Once Talia al Ghul introduces Batman to the son she says is theirs, things change.
Talia al Ghul and Catwoman Selina Kyle each become mothers. Bruce may have fathered either, both, or neither of these of their children. No internal monologue on the mothers’ parts at the time confirms that either believes her own paternity claim, that Bruce fathered Talia’s child or that he didn’t sire Selina’s, nor does DNA testing (not that such tests or DNA markers themselves can’t be faked in the DC Universe). This might explain Bruce’s strangely distant manner with Damian and how uninvolved he is for a long time, entrusting Damian to the care of Dick and Alfred. Dick becomes Batman for a time with Damian as his Robin. Bruce doesn’t take a more active role in Damian’s life until he resumes his place as Gotham City’s Batman.32 Nevertheless, he accepts Damian as a son and goes along with Selina’s claim that someone else fathered her daughter Helena. After enemies’ attacks repeatedly endanger her little girl, he helps Selina find adoptive parents to take in Helena, now toddling about and starting to talk.33
Batman starts acting middle-aged. After a period through which everyone but Tim initially thinks he’s dead, he returns reinvigorated. He accepts his sons in the new roles they’ve assumed, and instead of getting in their way immediately, he decides to build something new: Batman, Inc., an international alliance of many Batmen. How well he manages that, given his spotty history of leading teams, is another issue.
“It’s because of the Batman that the city has the protectors it needs, I know, but I also realize that Dick, Tim and Barbara and all their friends have done more together to secure our home than I ever could have on my own. This became a journey of self-identity, secret or otherwise, and my time away has helped me see everything through new eyes. The web that binds crime and justice, truth and lies, fear and hope is too strong for one man to unravel its threads. Now, more than ever, I’m prepared to accept help in expanding and accomplishing my mission. Now, more than ever, I’m prepared to cast the Shadow of the Bat across the entire globe.
—Batman’s journal entry in epilogue, Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Ra’s al Ghul (2010)
The midlife crisis, some individuals’ period of self-doubt, emotional turmoil, radical reexamination, and sudden transformation in their lives,34 does not happen to most people, and differs from the psychosocial crisis of middle adulthood described by Erik Erikson: Generativity vs. Stagnation.35 A midlife crisis drives the older Batman in Frank Miller’s alternate future story, The Dark Knight Returns, back into his cape and cowl, but the Batman in mainstream canon starts showing generative concerns without first suffering any depressive episode. Generativity encompasses adults’ desire to leave a lasting legacy of themselves. Beyond the ticking of the biological clock, the generative individual thinks broadly in terms of what he or she is contributing to the next generation, and commits to the continuation and improvement of the world that upcoming generation will inhabit.36 Generative adults take an interest in guiding younger adults. By contrast, those in a state of psychological stagnation (a.k.a. self-absorption) dwell on their own self-interests, unconcerned about any lasting legacy for others in the future. Stagnation sets the stage for a classic midlife crisis. The Dark Knight Returns, despite its reputation as a cynical, nihilistic piece, actually presents an optimistic forecast, progressing Bruce Wayne from utter stagnation at the story’s start to generativity both personal and global by the end. Faking death to leave his old life behind and stop inspiring old enemies (and old friends) to make new trouble, he leads new Robin Carrie Kelley, Green Arrow, and other followers into caverns where they will train, study, and build a do-gooder army he hopes might one day bring sense to a world plagued by “worse than thieves and murderers.” He decides this will be a “good life—good enough.”
“For me that was a hopeful ending. He’s looking forward to his next adventures after realizing that the methods of the past are no longer appropriate. The book starts with Bruce Wayne contemplating suicide; at the end he’s found a reason to live. He’s adjusted to the times.”
—Frank Miller, author of The Dark Knight Returns37
As table 12.1 shows, Erikson identified one final psychosocial stage for later adulthood, Ego Integrity vs. Despair, when people reflect on the lives they’ve lived and the time they have left, piecing together a positive or negative review of themselves. They ask themselves, “Have I lived a full life?” Retrospective glances back at their lives that yield healthy (not narcissistic) self-appreciation, ego integrity, convey assurance of personal proclivity and value with an acceptance of life’s mistakes as necessary steps along the way. Those who evaluate themselves harshly, seeing their lives as unproductive, berate themselves for failing to meet goals. In their despair, they become dissatisfied with life, often leading to depression and hopelessness.38 Because readers want to read the adventures of a healthy, hale Batman, DC periodically shaves years off his age, so we’ll never see the mainstream Batman officially enter this stage. Stories set in Batman’s future present many different possibilities. The animated series Batman Beyond reveals a disgruntled Bruce Wayne. Finally retiring after a heart attack renders him unable to fight, this Bruce severs ties with the Justice League, forbids other Bat-heroes from assuming their costumed alter egos, and shutters the Batcave, vowing, “Never again.” This Bruce Wayne, a recluse living in bitter isolation, stews in his despair. Most old-Batman tales, however, depict him still thinking about generative concerns. Having spent so many years braced for the possibility that his war on crime might get him killed,39 he never prepares himself to start thinking like an old man. In Kingdom Come, he’s the most prominent older hero, protecting Gotham with crime-fighting robots and moving about in a powerful exo-suit that helps him deny the limits of age. He criticizes Superman for clinging to outdated ideals instead of keeping up with the times, and ends that story warmheartedly teasing his ageless friends from Krypton and Paradise Island with his observation, before they can tell him themselves, that they’re already working on the future generation by having a child on the way.
TABLE 12.1. ERIKSON’S STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT CONCLUDED: ADULTHOOD
Some tales of possible futures depict former Robins, a Batsuit thief, and others succeeding Bruce in the cape and cowl, but in the present, no one can replace him for long. Batman keeps getting new sidekicks because each Robin grows up, each boy becomes a man. Each can leave the Robin identity behind as a hand-me-down for someone younger to wear because Robin is a kid. Batman is a man, and that man is Bruce Wayne.
CASE FILE 12–1 Ra’s al Ghul
Real name: If he has a name earlier than Ra’s al Ghul (translated in the comics as “The Demon’s Head”), we don’t know it for certain. Pronounced “razz” and “rahz” in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises; “raysh” in Batman: The Animated Series and by creator Dennis O’Neil.
First appearance: Batman #232 (June, 1971)
Origin: Born in a tribe of Arabian desert nomads centuries before he first encounters Batman, scientist Ra’s al Ghul discovers the Lazarus Pits with their ability to heal wounds and regenerate those at death’s door.1 He travels the world, fights wars, learns combat techniques, expands his scientific knowledge, and amasses vast wealth and power. The international criminal cartel he creates known as The Demon includes the mysterious League of Assassins2 (Batman Begins’ League of Shadows).
“Everything I have done, I do for the greater good.”
—Ra’s al Ghul in Batman: Death and the Maidens (2004)
Whether he’s 450 or 7003 varies depending on who writes the story. Creator Denny O’Neil depicts him as 450–500,4 with Ra’s himself saying he’s lived so long, he lost track during the Black Plague. During his centuries, he sees generations of people come and go, civilizations rise and fall, while the planet spins on. Earth itself becomes his only lasting companion. He comes to see himself as a physician who must tend to his patient, the natural world, and a warrior who fights for its sake. The human race, he sees as a
collective body with some parts better, more useful than others and many members as malignant cells that need to be cut out. Ra’s sees Batman’s refusal to kill and his efforts to save any life as shortsighted defense of the species’ cancers. A ruthless environmentalist, Ra’s al Ghul would eradicate billions to give the planet a good cleansing. “When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural.”5
“We know tricks—small cracks in science and nature through which we have learned to slip—that rejuvenate our bodies and minds. But no mortal can count himself worthy of infinite life without a greater goal sustaining his soul.”
—Ra’s al Ghul in Year One: Batman/Ra’s al Ghul (2006)
As science extends life span, improving both the quantity and quality of the years we might live, new patterns of later life emerge. Genetic engineering, biomedical rejuvenation, and nanotechnology could conceivably lengthen human life to the point that no current perspective on aging will apply.6 In his own later years, psychologist Erik Erikson acknowledged that his eight-stage theory of psychosocial development could use the addition of a ninth for extreme old age, as the average life span had lengthened enough during his time to open up new avenues for investigation. His widow and regular collaborator, Joan Erikson, fleshed out his notes to speculate on this unnamed ninth stage in an expanded edition of his book The Life Cycle Completed.7 In their eighties and nineties, elders commonly struggle with their losses of independence, abilities both physical and mental, and significant people from their lives. Even those in the best health know that death approaches. Individuals with great trust and hope see continued purpose to their lives and face this stage by seeking enlightenment. Despair figures prominently in the stage’s unsuccessful path, a different kind of despair from that of the preceding Integrity vs. Despair crisis, one focused on losses and fear of death’s finality. Some developmental psychologists have called this stage Immortality vs. Extinction.8 Once past the average age of death, the eldest of the elders have outlived the majority of people they’ve ever known. Looking outside mortal life for meaning, those who achieve a sense of immortality enjoy the life they have and do not spend their days terrified about their upcoming demise because they see that they personally will continue to exist and matter beyond death. They expect continued existence by living on through their children, contributions they’ve made to their community, lessons they’ve taught other people, physical markers like a monument in a city park, the chain of nature (decomposing body joins the earth and nourishes new life), supernatural presence as a ghost or psychic residue, or unearthly afterlife. Those on the extinction side enjoy no such solace. They despair that they will simply cease to exist in every way, that they might as well never have lived.
Ra’s ages and rejuvenates himself so many times. Where another person outliving eras might grow indifferent to anyone or anything outside himself, inoculated by the centuries to grief or any concern for all those mortals who blink by as scenery, Ra’s al Ghul casts his gaze across the world and its history. He sees beauty. He’s oddly hopeful that his efforts, pitiless as they may be toward individuals caught in his path, can ultimately secure the world’s future, and from the first time Talia tells him about her bat-masked hero, Ra’s has hope that this dark detective can help secure the legacy both by fathering al Ghul’s grandchildren and by running al Ghul’s organization to fulfill the old man’s global dream.
“I have too few years left, daughter! I have gone to the Lazarus Pit often—too often! Soon it will no longer restore life to my body! I must begin putting into effect my plan—my plans to restore harmony to our sad planet! I have been called a criminal and genius—and I am neither! I am an artist! I have a vision—of an Earth as clean and pure as a snow-swept mountain or the desert outside!”
—Ra’s al Ghul in Batman #244 (1972)
Notes
1. Letamendi et al. (2011).
2. Batman #307 (1979).
3. Secret Origins trade paperback (1989).
4. Adherents (2005/2007); Waldman & Kress (2006).
5. Bretherton (1992); Calder (2003); Van Dijken (1998).
6. Ainsworth & Bowlby (1965).
7. Bretherton & Munholland (1999).
8. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall (1978).
9. Bartholomew & Horowitz (1991).
10. Main & Solomon (1986).
11. Wayment & Vierthaler (2002).
12. Field & Filanosky (2010).
13. Mancini, Robinaugh, Shear, & Bonanno (2009); Shear (2010).
14. Crawford & Benoit (2009); Madigan, Moran, & Pederson (2006).
15. Brennan, Clark, & Shaver (1998).
16. Batman: The Killing Joke (1988).
17. Detective Comics #600 (1989).
18. Detective Comics #599 (1989); Secret Origins trade paperback (1989).
19. Batman #232 (1971).
20. JLA #43–46 (2000).
21. Marano (2008).
22. Batman #307 (1979).
23. Aronson & Mills (1959); Gerard & Mathewson (1966); Zimbardo (2008).
24. Alfred (Michael Caine) in Batman Begins (2005 motion picture).
25. Baumrind (1991); Maccoby & Martin (1983).
26. Batman: Blind Justice (1992).
27. Moench (2004), 17.
28. Fingeroth (2005).
29. Markell & Markell (2008); Pahel (2006).
30. Batman: Full Circle (1991).
31. Newberger (2000).
32. Batman and Robin #1 (2011).
33. Catwoman #72 (2007).
34. Jaques (1965); Levinson (1986).
35. Erikson (1968).
36. Pratt, Danso, Arnold, Norris, & Filyer (2001).
37. Sharrett (1991).
38. Erikson (1950).
39. Detective Comics #574 (1987).
Case File 12–1: Ra’s al Ghul
1. Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992).
2. First appearance: Strange Adventures #215 (1968).
3. Batman Annual #25 (2006).
4. Azrael #6, 1995; Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992).
5. Batman Begins (2005 motion picture).
6. De Grey (2007); Gaudin (2009).
7. Erikson & Erikson (1998).
8. Newman & Newman (1991).
aIt’s a comic book. Death is more like a vacation until Ra’s returns later—which he does.
13
Why So Serious?
“Batman and Robin were part of the fun—they were the straight men, but we were the stars. No one ever hurt anybody. Not really. Nobody died. You look around—it’s all different. It’s all changed. The Joker’s killing people, for God’s sake! Did I miss something? Was I away when they changed the rules?”
—Riddler to news crew, Secret Origins Special #1 (1989)
I get two main reactions whenever people hear I’ve been writing a book on the psychology of Batman. Most think it’s cool.a The exceptions roll their eyes or grunt, “Hunh,” their way of saying, “How ridiculous” without uttering the words. Who wants to analyze a superhero? Why do we love this character, what does our interest in him say about ourselves, and what might writing a book analyzing a fictitious hero say about its author? Some would say we’re taking this too seriously—“we” meaning me for writing this book and you for reading it. To those who’d belittle analysis of a comic book character by saying, “It ain’t Shakespeare,” we might point out that neither are a great many topics on which psychologists and other scholars have filled library aisles, topics that have not generated multibillion-dollar businesses, fueled heated debates, inspired children’s dreams, and in one way or another entered the minds of at least half the people on this planet. The fact that cosplayers and kids at Halloween dress themselves as superheroes, along with those of us who’d pin a towel in place for a cape during our childhood playtime, should provide more reason to look at how this fiction impacts us, not less. Fiction with its big question of “What if?” is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Once upon a time, the ability to
light a fire was fictitious.
Dark Knight, Bright Knight
There’s also nothing wrong with sitting back and enjoying the work without picking it apart. Analysis can be the enemy of enjoyment. “I’ve never given any thought to the character’s motivation,” Burt Ward once told me regarding his playing Robin to Adam West’s Batman. “I don’t keep up with the comic books. I’m not a fan of the character character, if that makes sense. I’m an actor and I did a job. It’s not for me to analyze the character. That’s for the fans. That’s for you.”1 Honestly, that approach suited the way their TV series depicted Robin. Its Boy Wonder’s a present-oriented character focused on the task at hand, not driven by past trauma and not thinking ahead often enough. He lives in the now. In the comic books, young Richard Grayson quickly apprehends his parents’ killer, copes with their deaths, and moves ahead with his life as a spunky little adventurer, rarely referring to that tragedy. The 1960s TV series mentions Batman’s tragic past but never Robin’s, and because its Robin doesn’t always think ahead, Batman regularly chastises his shortsightedness, prompting many a “Gosh, yes” from the Boy Wonder.
Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight (Wiley Psychology & Pop Culture) Page 32
