SEEKERS OF THE BAT

After Bruce Wayne’s apparent death in Final Crisis, the rest of the Bat family had an internal struggle as to who should carry on as Batman. In this teaser photo, we have a sampling of the major players.  From left to right, the various Batmen are: Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Two-Face, Jason Todd, with a special mention to Hush (with a bandage around his leg), who surgically altered his appearance to match Bruce Wayne’s.

Dick Grayson eventually reluctantly gave up his Nightwing persona to become the new, kinder Batman taking his adoptive stepbrother Damian on as his Robin.

Batman is often written as the pinnacle of human self actualization.  After all, he exchanged a large portion of his life to become a world class athlete, detective, forensic scientist, criminal psychologist and martial artist.  With all that accomplishment, it is surprising to know that even a perfect man can still fail, and has human doubts and frailties.  As ever, Alfred steps in during his darkest moment to get him back on track and he continues on his crusade.  In the Batman Begins film the lesson is explicitly stated: “Why do we get knocked down?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up again.”

No version of the Batman myth exists that doesn’t also include Alfred Pennyworth. As Bruce Wayne’s de facto father figure since his he was 8 years old, Alfred has more influence over Batman than anyone else. Whether he needs a costume repaired, gash stitched, bullet dug out, or perfect cup of tea, Batman knows Alfred can handle any request with equal aplomb. Batman has explicitly stated that without Alfred, there is no way he would have survived for as long as he has.

Batman is ubiquitous in almost every part of popular culture, and video games are no exception. Here’s a clip of Batman critiquing his own performance in Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe.

Here we see the Batcave, an integral part of the Batman myth, complete with state of the art computer, indefatigable butler, high ceilings and poor lighting.