The Caped Crusader

In case it's not circled on your calendar, today is Batman Day, recognizing the 75th anniversary of one of the most iconic characters in American culture. This date seems rather random, since Batman's first appearance, in the pictured Detective Comics No. 27, was in May 1939. Maybe someone in the DC marketing department just became aware of this.

Batman was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, although it's touchy on who gets the lion's share of the credit. It seems that Kane had the idea for a "Bat-Man," in the rush to create superheroes following the popularity of Superman. Finger gave him the name Bruce Wayne, which came from the Scottish hero Robert the Bruce and American Revolutionary War general "Mad" Anthony Wayne.

Batman has been unique in superhero comics in that he does not have superhuman powers. In a sense, he is the capitalist hero--a plutocrat who has great intelligence and superb martial arts abilities. But as the many incarnations of the hero have proved over and over again, he'd be nowhere without his wealth. He has a mansion with an extensive lair underneath, and several gadgets, ranging from a utility belt to his own plane, to battle crime.

The other notable thing about Batman is that he is basically the antithesis of Superman. As noted by many, Superman has religious overtones, both Christian and Jew. He fights for truth, justice, and the American way. Batman, as he was created, was a creature of the shadows, a vigilante who initially killed without remorse. If anything, he was Satanic. Not only does he take his image from one of the most reviled mammals in the animal kingdom (even if that is unfair), but consider his home city, Gotham. Though described as "Manhattan below 14th Street 12 minutes after midnight on a cold November night," it is its own entity, a Gothic swamp of crime and corruption. Gotham has long been a nickname for New York City, taken from a story by Washington Irving, who take the name from an English village populated only by fools. Other locations have just a macabre association. Arkham Asylum, where Batman's enemies are locked up (however temporarily) is taken from a town used often in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.

Since his creation Batman has changed with the times. In 1940 he was given a sidekick, Robin, who primarily function as Watson did to Sherlock Holmes--someone Batman could talk to, so the writers could eliminate all those thought balloons. After the comics crisis of the 1950s, when Batman was attacked for its homoerotic overtones, the character became sunnier (he had lost his gun and stopped killing in the early '40s). This led to the satiric television show of the 1960s, which angered many Batman fans but made the character world famous, as it was, however, briefly, a smash hit.

After the show fizzled, Batman was kind of in mothballs, still in comic books, and in animated series. It wasn't until the Tim Burton film of 1989 that the character was back in the forefront. This was mostly due to Frank Miller's retooling of the character as The Dark Knight, which dragged Batman from camp back into the darkness. The character has been in seven films since 1989, and right now it's likely that we will see him in perpetuity in some way or another.

What has made Batman so popular? For one, he taps into the difficult to define notion of cool. He was jazz compared to Superman's easy listening. He is much more psychologically interesting than Superman--spurred to vengeance after the death of his parents at the hand of a mugger. Of course he had antecedents, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro, but there is something uniquely American about him. He is a self-made hero (despite getting his wealth through inheritance), the perversion of the "you can do anything if you put your mind to it" ethos. While a kid, I much more wanted to be Batman than Superman, even if the latter was much more powerful.

I think he also taps into the dark side of the American dream, the secret (or perhaps not so secret) sense of frontier justice. Batman, over the years, has killed, and doesn't get too broken up about it. He dangles people from balconies, and though extremely intelligent, doesn't hesitate to use his fists. Americans, deep down, love a vigilante, though we may be outwardly horrified. During the Bernhard Goetz case, when a mild-mannered man gunned down thugs on the New York subway, Goetz was heralded by many, and I suspect that even those who denounced him inwardly had a fantasy about doing the very same thing.

Batman was also the first Freudian superhero. Not only is he an analyst's feast, but the villains he fought also were the stuff of psychology. The Joker, Catwoman, the Penguin, all freakish psychopaths that made Lex Luthor look normal in comparison. The decades long dance between Batman and the Joker can be interpreted in many ways, and I think it's the most consistently dynamic superhero/villain combination in comic book history (maybe even in American literature, dare I say).

Batman is right up there with Huck Finn, Jay Gatsby, Natty Bumppo, and Holden Caulfield as the greatest and most enduring of American fictional characters. Even if he does originate in something as low-brow and disposable as the comic book.