Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight (Wiley Psychology & Pop Culture)

by Langley, Travis

  More than 16 years after Jason’s published death, he would return from the dead as an antihero and enemy (see Case File 10–1: Red Hood).

  Tim Drake

  In light of Jason Todd’s reader-dictated demise, writer Marv Wolfman returned to elements that had worked when Gerry Conway introduced the original Jason: He went to the circus. Preschooler Tim Drake witnesses the Flying Graysons’ deaths, an event that gives him nightmares for years. Upon later realizing that Dick Grayson has become Robin, Tim deduces Batman’s identity and extrapolates from there. Years pass. Jason Todd dies. Batman fights on without Robin but is now harder, more violent, wearier, and less careful, injuring himself more frequently than before. Thirteen-year-old Tim tries to convince Dick Grayson that Batman needs Grayson to become Robin again, but instead himself becomes the third Robin. The first time Bruce meets Tim, as had also been the case with Jason #1, Tim’s in a Robin costume.35

  Like Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl, Tim initially dons cape and mask not because of any personal tragedy, not out of any need for vengeance, but because he has skills and putting them to use helping others seems like the right thing to do. Tim wants to become the world’s greatest detective. For Tim and Barbara, crime-fighting starts out as a form of altruism, unselfishly helping others despite risk and cost to oneself. Tim is smart and friendly, a good partner who takes orders well, a strong leader for the new class of Teen Titans, and in the real world a popular character. “Dick Grayson was always so perfect in every way,” said comic book writer Chuck Dixon, “and of course Jason Todd was too imperfect. Tim Drake is sort of in the middle. I feel like he’s a real teenager.”36

  Figures in Tim’s life keep dying37 because that’s how superhero comic books work (with some coming back from the dead because that’s also how comic books work).38 Instead of playing Robin at Dick Grayson’s side while others believe Bruce is dead, Tim takes the name Red Robin and quests for proof that Bruce lives,39 and then continues under the new name following his adoptive father’s return. After Tim, there would be no more trips to the circus to shop for new sidekicks. Future Robins would, like Jason #2, come from the children of criminals.

  Stephanie Brown

  The daughter of a lesser known Bat-foe called the Cluemaster, high-schooler Stephanie Brown dons a purple costume as the Spoiler to “spoil” her father’s crimes.40 With some training from Batman, she continues fighting evil. Tim Drake becomes her sometimes-boyfriend before she finds herself pregnant from a prior relationship.41 The ex-boyfriend having left Gotham after a cataclysmic earthquake wrecked the city, Stephanie goes ahead with the pregnancy without him. Tim helps, providing support and coaching her in Lamaze classes. In the end, she gives the child up for adoption.42 Through Stephanie, the Robin series addressed teenage pregnancy and adoption sensitively and somewhat realistically while also stirring controversy for covering them at all. That controversy, however, paled in comparison to the maelstrom over Stephanie’s death.

  When Tim Drake’s father orders him to quit being Robin, Stephanie insists on taking up the Robin mantle. Though wary, having previously deemed her too reckless and unskilled to fight crime, Batman briefly makes her his first Girl Wonder, only to fire her for disobeying him in two missions.43 Unlike the Boys Wonder, all created to suit that narrative need for Batman to have a partner he can talk to, Stephanie became Robin to serve a different storytelling function: to give her upcoming death more impact. Having already decided to kill her off soon, the creative team first made her a Robin for three issues.44 In the chaos of a citywide gang war, the Black Mask tortures Stephanie, trying to extract information about Batman, but she escapes. Before succumbing to those injuries, Stephanie in her hospital bed asks Bruce, “Was I ever really Robin?” Despite having evaded Alfred’s accusation that he’d let her play Robin only as a ruse to manipulate Tim Drake, Batman assures her, “Of course you were,” and soon she dies.45

  Ah, but Stephanie’s wounds had not been severe enough to kill her, after all! When Batman tries to determine why Stephanie died, Bruce Wayne’s maternal figure Dr. Leslie Thompkins claims to have killed the girl by purposely withholding medical treatment that would have kept her alive, sacrificing Stephanie’s life supposedly to teach Batman to stop involving children in his war on crime.46 Fans howled because murder was wholly out of character for benevolent-as-Mother-Teresa, loving humanitarian Leslie Thompkins. By establishing that Stephanie should have survived, though, that story inadvertently set things up for her return under another writer. Chuck Dixon brought Stephanie back by staying true to the characters’ personalities: As it turns out, Leslie has actually made a supreme act of altruism by giving up her medical practice, her reputation, her worldly possessions, and the life she had in Gotham in order to fake Stephanie’s death and help the girl escape the chaos. Leslie heads to Africa, where she and Stephanie help the needy.47 Only after Stephanie returns to fight Gotham’s crime again does Leslie come home.

  Why would a criminal’s child become a crime-fighter in the first place?

  At its most basic, Stephanie does so as her own teenage rebellion: She fights crime to fight her father. Teens rebel for many reasons, not the least of which is to say, “I’m not you.” Individuality consists of two dimensions: self-assertion, the ability to have and express a point of view; and separateness, perception and expression of how that person is different from others.48 Even as the maturing adolescent needs individuality, he or she still needs to feel connected to others. By assuming her Spoiler identity, Stephanie names herself for her efforts to spoil the Cluemaster’s crimes, conveying both distinctiveness from and yet connectedness to her criminal father. She becomes Spoiler out of anger. Between his long incarcerations and time spent planning and committing robberies, his Cluemaster activities have directly kept him from being there for her as a father. Where other youths might commit crimes as their way of acting out, Stephanie acts out by stopping them. Along the way, though, she discovers that she enjoys being a hero, and heroism becomes part of her blooming personality. Of course, she’s also defying her other parent by running off on these adventures without her mother’s knowledge, much less her permission.a Some might consider Stephanie’s early sexual activity and resultant pregnancy49 to be a form of acting out too. Teens whose fathers have been absent exhibit higher pregnancy rates.50 Even though Stephanie becomes Batgirl instead of Spoiler for a while, her final act as Batgirl before Barbara Gordon resumes the role51 is to spoil her father’s criminal activity one more time.52

  Damian Wayne

  Ra’s al Ghul marries the Caped Crusader to al Ghul’s daughter Talia al Ghul—without our hero’s consent but within the law of that unnamed land.53 The graphic novel Son of the Demon left readers fascinated by the possibility that somewhere out in the world, Bruce might have a son from that marriage. In that story, his pregnant bride Talia grows to fear that Batman’s overprotective manner makes him vulnerable and will surely get him killed, so she tells him she has miscarried, they agree to end the marriage, and he goes home. Later, however, she gives birth to their son, whom she gives up for adoption.

  In 2006, author Grant Morrison reintroduced the child as an eight-year-old boy, Damian. Talia presents Damian to Bruce to distract Batman from interfering with a kidnapping plot she has in the works.54 Damian has spent his short life alternately spoiled like a young prince and rigidly disciplined by assassins training him. Whether Bruce really is the father and, for that matter, whether Talia really is the mother goes unconfirmed. For all we readers know, Damian is really her nephew or little brother. Her own father Ra’s might not know the truth. Bruce tells Tim he knows Damian’s parentage and yet does not tell Tim what that means. “Tim, I know the kid’s very tough to be around,” Bruce explains. “He was raised by international terrorists in his grandfather’s League of Assassins. Brutalized, indoctrinated, then used as a weapon in his mother’s insane war on me. If he is my son—even if he is not—he deserves some love and respect.”55

  Damian
is a deadly little boy. He kills—in fact, beheads—a criminal called the Spook and nearly kills Tim because that’s how they did things in the League of Assassins. Damian tells Tim that “we showed our enemies no mercy. Now that I’m here, he doesn’t need a surrogate. We killed anyone who got in our way.” More than any other Robin, Damian is too dangerous to leave unguided. During a period when people think Bruce is dead, Dick becomes Batman, 10-year-old Damian becomes Robin, and roles get reversed, with a more upbeat Batman leading a dark little Robin. Loath as Damian is to admit any weakness, he pines for his father’s attention. When Bruce at last returns to Gotham, the time comes for Batman and son to fight crime together, with Batman in the position of needing to temper both himself and this newest Robin.56

  Crime-Fighting Value

  A superhero could use a partner for the same reasons a police officer does. The partner has your back. Working with a partner, you can watch multiple exits, improve the odds against multiple foes or outnumber a criminal who works alone, and be in more than one location at the same time. One can aid the other as a lookout or scout. The senior partner learns by teaching, reinforcing his own strengths and maybe coming to understand his abilities better through the process of articulating them to someone else. The junior partner provides different knowledge, additional skills, an alternate point of view, a sounding board to help the senior think, and someone to complete the job’s more menial duties. Having an apprentice benefits the master, as it has throughout the ages. The child sidekick could fit through smaller spaces, infiltrate groups a grown man could not, and play roles like the newsboy hawking papers right under hoodlums’ noses. With a child, the duo’s division of authority and responsibilities is clear.

  The young partner offers the promise that the hero might create a long-term crime-fighting legacy. The master initiates the apprentice into the trade. Cusp-of-adolescence initiation rites promote identity foreclosure, forming a lifetime commitment before one is old enough to analyze the choice. The apprentice will carry on the work with the expectation that one day the apprentice will succeed the master.

  Personal Value

  Working with others can make Batman more cautious, more conscious of the big picture and what’s going on outside his personal space. It keeps him sharp because he has someone else to watch out for and to fit into that big picture. Batman gets injured less often when he has a Robin. For a hero who expects never to settle down and raise a family, taking on a sidekick helps fulfill any paternal needs he might nevertheless feel.

  Pederasty?

  Despite Fredric Wertham’s serious assertion that Batman and Robin’s lifestyle is a homosexual fantasy and popular (usually not serious) speculations about homosexual or pedophilic subtext, the creators intended nothing of the sort. Kane considered Wertham perverted for even thinking such a thing (see Case File 10–2: Dr. Fredric Wertham).

  Wish Fulfillment

  Vicariously Batman can experience wish fulfillment by letting the boy experience things Bruce had only wished for, starting with closure. He helps the boy get the justice young Bruce didn’t. In their first adventure, the original Dynamic Duo take down the gangster who had Dick’s parents killed. Beyond that, Batman gives each Robin the mentor he himself didn’t have and a father figure who’s not on the payroll. With them all, he endeavors to provide mentorship of a kind Alfred couldn’t give and let them enjoy their youth more than he ever did.

  Identification

  Robins look like Bruce. Specifically, they look like young, newly orphaned Bruce Wayne.b

  Identification reminds Bruce why he does this: to keep others from suffering what he once suffered. He goes out to serve the kid he once was. Identification provides a connection to his inner child—before his parents died, when they died, and afterward. When Tim Drake first shows up at Wayne Manor, trying to convince Dick to become Robin again, Tim says, “Dick, don’t you see—he needs Robin. He needs him to remember what he used to be. Before his parents died.”

  The first time Batman meets Richard Grayson and the boy wants to join him in fighting crime, Batman “thinks back to the time when his parents, too, were innocent victims of a criminal.” His identification with this boy gives him a connection to the murders themselves. He relies on reminders like that. Dick reminds Bruce of his own eight-year-old self, whereas the other Robins often remind Bruce of Dick Grayson. Dick, as the oldest son, doesn’t have to live up to anyone else’s example. The younger brothers all feel like they’re expected to live up to his.

  Growing Up Robin

  Birth Order

  One of psychotherapist Alfred Adler’s enduring contributions to psychology is the notion that order of birth exerts powerful influence over social and personality development. Although empirical research varies in the degree to which it supports Adler’s specific details, he nevertheless understood birth order enough that he could regularly amaze party guests by guessing their birth order based on their behavior. Birth order, while not mandating one’s entire identity, exerts some influence.57 To what degree it shapes personality, psychologists endlessly debate.58

  Every Robin lives his or her earliest years, like Bruce himself, as an only child with no siblings. An only child, spending more time in the company of adults than would a kid with siblings, often matures earlier and manifests more adult attitudes and actions, except that the only child doesn’t learn as well to share or compete. Accustomed to being the center of parental attention, depending on the quality and quantity of that attention, only children may find themselves disappointed in areas of life outside the home unless their skills happen to be particularly outstanding.

  A first-born child faces dethronement, the loss of that special position from having been the only child. Parental attention and affection now get divided. Age diminishes this effect. The older the first-born is when the second comes along, the less he or she feels dethroned. A wide gap in age lets the first-born retain the sense of being the number-one child. Dick Grayson is grown before any other Robins come along. In fact, it is he who originally introduces both Jason Todd (pre-Crisis) and Tim Drake as his successors. Every Robin experiences dethronement by merit of having been the birth family’s only child who becomes instead part of the Bat-Family, in which only Dick gets to be the first-born.

  The second-born child whose arrival caused such upheaval for the first-born always has that first-born as an example to follow or fight. Seeing the older sibling as a role model, as competition, or even as a threat tends to make the second-born the most competitive child in the family, trying to avoid feeling eclipsed by the elder. This need to compete can be crushed, however, by an older sibling who excels even compared to peers. Jason Todd, the second-born Robin, feels daunted by Dick Grayson’s stellar example. When Jason’s murder goes unavenged, he has to wonder (after his resurrection, of course) if Bruce would have avenged Dick. Jason doesn’t give Tim Drake much thought. He gives Dick plenty.

  Even researchers who consider birth order important recognize that birth order effects become harder to predict as the family continues to grow. Dynamics within the family become more and more complicated. When Jason returns to Gotham, he discovers he has been replaced by Tim, effectively making Jason the middle son. The middle-born child who lacks “special” status as either the eldest or the youngest can feel like “the neglected birth order.”59 While Jason carves out his new niche as the black sheep of the family, he nevertheless shows characteristics some researchers have observed among the middle-born: more jealousy, less healthy self-esteem, less inclination to help family, and less affiliation with family in general.60 With violent antihero Jason estranged from Batman, Tim becomes the middle son (among those still welcome in the Batcave) once Damian enters the picture, and as soon as Dick and Damian start spending time together, Tim becomes Red Robin and strikes off on his own.

  The youngest or last-born child may be more mature than peers because of time spent with older siblings and their friends or less mature if babied by the family.
No one gets pampered in the Bat-Family. Tim Drake briefly loses his position as the youngest child during Stephanie Brown’s short stint as Robin and permanently when Damian arrives, compounding the difficulties an adoptive child faces when a child who is blood kin comes along. Even before Damian becomes a Robin, his apparent status as Bruce’s biological son changes Tim’s status. Damian, who wants to be seen as the only child, feels insecure about that, resents the others, and doesn’t want to share with them. Tim, as the non-biological son, may feel usurped by this newcomer. When an older child is adoptive, the younger one often feels he or she should be seen as the most worthy, even teasing the elder with “I’m their real child, not you” to compensate for feelings that the adoptive child has been chosen, directly selected based on his or her own circumstances and qualities to become that parent’s child, whereas the biological child has not. When Tim asks why Damian acts like “such a jerk,” the boy tells him, “Because you don’t deserve any of this. You’re adopted! But when you’re gone, I’ll take my rightful place at my father’s side—as Batman’s son! I’ll inherit everything.” Throughout history, many later-born princes have seen older brothers as obstacles to the throne.