“What we’re talking about here is a billionaire aristocrat who beats up poor people.”
“Vigilante who uses his immense fortune to issue extrajudicial beat downs…rather than…solving the social problems that lead to crime.”
“Batman was a rich dude going around beating up the mentally ill.”
“Batman just likes beating up poor people.”
“Batman is a 1 percenter beating up the mentally ill.”
“Rich white dude beating up poor criminals when investing his billions into public works and infrastructure would be 1000x more effective at reducing crime.”
“Batman beats the living shit out of poor people.”
“Some nights, all I see is an old soldier helping a very rich man to leave his mansion at night in his expensive car to visit horrible beatings upon poor people.”
“He’s a rich man who beats up poor people.”
“Batman is a billionaire, and he beats the hell out of…poor people who can’t afford to pay the rent.”
It’s really easy to find examples of people complaining that Batman is just a rich dude who beats up poor people. The first time I remember encountering it was that last one there, a throwaway line from a Grant Morrison interview in Wizard #219, back in 2009. I remember being struck by it for all of a second or two before remembering, wait a minute, the Joker isn’t homeless, and moving on. But the critique became ubiquitous over the next decade-plus.
It’s clear Morrison didn’t invent it, as scans_daily refers to him weighing in on an existing debate, but he may well have turbocharged it. He was, after all, smack-dab in the middle of his sprawling run on various Batman books, a run which was distinguished in part by how all-encompassing its approach to the character’s history was. Nothing, it seemed, was too obscure of a reference for Morrison to call back to. So if someone as steeped in the mythos of Batman as he was could make a remark like that, surely there must be something to it, right?
Of course, it is in fact the very dumbest “I don’t like cape comics” hot take. Dumber than “lol underwear outside pants.” Dumber than “They’re unrealistic!” It’s the dumbest one there is. Chris Sims demolished it years ago, and there’s not much of a point in trying to reinvent that wheel. If Sims’ argument doesn’t persuade you, then you just don’t like Batman. And that’s fine, like what you like. No need to try and hang a whole sociopolitical worldview on it.
It really isn’t that often that we see Batman just clobbering the piss out of some poor sap trying to feed his family. Frustratingly, though, sometimes creators make the mistake of playing into the complaint. This is not the same as intentionally commenting on it, or even putting it into the mouth of Batman’s butler, as Warren Ellis did in The Batman’s Grave.
What I’m talking about is the sort of thing that happens in today’s unpublished comic. Sometimes, “Batman beats up a couple of high school kids for using and selling small amounts of drugs” is just basically the plot of a story! Here it is, a never-published anti-drug ten-pager written by Denny O’Neil, penciled by Frank Robbins, and broadly hard to enjoy.
the way “Caped Crusader” and “Darknight Detective” did.
I’ve previously written about a Wonder Woman story that was probably slated for publication alongside this one. I liked that one a lot better, in part because it gave Wonder Woman an appropriate role. Her job, as the superhero of the story, was to beat up the kingpins and help a frightened young woman escape the life she’d let herself get boxed into. The woman doesn’t get off scot-free for her low-level complicity in a criminal enterprise, and it’s clear she will be punishing herself for quite some time, but the story still ends on a note of hope, of a melancholic sort.
This story tries to hit the same note, but I’m not sure it succeeds. That’s partially because the story itself is constructed differently. Wonder Woman gets to spend six months empathizing with and trying to help her new friend. Batman, however, does not have friends so much as he has a list of all the people who live in Gotham and what laws they’re breaking. So he’s just going to start beating the intestines out of teenagers here in a couple pages, and the whole story is wrapped up by the end of the night. On the one hand, that’s exactly the kind of Batman shit that endears him to fans like me: that almost aspirational, optimistic belief that there’s no problem so big that it can’t be solved by rolling up your sleeves and knocking the hell out of it.
The trouble here is that the problem in question is “kids are using small amounts of drugs.” Now I think Denny O’Neil knew darn well that might not be a problem big enough for the attention of a member of the Justice League, given the avant-garde hippie circles he moved in during the 60s and 70s. Samuel R. Delany shot The Orchid in O’Neil’s apartment! I think he was aware of the complexity of the drug issue. But if one of the world’s greatest superheroes is going to try and tackle the scourge of high school kids trying speed or whatever, it probably shouldn’t be the one most likely to just punch people until they tell him who to punch next. Couldn’t Superman and Jimmy Olsen have handled this with a little more compassion?
For those who don’t get it, that first panel is referencing a common joke among young people in the 1960s: “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” There was, and still is, some wisdom in that advice. Relatedly, O’Neil was 35 when he wrote this, and had become such a narc that “the dude who gives away free drugs” was not written as an absolute hero. I mean come on! This guy is like Robin Hood!
Hold on, which of the drug pushers is Jack? I thought the guy giving it away for free was Jack, but now Mickey Whalen is also Jack? Maybe they’re taking those drugs that make you forget people’s names, and also your own name. Or maybe Denny was taking those drugs. Frank Robbins definitely took something before he drew that last panel. The strangeness of that drawing comes at you in waves.
came to turning a phrase, and just because it didn’t always
work doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the effort.
Yeah, Batman. Aren’t minor-league pill-heads pretty small potatoes for the world’s greatest detective? I think the Teen Wonder might be onto something here! This will not be the last time that a character in this story seems to be making fun of the guy writing the story. Hey, wait, Dick didn’t interview Jack! He interviewed Pete! Is the point of this story to make me feel like I’m on drugs?
Batman is such a dad. He’s trying so adorably hard to talk like the kids these days, but there’s just no way he’s getting it right. “The biggest shot on the turf.” It sounds like “freak wharf.” Anyway, Batman is now physically assaulting a child who has not committed a violent offense or threatened anyone. The only thing he’s done is give out drugs for free.
For the second time, a character makes fun of the way this story is being written. “Seriously, the DRUG dealers operate out of a DRUGstore, Denny?” Anyway, I love everything about these kingpins. We got mod-squad Captain Cold in a beret, 3-D glasses, and a war crime of a haircut; we got Evil Pharmacist who keeps referring to illicit drugs as “our…ah–PRODUCT”; and we got Undercover Elvis Presley.
“I’m not dumb!” yells the guy banging on the window to attract the attention of heavily armed cartel bosses.
There’s something adorably insane about the Batman of this story. It’s not entirely out of step with Pete Holmes’ version of Batman: incredibly good at fighting, absolutely hopeless in every other respect. In the third panel there, he sounds like he’s ready to deputize Jack as his next Robin. One panel later, he’s getting uncomfortably close to the language of an abuser, telling the kid he had to beat him up to get him to see sense. Then by the end he’s giving the classic stereotypical anti-drug closing monologue: stilted, bittersweet, cliche beyond belief.
But he is a basically decent kid, Batman! Was physically assaulting him really necessary? Was it really so urgent to take down these dime-store drug dealers? Was the Riddler doing nothing tonight? What drugs were even involved? In “The Countess of Dreams,” we knew it was blow. What was it here?
I don’t know, this story isn’t great. But it’s Batman. Things could always be worse.
Do you have material from an unpublished comic? Have you heard of an unpublished comic you think I should cover? Did I get something wrong in this post? Please reach out and let me know with an email to neverwerecomics (at) gmail.com, or on Twitter @neverwerecomics. Thanks for reading!
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