on the distinctions between good and evil,
there is a vacuum of action filled by a wealth of ideology. Batman fills
this vacuum, with mixed reception. In fact, it becomes apparent towards
the end of The Dark Knight Returns, that he has become an
embarrassment to the officials of the decaying city. Superman himself
ends up having to put Batman down. In fact he kills him in a super
contest of muscle.
As an aside, we might note that Superman has no real ideological
axe to grind except to trot out the empty platitudes of "The American
Way" which a close study of his career would show turns out to be an
unquestioning acceptance of whatever the authorities said they wanted.
This is because he is an alien raised in the American Way -the myth of
the pure rural life - who has no personal axe to grind. Superman's
total lack of criticism of the authorities (i.e. the State) makes him
potentially far more politically dangerous than Batman. In contrast,
Batman's mission is a serious personal mission, driven by the force of a
314 Humanity & Society

life shattering event, subsequently multiplied into a cultural force

greater than himself: the force of vengeance. It is to be expected,
therefore, that an individual driven by a personal mission will sooner or
later come into conflict with the State which has interests that transcend
Batman.
However the revisionist view of Batman shows him losing, not so
much because of his failing physical ability, but because he does not
understand the new justice of the late 20th century. He cannot
understand it when the new police commissioner (a woman, by the way)
puts out a warrant for his arrest for endangering the morals of a minor
(taking in Robin), or for beating up on hoodlums without reading them
their rights. In this respect, the revisionists have faithfully reproduced
the confusion of the late 20th century, for it is clear that it would not be
good for society if the hoodlums won. One yearns for the black-and-
white morality of justice of the 1950s Batman. After all is said and done:
Do we really want the Batman to lose?
In the The Dam Knight Returns Gotham city is inhabited by night, and
eventually by day, by cretinized monster type hoodlums. It takes little
effort to see that these hoodlums represent that age-old scare to the
liberals and conservatives of society alike: the dangerous classes who, if
they get half a chance will run amok and turn social order into chaos
(by this is meant an order established and maintained by physical
violence). The violence of Batman's battles with these crooks is
portrayed far more graphically than any found in the traditional
Batman comics. In this world dominated by physicial violence, we are
forced to choose between the cretinized mutant mob (whose violence is
portrayed as disgusting) and the physically beautiful and pristine
Batman (whose violence is unmistakably heroic).
It seems, though, that no one is left on the Batman's side. And the
hoodlums start to overrun the place.The city officials seem oblivious to
the consequences of their decisions, guided by law, to take a position
against Batman's crusade, and in fact to treat him as a criminal also. For
by opposing Batman, they must.also lose their battle against crime (and
the decay of the city generally). Huge battles of words rage all around
the Batman, who appears equally oblivious to the problems of law he
causes.
 &tman and justice: The True Story... 315

It is of particular interest that the 1989 movie was said to be based

on the revisionist comics of Miller et al. This is only slightly true. It is
true that in some parts of the script, it is suggested that Batman is a
vigilante, or "not normal." But the resolution of the plot at the end of
the movie is almost identical to that developed in the 1940s strips. In
the first few strips, the city officials were concerned that Batman was
"taking the law into his own hands." But when it became apparent that
he was "on their side" (i.e. going after the traditional crooks of street
crime, delivering them into the hands of the police commissioner,
doing a traditional public policing job, so to speak), his law
enforcement activities were accepted with thanks. The 1989 movie
shows the same sequence of events when it finishes with the showing of
the bat signal. The message is that Law Enforcement may call on
Batman at any time to do violence to criminals which the established
law enforcement machinery seems unable to carry out.
However, in the revisionist comic, by opposing the violence of
Batman, the city officials are made to look like "responsible" (and
liberal!) officials. At the same time the hoodlums threaten to overrun
Gotham city, and if they don't, the Joker will take over. The odds are
greatly stacked against the city officials. Batman is the only way out. We
can see that this is a more sophisticated version of the same ploy for the
justification of violence in the older orthodox comics: the reasons for
employing violence against hoodlums far outweigh the disadvantages of
not using it (i.e. the hoodlums will win, and it's only the hoodlums'
rights that are being tread upon anyway). In any event, it is clear from
this entire genre of super hero media, that the use of violence in the
pursuit of crooks is widely justified. Perhaps this is one reason why the
jury of ordinary people found it difficult to pronounce the police in the
Rodney King trial, guilty of using excessive force.

CONCLUSIONS
Is Batman's character pathological? A number of the popular media
assessments of the 1989 movie have made this judgment on the basis of
his singleminded obsession with vengeance. But it would be a mistake to
shrug off his character as an individual aberration, when it is hopefully
apparent from the paper so far, that his character has been produced by
Western Culture. In this sense Batm·an's behavior is only as pathological
as is our culture (See for example, Becker 1973).
316 Humanity & Society

We have seen that the raw cultural forces that underlie Batman's
behavior have not changed. The driven, obsessive pursuit of evil by
Batman takes the form of an all consuming passion. We find that this
driven nature of Batman fits nicely with the lust filled imagery of the Bat
and his evil images of ages gone by. We are dealing here with forces
dark, powerful, tempting. These are forces at once very human, yet
forces that render humans powerless in their wake. They are forces that
transcend Batman's own personality.
But the transformation of these forces into intellectual messages has
changed. The terrible scene of Bruce Wayne's parents being robbed
and murdered, a dreadfully violent scene, is transformed into a
demonstration of injustice, incontrovertible, absolute. This one
apocryphal event in Wayne's life is incorporated into a neurotic (that is,
obsessive preoccupation) and passionate quest for justice so-called. Yet
it is abundantly clear that the Batman uses the same methods -
violence - as his enemies. In his case, though, lust and violence are
sanitized into good.
These observations might be the subject of mere titillation, if it were
not for the matter that they offer insights into a process that forms the
very basis of culture, and have become most certainly in this century the
forces that capture and control the consciousness of masses of people
(Real 1989). The myth of justice along with its blanket justification for
violence and lust, has been commercialized. It is shown in its raw and
unrestrained form in the comics and the movies. In this sense it is very
similar to pornography. The media provide the raw details of ·~ustice"
- the violence, the lust, the revenge - without the complex details of
the relationship between the protagonists, or an examination of the
larger issues of justice in society. At least the revisionist comics by Frank
Miller have done much to destroy this myth: by making Batman get old,
and by providing a clearly political context in which Batman operates.
By the end of the Dark Knight Returns, it is apparent that Batman has
become a kind of vigilante, an embarrassment to law enforcement.
However, the readership of the new series is probably not a mass
audience, but more likely composed of a small cult of comic collectors
and devotees. As was noted previously, the 1989 movie stripped away
most of the nuances of the revisionist view of Batman in order to extend
its appeal to as wide an audience as possible.
 &tman and Justice: The True Story . . . 317

Certainly, the "liberal" view of justice as portrayed by these

revisionist comics brings with it its own problems, not the least of which
is the seeming inadequacy of established social institutions to deal with
social problems (i.e. the dangerous classes), and the necessity, almost by
default, to fall back upon the violence of policing which it must
officially deny. This unfortunate ideological contradiction in which the
liberal establishment is caught, must sooner or later (if not already,
given the riots in Los Angeles as a result of the not guilty verdict in the
Rodney King trial) lead to a deep distrust and disillusionment with
established liberal institutions.
Today, violence occurs in the movies and comics in the form of
individualized justice (vengeance). Like pornography, it may be that the
portrayal of violent justice inflames the passion for more. But, in the
recent revisionist comics its single clarity of purpose is no longer
brought home: it is caught up in a complex web of ideology. We yearn
for the clarity of purpose displayed by the 1950s comics. The media of
movies and comic books is engaged in a battle for the minds of the
viewers, though it is no longer clear what the battle is being fought
about. We should note, however, that it can only succeed in imprinting
its message if there is a demand for its products. In this case, it· is
apparent that it is bound to succeed because of the very fact that it does
tap into profound and deep cultural archetypes of Western Culture of
the kind described in this paper. Since the commercial message of the
mass media is largely driven by what people will tune into, and what
advertisers will pay for, we should perhaps direct future research to
these areas.
Finally, the powerful imagery of violence that underlies justice
informs us that, should we wish to reform criminal justice, we should
direct our attention to the passionate forces that underlie the demand
for justice. Perhaps reformers would do better to enter into the struggle
to gain control of the minds of the masses, viewing, as Wilkins has been
advocating for some time, the general public as consumers of justice
(Wilkins 1985). Its packaging may be the major factor in driving (and
perverting) the criminal justice system.
318 Humanity & Society

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