Zack Snyder's Justice League: A Modern Take on Le Morte D'Arthur

Left: a still from Excalibur (1981) with Nigel Terry as King Arthur on his wedding day. Right: from Man of Steel (2013) with Henry Cavill as Superman/Kal-El, sitting in a church. Neither are particularly subtle about Christological references.

This month marked the 40th anniversary of a film adaptation of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur: John Boorman's Excalibur, released on April 10, 1981. It was an R-rated, dark-and-edgy take on an already-dark spin by a hardened War of the Roses veteran on the superheroes of Malory's day: Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, and Guinevere. The 1981 film befuddled critics as overly long, unfocused, pretentious and self-serious... but utterly beautiful to look at. Roger Ebert began his review this way: "What a wondrous vision 'Excalibur' is! And what a mess. This wildly ambitious retelling of the legend of King Arthur is a haunting and violent version of the Dark Ages and the heroic figures who (we dream) populated them." Play the trailer below for a glimpse of what he meant.

 

Excalibur is now a cult classic which I'd honestly have a hard time recommending to casual audiences, but it did kickstart the careers of several household-name actors today, including Patrick Stewart (as Leodegrance), Liam Neeson (as Gawain), and even Helen Mirren (as Morgana le Fay). The movie also left quite an impression on a then-14 year old Zack Snyder. Snyder has made a name for himself in directing spectacular film adaptations of comic books such as 300 and Watchmen, but of all the movies that must've influenced him over the years, Snyder rates Excalibur as his #1 favorite; in his words, "the perfect meeting of movies and mythology". Excalibur's influence is felt throughout his latest release: Zack Snyder's Justice League, which debuted last month on the HBO Max streaming service.

"Now, wait a minute", you say. "Last month? Didn't I already see that flop back in 2017, or on cable sometime since then?" No, my friends. I'm being stone cold serious when I say that Zack Snyder's Justice League, aka the Snyder Cut--despite having the same cast and overall plot as that 2017 abomination--is fundamentally a different movie. This is not a director's cut in the usual sense of the word, even considering ones that have more-or-less replaced the original theatrical releases such as Ridley Scott's Blade Runner: The Final Cut or Zack Snyder's own Batman v Superman: Ultimate Edition. The 2017 release has as much right to be called "Zack Snyder's Justice League" as the zombified corpse of a long-dead loved one has the right to be called grandma. 

Before we continue, a brief recap for the uninitiated: the short version of this drama is that Justice League was the third installment of a planned 5-film arc to jumpstart a series of interconnected movies for Detective Comics characters, to compete with Disney's incredibly lucrative Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first two, Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), were darker and more serious takes on superhero cinema than the Marvel films. During the filming, the studio executives of Warner Bros. were alarmed by the under-performance of Zack Snyder's previous films at the box office and demanded extreme rewrites for a lighter, more family-friendly tone. A tragedy occurred when Autumn, one of Snyder's eight children, committed suicide. Snyder stepped down as director to take care of his family and the studio hired Joss Whedon (director of the first two Marvel Avengers films) to replace him, overseeing post-production and 2 months of extensive reshoots, with a studio mandate to cut the final runtime down to 2 hours. The final result was a mess that decimated entire character backstories, filled the gaps with bad jokes and visual gags, and made no one but the studio bosses happy. (They needed to get the movie released before WB's impending merger with AT&T in order to get their bonuses.) Ever since then, all attempts to sustain a shared film universe for DC Comics characters have stalled. Every DC movie since 2017 has been a solo adventure that essentially ignores Snyder's work.

The villain Steppenwolf, completely redone in postproduction for a much more fearsome look in the Snyder Cut (right). Steppenwolf is played by Ciaran Hinds, the only actor to appear (in some form) in both Excalibur and Justice League.

And then... Covid-19 happened. The film industry ground to a halt and most movie theaters suspended operations entirely, but massive numbers of people were stuck at home with a lot more time to watch TV. To be clear, Covid-19 and its aftereffects have wrecked serious, long-term damage to our social fabric. But... if there's just one thing I can be thankful for over this past year, it would be that Covid gave us the necessary conditions for Warner Bros. to roll the dice and indulge the fans. Snyder was granted $70 million to finish the cut of the movie he had on his laptop all these years and make it fit for home release in order to shore up subscribers for HBO Max (owned by WarnerMedia). This included bringing Ben Affleck back in costume to shoot a new Batman scene during Covid-tide. At last, Zack Snyder's Justice League premiered at a whopping 4 hours 2 minutes: exactly the same as Kenneth Branagh's 1996 adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the longest major studio theatrical release in history! It took me a little while, but after first rewatching Man of Steel and Batman v Superman with some friends at my house (which they had never seen), we watched the Snyder Cut over two sittings. They had never seen the "Whedon cut" for Justice League either, so their viewing here was unsullied by past experiences.

So, how was it? My impression is best summed up by quoting something said to Superman by his natural father, Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe) first in Man of Steel and replayed in the Snyder Cut: "in time, they will join you in the sun, Kal. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." In context, Jor-El is reassuring his son that the people of Earth will eventually accept him as a hero, even if they're afraid of him at first. As a viewer, I mean to say that if the Snyder Cut was actually the original 2017 release all along, I don't think I would've appreciated it as much back then as I do now. I left the theater in 2013 after seeing Man of Steel with a vague sense of disappointment. In 2016, Batman v Superman just felt a little too left-field. But now, revisiting them all as a (slightly!) older man, I have a better understanding of where Zack Snyder was coming from with these takes, and I'm here to say that I am now all in for it.... even the not-so-subtle Christological references with Superman. 4 hour runtime? I hope the next one is 6 or 7! 

"In time, they will join you in the sun, Kal. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders."

A (mostly) spoiler-free review

Understanding that most of my readers tend to stop by here more for my thoughts on history and religion rather than because they share my love of comic book cinema, it seems like a good idea to include a spoiler-free synopsis based on the assumption that you haven't seen any of these movies before:

Zack Snyder's Justice League continues the story right where Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) left off, which in turn continued the story of Man of Steel (2013). Man of Steel is a complete origin story for Superman, as played by Henry Cavill, which is less interested in "truth, justice, and the American way" as it is a first-contact story, answering "what if an invincible alien actually crash-landed into the world as we know it and was raised by humans?" Batman v Superman continues to grapple with that idea, with special focus on the trauma caused by the destruction of large parts of the city of Metropolis during the final fight between Superman and his adversary, General Zod, which led to upwards of 5,000 in civilian casualties. Batman, as played by Ben Affleck, is introduced in this world as an older vigilante who's grown weary after 20 years stalking the night with seemingly little progress to show for his efforts. Wonder Woman, as played by Gal Gadot, appears for the first time ever in a major motion picture as a demigoddess who has been hiding among the world of mortal men for a hundred years. Both films are necessary viewing to appreciate Justice League. There is also a standalone origin story for Wonder Woman (2017) which is widely regarded as one of the best movies in the entire comic book film genre. It's not necessary, but it certainly helps, and was designed to integrate into Snyder's series. Finally, while the Dark Knight trilogy of Batman films portrayed by Christian Bale are not part of the Justice League continuity, their director--Christopher Nolan--was the man who handpicked and anointed Zack Snyder to succeed him for future DC films. Nolan was a producer for all of the Snyder DC films, and his influence is still present throughout these pictures to varying degrees.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"

The very first scene in the Snyder Cut takes us back to the climax of the second film, whereby the last anguished cry of the slain Superman (I'll explain later why that's not a spoiler) echoes across the entire world, awakening one out of three ancient artifacts called Motherboxes. Like Sauron's One Ring of Power, the Motherboxes call out to their creator, a galactic conqueror of worlds known as Darkseid. Each one has been in the care of the races of Earth for millennia: humans, Atlanteans, and Amazons. Together, they have the power to reshape worlds, and so put Earth on the crosshairs of one of Darkseid's chief minions: his uncle Steppenwolf (played by Ciaran Hinds), who has been disgraced by past failures and is desperate for a major victory to regain his master's good graces. Against impossible odds and wracked with guilt over his role in bringing about Superman's death, Bruce Wayne, aka the Batman, travels across the globe to honor Superman's sacrifice and assemble a team of superpowered individuals to save Earth from the brink of total annihilation.

Unlike Marvel's first Avengers film, which built upon five standalone movies before trying to mash their heroes together on a single set, DC seems to have taken the opposite approach by introducing a bunch of characters at once and hoping for successful solo movies later. The single biggest cause for the 4-hour runtime is in adding the necessary exposition for us to sufficiently care about three new heroes: Aquaman, the Flash, and Cyborg. The first two need little introduction, but the last is less familiar. Brought on the page in 1980, Cyborg is the "newest" of the Justice League characters, but proves to be the lynchpin of the ensemble in this telling. Victor Stone (played by Ray Fisher) is a college football player who loses his mother and very nearly dies himself after an auto accident, until his absentee father--a lead scientist at STAR Labs--uses a Motherbox to rebuild Victor's body in a last-ditch attempt to save his life. Now more machine than man, Cyborg resents his new form and his father's efforts to repair their relationship. Every member of the League has problems, but Cyborg carries the biggest burden in this film; its greatest story arcs revolve around his path toward reconciling with his father and his fate.

Ray Fisher's performance as Cyborg, almost completely gutted in the 2017 release, is now restored to the point of being almost the main character.

If I continue to dwell on the tragic backstories, the relative lack of jokes and witty banter compared to the Marvel films, the distinct Snyder-isms like constant slow motion shots and moody chiaroscuro lighting that probably doesn't translate well on lesser-grade TV screens, and that 4-hour runtime, I run the risk of sending most of you running as far from this movie as possible. But I'm here to tell you that these are all features, not bugs! A month ago, if you had asked me whether I preferred Marvel or DC movies, I would have picked Marvel (with an exception for DC's Batman, of course). But after Zack Snyder's Justice League, I see the entirety of Snyder's vision for the DC franchise with new eyes. A convert's zeal. Now, at last, I see where he was going with those crazy Superman stories, and it's honestly more brilliant than I ever expected. The entire premise of the "Snyderverse", as his movies are collectively called, hinges on the viewer buying into one idea: that comic books are myths for the modern age. If you can think of Superman and Wonder Woman on the same terms as Hercules or Beowulf, you just might suspend your disbelief enough to be taken in for one heck of a ride. On this basis, I rate Zack Snyder's Justice League a 9 out of 10 on my scale of comic book movies. That places it on the same rating I would give The Dark Knight, the first Wonder Woman, and Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame. My only 10/10 on this scale is (for my own highly subjective reasons) The Dark Knight Rises.

Comic book characters as mythic heroes: a legitimate take?

Am I really saying that DC Comics are worth teaching in school or held on par as classical literature? No, of course not. But it's perfectly legitimate to accept that stories grow up with their tellers. They evolve over the generations until they become something else entirely. Even retelling the same story over and over again with slight variations--such as, for example, the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents (1989 in Batman, 1995 in Batman Forever, 2005 in Batman Begins, 2016 in Batman v Superman, 2019 in Joker)--isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as each version speaks effectively to another audience. I've said before on this blog that medieval storytellers would have been confused by modern critics' preoccupation with "original stories". For them, "original" (if they ever really used that word at all, as we think of it) was more literal: getting back to the origin--that is, the heart--of an idea. It's why they enjoyed telling the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table over and over again, changing things here or there, adding a twist or two, and openly ripping other storytellers' ideas without attribution. Each telling brought a few more "fans" into the mythos until Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, which told of Britain's founding by the Trojans and King Lear dividing the realm among his three daughters as matters of real history, exported the legend of Arthur everywhere across the European continent. Chrétien de Troyes added Lancelot to appeal to French audiences, but now we can hardly imagine the Round Table without him. 

The most definitive of all Arthurian works was a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur, one of the first books ever printed by Caxton's press in England. It was the first major work of fictional prose in the English language. I introduced this book at the beginning of this article as a darker take--at least in some ways--on familiar stories. In Malory's world, even the noblest knights are not spared from ambition, treachery, and doom. After all, Arthur's fate is spoiled in the very title... and why I thought, from a medieval point of view, mentioning the fact that Superman dies at the end of Batman v Superman isn't much of a spoiler. (Indeed, that plot point was based the comic book arc "The Death of Superman" from 1993. The ending was given in the title specifically to stir up comics sales.) This bleaker outlook isn't too surprising when considering the author. Sir Thomas Malory was a warrior and parliamentarian who fought on both sides of the tumultuous Wars of the Roses. He played the game of thrones, switching his allegiance from York to a pact with Warwick the Kingmaker to oust Edward IV. Aside from conspiracy to treason, Malory's extensive rap sheet included highway robbery, breaking and entering, and even "rape" (which at the time may have been consensual adultery). It was during his time in prison that he wrote Le Morte d'Arthur. It was not printed until 1485, about 14 years after Malory's death. The book enjoyed several reprints until Cromwell and the Puritans held England hostage to a decade of dourness. From there, Le Morte d'Arthur languished in obscurity until the Romantic and Medievalist revivals of the 19th century. We have Malory to thank as the primary inspiration for Tennyson's Idylls of the King and, into the 20th century, T.H. White's The Once and Future King.

This brings us back full circle to the most faithful adaptation of Le Morte d'Arthur on film, as proclaimed on the movie posters themselves: John Boorman's Excalibur. It opens with the retelling of Book I--how Arthur was conceived--in graphic detail. King Uther Pendragon lusts after the Duke of Cornwall's wife, Igrayne, and begs for a sorceror's aid. Merlin casts a spell to allow Uther to enter Igrayne's bedchamber in the likeness of her husband, but in return, Uther must give up the child that results from this unnatural union. So begins an attempt to capture the epic scope of Malory's book, the  entire life of King Arthur, over a paltry 2 hours and 20 minutes. Nigel Terry plays as Arthur in all stages of his adult life, from when he first draws the sword from the stone to when he sails away for Avalon, weathered by age and the trauma of having to kill his own son born from incest. Throw in a bunch of gritty battles with awkward grunting and other sound effects, Guinevere's adultery with Lancelot, a crow gouging an eye out from a corpse, a final battle against Mordred with Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" roaring in the background, and this overarching theme of how the arrival of Christianity and Camelot gradually sever man's connection to nature and magic, and you have Excalibur. Whatever John Boorman was trying to do with this movie, it certainly wasn't for parents to keep their kids entertained for a couple hours so they could do some shopping in peace. 

I honestly don't count Excalibur among my own all-time favorites, but I appreciate what it tried to do: re-adapt and elevate the Arthurian mythos into an epic for modern times. It kicked off an entire decade of sword-and-sorcery movies ranging from Conan the Barbarian to Legend, Ladyhawke, and The Princess Bride... but none of these stand out as bold and weird as Merlin, with a chrome plate for hair, saying with utmost seriousness for the camera, "The days of our kind are numberèd. The one God comes to drive out the many gods. The spirits of wood and stream grow silent. It's the way of things. Yes... it's a time for men, and their ways."

Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren as Merlin and Morgana. They disliked each other in real life, which director John Boorman felt made their performances more convincing.

The Round Table, reborn

Have you ever wondered why the stories of King Arthur's court emphasized the shape of his furniture? According to the Norman author Wace, Arthur ordered a round table so that his knights would no longer quarrel amongst themselves at their seating order in the court. In a world defined entirely by hierarchies, the Round Table captured the medieval imagination by letting people imagine a place where great men held each other as equals. Among them sat Kay, Arthur's own foster brother. Perceval, the first quester for the Holy Grail. Lancelot, whose forbidden love divides the court against each other. His son Galahad, purest of all knights. Each knight was worthy of his own series of solo stories, but together, the Knights of the Round Table stood larger than life, more like gods than men. Their stories so enchanted the people of medieval Europe that they had "Renaissance fairs" even before the Renaissance. They were feasts in honor of Arthur and his companions called "Round Tables", which typically involved jousting and other forms of mock combat, and cosplaying as famous members of Arthur's court around an actual round table. The most famous specimen to survive is the round table commissioned (probably) by King Edward I in the 1270's, which was later repainted by order of Henry VIII and now hangs on the wall of Winchester Castle. Round Table tournaments were the inspiration for Edward III to found the Order of the Garter. The meeting place for this association of the 24 most esteemed and elite members of English society came into focus once again last weekend, when the funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle was broadcast around the world.

In today's culture, the closest phenomenon we have to a Round Table is DC's Justice League. Its most famous members have transcended all boundaries of geekdom to become true household names. People who have absolutely zero interest in comic books or their film adaptations will still know what the red-and-yellow S symbol represents, or that Batman's real name is Bruce Wayne. For Zack Snyder, being given the keys to the DC empire back in 2010 must have seemed like a chance to tell a story with the same sense of grandeur as his all-time favorite film. 

Snyder's first entry, Man of Steel, opens with the alien world of Krypton: a civilization in terminal decline. Its members are dressed in a style I could only describe as "what if the Byzantine Empire had gone on for another 40,000 years". Jor-El solemnly predicts that his infant son will be like a god to the people of Earth, then sends him away like baby Moses in the basket. Later in the film, General Zod solemnly orders "release the world engine!", which leads to Superman hurtling into a fight of titanic proportions with a kraken-like machine. The final fight with Zod spreads across Metropolis, but unlike  the same scenario in 1980's Superman II (or, more recently, the alien invasion of New York in 2012's The Avengers), Snyder doesn't shy from the idea that an all-out fight between two aliens with godlike powers in a major city would probably cause the deaths of thousands. Like Sir Thomas Malory, who is only ever interested in telling us about quests and high deeds to the exclusion of anything mundane, Snyder keeps us a thousand feet in the air at all times.

The Wayne family walks out from a screening of The Mask of Zorro in the very first scene of Batman v Superman. The year is 1981, as the marquee signals the impending premiere of Excalibur. A formative moment for director Zack Snyder, hinted at during a formative moment for Bruce Wayne.

If Man of Steel's theme was "gods among men", Batman v Superman's would be "gods versus men". A title card near the beginning takes us back to the previous movie's final fight with the ominous words: "METROPOLIS: MANKIND IS INTRODUCED TO THE SUPERMAN". Amidst the rubble, Bruce Wayne stares up into the sky, wondering if all his wealth and natural abilities could possibly be enough to protect humanity from a force like Superman. Later on, Lex Luthor tells an audience at a house party the story of how Prometheus, a hero among men, dared to steal fire from the gods (while Wonder Woman, literally a daughter of Zeus, listens anonymously in the crowd and rolls her eyes as if to suggest that's not what really happened). A theft does occur soon after... but from one mortal man to another. Bruce steals kryptonite, the one and only thing that can harm a Kryptonian, from Lex. But for all his inventiveness, Batman shapes the kryptonite into the most primitive form possible: a spear. Like, perhaps, the Spear of Destiny? Snyder's movie is fixated with the question of what it would take for Superman to become the villain, and whether a Prometheus could rise up to stop him.

Finally, in Zack Snyder's Justice League, the theme becomes "gods led by men". Batman is changed by the events of the last film. He no longer fears godlike beings; now, moved by the example of Superman's last sacrifice, he seeks to lead them in battle against other gods who threaten Earth with oblivion. Or, to put it another way, men in this story finally take their place among the ranks of gods. And if it wasn't obvious, at the end of the movie, Bruce begins plans to rebuild his ancestral home with a round table at the center, with six chairs and room for more.

In the Snyder Cut, during a premonition of a dark future with an evil Superman, the Kryptonian AI in Superman's ship says "the future has taken root in the present". This is a direct quote from the movie Excalibur. Merlin says "the future has taken root in the present" during the conception of Arthur. For just as Arthur is both the salvation and the doom of Camelot, so too is Superman the salvation and the doom of Earth.

After having seen the Snyder Cut, the bitter taste of the original 2017 theatrical release in my recollection has been totally washed away, and I'm left wondering if Warner Bros. will ever allow Zack Snyder to continue his vision by making more DC movies. Will we ever see a Man of Steel 2? How about standalone movie starring Ben Affleck as the best Batman ever? Is the Snyder Cut doomed to forever be a storytelling cul-de-sac, a cruel tease of a future that might have been? If so, perhaps that will free Zack for something even better: time to work on a King Arthur movie of his own.

Below, an excellent trailer for all three of Zack Snyder's DC films, now dubbed as a "trilogy":

The movie Excalibur is referenced even in the 2019 film Joker, which isn't actually set in the same continuity as the Snyder films. Nevertheless, the movie poster is seen on the right of the above frame on the night of the Waynes' murder.

Postscript: "Wait... weren't you going to compare the Whedon and Snyder Cuts?"

As much as I enjoy nerdy dissections of the two cuts, I realized a lengthy discourse on the differences is well beyond the scope of my headline, would require a lot of audio-visual references, and have already been covered in far greater detail by other people. Instead, I'll forward to you links to three videos that cover the basics:

"Justice League vs. The Snyder Cut - Filmmaking Comparison" by Thomas Flight HERE (26 minutes). A breakdown for people interested in cinematography and visual artistry, without going into deep inside-baseball discussions on lore or Easter eggs for longtime comics fans. The video focuses on tone, coloring, storyboarding and the like. I highly recommend it. Some of you may recognize the film poster in the host's background.

"Justice League: How Score Can Change a Film" by samsonspin HERE (23 minutes). As strange as it feels to compare the great Danny Elfman unfavorably against a guy who calls himself Junkie XL, only one of these conveys the appropriate tone for this particular movie. The Junkie XL score wins by a mile.

And finally, only for people who've already seen the Snyder Cut: "Final Battle Against Steppenwolf Comparison" by Nerdy Sage HERE (3 minutes). Steppenwolf's final fate is dramatically different. Only the Snyder Cut treats us to the most epic end for a villain ever seen in superhero cinema, in the form of what amounts to a 3-way Mortal Kombat fatality. If this scene had been the only difference between the two cuts, it still would've been enough to improve the Whedon Cut's rating by a whole point.

Gotham's reckoning: Bane, Burke, and the French Revolution

Last month, I managed to nab the Dark Knight Trilogy "Ultimate Collector's Edition" Blu-ray set for a steal: lightly used for $35. I introduced my mother-in-law to the series, who hadn't seen anything Batman-related since the Adam West days, and had a blast all over again.

Those of you who've been around my blog since the beginning recall that my very first post was about Batman's themes, especially in response to The Dark Knight Rises's release in 2012. This latest reviewing took me back to that first experience of the film, a 3:30am opening night premiere at the largest IMAX theater in the region. The first scene: America's dumbest CIA agent loads a nuclear physicist and three terrorists, tied up with bags on their heads, onto a plane without bothering to look at their faces. As the plane is in mid-flight over the gorgeous Scottish highlands, the agent interrogates one of the men about their leader's plans. Even before he lifts the bag off the guy's head, we hear that voice. Where every other actor's speech was piped in left or right of the screen, corresponding to where they were standing in the shot, the mesmerizing voice of Tom Hardy's Bane seemed to emanate not from any conventional speaker, but from the floor itself, penetrating your brain until all you could think about was "the fire rises!"

Like any good Bat-fanatic, I ended up watching The Dark Knight Rises twice over in other theaters, but neither establishment's sound system gave the Bane voice the justice it got when I heard it the first time around. I have a friend who even refuses to watch the movie in part because he thought the voice sounded so silly and unthreatening... tragic, because Hardy's Bane manages to match the nigh-impossible feat of outdoing Heath Ledger's Joker as one of the most brilliant, terrifying, visceral villains to ever hit the silver screen. For the Modern Medievalist, it's not just the bone-crunching, death-dealing carnage Bane channels into every punch that makes him the icon of terror; for in the real world, a well-placed bullet stops a strong man just as quickly as a weak one. It's not even the possibility of Bane destroying civilization; the Joker sought to sow chaos and total anarchy throughout Gotham's streets, but for all his cleverness, I doubt Nolan's take on the clown prince of crime could sustain a perpetual cycle of madness over an entire city. The institutions of man (if not the police, then federal or military intervention) would eventually take someone like the Joker down with or without the Batman's help.

Bane stands apart because, where the Joker is content to rob a few banks and burn his pile of money to ash, Bane pulls a heist on Wall Street itself (or whatever Gotham's equivalent is called) and harnesses the entire Wayne fortune for his own ends. While Bane certainly doesn't have faith in the power of money or law and order, he doesn't just smash them (until the end, of course)--he rebuilds them in his own image and convinces an entire city to actually buy the deal. The Joker offered no pretense of hope, forcing society to take extreme measures against him if Batman failed. Bane brings about a worse evil: he strings people along with false doctrine and hope, both in Gotham and the prison whence he came, like a carrot at the end of a stick to corrupt and torment their souls.

Gotham: a microcosm of history

In the sewer under Wayne's armory, Bane exclaims, "I am here to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny!" As new head of the League of Shadows, he ties the trilogy together to an overarching plot which was neglected in the second film, The Dark Knight. In Batman Begins, Ra's explains that his league's mission was to restore balance to civilization:

"Gotham's time has come. Like Constantinople or Rome before it, the city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die. This is the most important function of the League of Shadows. It is one we've performed for centuries. Gotham... must be destroyed."

As in the general course of history, the city of Gotham has had its periods of growth and decline, order and decadence, reaction and revolution. We know from Batman's comics canon that in its early years, the Wayne family, through successive generations of wealthy business owners and philanthropists, guided the city of Gotham to prosperity as a modern metropolis. Like the Medici of medieval and Renaissance Florence, the Waynes rarely held political office, but were always in the background, pulling the strings to secure the city's growth. At the opening of Batman Begins, during Bruce's boyhood, his parents help the city get through a recession by engaging in public works like the building of the monorail until their senseless murder by a lowlife. Ra's eventually reveals that the economic depression of Bruce's youth was actually engineered by the League to bring Gotham down from its apex of decadence and corruption, perhaps like the Protestant Reformers' whirlwind against the statues and shrines of the Renaissance Church. But the League's measures to destroy the city, which spurred scumbags like Joe Chill to hold the Waynes up for their money in an alley behind the opera house, also sewed the seeds for reaction: for a son to dedicate his life to ensuring his fate wouldn't be shared by anyone else in Gotham again--taking up the mantle of the Batman.

"Over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With Gotham, we tried a new one: Economics. But we underestimated certain of Gotham's citizens... such as your parents. Gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help. Create enough hunger and everyone becomes a criminal. Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself... and Gotham has limped on ever since. We are back to finish the job. And this time no misguided idealists will get in the way. Like your father, you lack the courage to do all that is necessary. If someone stands in the way of true justice... you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart."

The Dark Knight opens with a Gotham City in which Bruce's crusade against crime has been ongoing for several years. Ra's al Ghul has been defeated, the last dregs of the breakout at Arkham Asylum have been cleaned up, and gangsters flee when the Batman's signal floods the night sky. The mob, pushed to desperation as their cash reserves disappear before their eyes, turn to an "expert" to exterminate their hated foe once and for all: the Joker. As Harvey Dent says, "the night is darkest just before the dawn". Things must get worse before they get better.... and man, do they get worse. We never actually see that dawn Harvey alluded to until The Dark Knight Rises, which reveals that the framing of Batman for Dent's death bought a tenuous peace: outrage over the law's ineffectiveness empowered the government to pass the Dent Act, strengthening the police and denying parole for any of the hundreds of mobsters arrested by Dent's prosecution in the events of The Dark Knight for over eight years running. In a moment alone with Gordon, Officer Blake jokes that they'll soon have nothing left to do but chase down overdue library books. Little did they know that the security bought by the Dent Act was merely an armistice preceding the gathering storm of Bane's revolution.

The history of Europe, too, has its counterpart to Gotham's Dent Act. I earlier compared the League of Shadows and its rejection of both the corruption of Gotham and the benevolence of the Waynes to the Protestant Reformation. The challenge of the Luther, Calvin, and their thugs were eventually met in Rome by the Counter-Reformation. The popes put their building projects and nepotism aside (more or less) to convene the Council of Trent, reinforcing the Church's doctrine and institutions, matching the Luthers and Calvins of the north blow for blow with an army of Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries. The war of priests and preachers gave way, soon enough, to armies of soldiers and mercenaries, as religious tensions flared to intermittent warfare between Protestant and Catholic for nearly a hundred years: the Pilgrimage of Grace, the French Wars of Religion, and the Thirty Years' War. In 1648, after German soil had been watered with the blood of more than 8 million dead, the kings and princes of Europe established the Peace of Westphalia. Its term established that territorial boundaries (lines on a map, if you will) were to be respected. Religious policies were to be determined by the maxim cuius regio, eius religio: whatever the faith of the local king or prince would be the established religion of that country, though minorities would be permitted to practice their faith privately at home or publicly within designated times and places. The pope and the leading Protestant figures both found anything less than total victory unacceptable, but the Westphalian system ultimately prevailed until, at least, the onset of the French Revolution.

Gotham is yours: Bane's Revolution

I hope it's understood that in no way did I mean to suggest that Nolan, Goyer et al. ever consciously thought to mirror the history of Gotham after western Europe's march to modernity... with one critical exception. Bane's takeover of the city was explicitly inspired by the French Revolution, and in particular, Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. This is, after all, the book Commissioner Gordon reads from at the end of The Dark Knight Rises during Bruce's "funeral" (the Penguin Classics edition, to be precise!). Though, instead of the more oft-cited beginning, he reads snippets from the end:

"I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss... I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy... I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence... It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

These are the last words of Sydney Carton, the alcoholic Englishman who, in his moment of redemption, switches places with Charles Darnay before the guillotine during the reign of terror in Paris. So much here can be said about Bruce Wayne's journey to martyrdom for the sake of his city; his "fiefdom", if you will; but we're here today, rather, to talk about Bane. Though Nolan's interpretation of this villain differs dramatically in details from the original comics' version, their essences are the same. First gracing the pages of DC Comics in 1993, Bane grew up since early childhood within the prison of a small, fictional Latin American banana republic to serve the life sentence issued to his father, a failed revolutionary who fled and escaped the government's "justice". Possessed with great strength, an incredible intellect (augmented by lessons in Latin and the liberal arts from an old Jesuit priest, a la The Count of Monte Cristo), and the bloodthirsty streak you'd expect from someone who grew up knowing no other way of life, Bane was chosen by his wardens as a test subject for a super-soldier serum being developed by the government. Naturally, once Bane acquired superhuman strength thanks to the drug known as Venom, he disregarded his former masters, busted out with his bare hands, and became an assassin. He makes his way to Gotham City, where, after being one of the only villains to deduce Batman's identity, his master plan to take over the city culminates with his breaking Batman's back against his raised knee.

Nolan's Bane, of course, ditches the lucha libre mask and the other fantastical aspects of his character in order to fit in with the Nolan vision of "heightened reality", but the most important characteristics remain: namely, that Bane is both physically and intellectually a match for Batman. Bane's nationality and even the prison he comes from is made more abstract for the film, with the added flourish of a background with the League of Shadows. (In the comics, however, Bane does eventually encounter Ra's al Ghul and eventually impresses him to the point where Ra's names him heir to the League and proposes that he marry Ra's daughter, Talia.) The greatest difference of any real distinction for us between comic and film is not how much muscle mass Bane has, but the villain's motivations. In 1993, Bane had grown obsessed with stories of Batman even while still in prison and dedicated himself to "breaking the Bat" simply to prove that he could. After realizing his goal, Bane was content to bask in a luxury penthouse over Gotham's skyline with a pile of riches and dominance over the criminal underworld.

For the film, it just wouldn't do for Bane to have such a mundane goal in mind. No, he was given the unenviable task of outdoing even Ledger's Joker in sheer terror. The Bane of 2012 had to be an idealist. Though his true purpose is to instill total despair and destruction, Bane finds it convenient to play the part of the demagogue to further his plan. He is no sans-culotte himself, but finds it easy to harness the rage of a million Madame Defarges against everything Bruce Wayne represents in Gotham: power, privilege, and wealth. He gives his call to arms on live television before the doors of Blackgate prison as though it were the Bastille: rightly or wrongly a symbol of the old regime's power to crush dissent.

"We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you... the people. Gotham is yours. None shall interfere. Do as you please. Start by storming Blackgate, and freeing the oppressed! Step forward those who would serve. For an army will be raised. The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endure. Courts will be convened. Spoils will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. The police will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great city... it will endure. Gotham will survive!"

Bane harnesses the mob's anger for his own ends, but he doesn't actually believe in the rhetoric himself. On a personal level, every murder and execution Bane commits is cool, rational, and directed toward a higher purpose. Bane's last words to Dr. Pavel before snapping his neck are "thank you, doctor". The last thing Daggett, too, hears before dying at Bane's cusped, reassuring hand is "I'm necessary evil." He's not so well compared to the angry Madame Defarge or "The Vengeance" as he is to Maximilien Robespierre. Lest you think it's a stretch, I point out that the design of Bane's overcoat was a deliberate reference. Costume designer Lindy Hemming said:

"Chris Nolan thought there was an element about Bane that was of the French Revolution. There was kind of a romanticism about him, as well as being very bad. So I tried to combine the jacket with a French Revolutionary-style high-standing collar, which goes up and then comes back down."

Now, it might seem strange to us, but the Terror's most infamous character was a man devoted to principles and was always squeamish about death and war. Earlier in his life, Robespierre resigned from a plum position he was given as a judge because he disapproved of having to sentence men to capital punishment. He opposed his fellow Jacobins who wanted to export the Revolution abroad by going to war against Austria. He even put his money where his mouth was on social equality by totally abolishing slavery in both France itself and all her colonies. So, what on earth happened in 1792-1794?

The short version is that, when King Louis XVI was put on trial for treason after attempting to flee the country, Robespierre came to the conclusion that "desperate times called for desperate measures": in order for the new Republic to live, the king had to die, despite Robespierre's personal opposition to the death penalty... or, as Bane put it, it was necessary evil. In turn, by 1793, he concluded that a reign of terror had to be applied to preserve the common good and save the Revolution from being reversed by its enemies. Indeed, properly applied, terror was merely the fast-tracked application of justice. It was never anything personal against those doomed to die. In his own words:

"Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country."

Of course, a strong parallel can also be drawn from Robespierre and the Terror to Ra's al Ghul and any one of his plots to purge civilization of corruption, both in Batman Begins and in his various comic incarnations. Bane meant it when he said, "I am the League of Shadows! I'm here to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny!"

Batman: the Burkean hero

Many of my, err, left-leaning friends like to characterize the Batman as a fascist who keeps the people of Gotham down by perpetuating a broken system: criminals break out of Arkham, and all Batman does is throw them back in the revolving door, only to break out and kill a dozen more victims, making a mockery of the Dark Knight's rigid adherence to his no-killing rule. This is ultimately the Bat falling afoul of bad writers or, perhaps, the nature of comics themselves. To keep a continuity running for years or decades, the villains have to break out of prison over and over again so that DC can sell more stories and more comics. The Nolan films, on the other hand, are safely in the confines of a defined story arc. Batman doesn't feel the need to save Ra's al Ghul a second time, when the monorail careens into the parking garage in front of Wayne Tower at the end of Batman Begins. Once the Joker is in custody at the end of The Dark Knight, he (presumably) has never been able to bust out ever since.

In the hands of a good writer, Batman isn't a useful idiot for a broken legal system. He respects the rule of law in general, but has no qualm with acting above the law when it falls short; whether it's running a few red lights during a high-speed chase in the Batmobile, or attacking cops when they get in his way of acting for the greater good. As Bruce Wayne, the unofficial prince of Gotham, he'll also use his influence behind the scenes to get worthy men in political office, find jobs for the able-bodied, and give charity to the not-so-able. If Bane is Robespierre, Batman is Edmund Burke.

Burke was a member of the House of Commons in Britain during the French Revolution. In 1790, though he was a Whig (the liberal party at that time), Burke came out with a scathing attack, Reflections on the Revolution in France:

"What sort of a thing must be a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and at the same time, poor and sordid barbarians, destitute of religion, honor, or manly pride, possessing nothing at present, and hoping for nothing hereafter? I wish you may not be going fast, and by the shortest cut, to that horrible and disgustful situation. Already there appears a poverty of conception, a coarseness and vulgarity in all the proceedings of the assembly and of all their instructors. Their liberty is not liberal. Their science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is savage and brutal."

Of the British system, by contrast, with its tradition of common law and gradual evolution, he wrote:

"Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete."

Although we now see Regency Britain as an avowed enemy of the French Revolution, it's important to point out that Burke's fellows in the Whig Party were rather supportive of the Revolution at first. Burke came out with his Reflections even before the execution of the King and Queen, the Reign of Terror, the massacre of the Vendee, and the foreign wars. The Tories, meanwhile, didn't wholly trust Burke, either because earlier in his career, Burke supported the American side of their revolution in the colonies, emancipation and civil liberties for Catholics, and spent years trying to get the Governor-General of India impeached for judicial murder and other crimes during his colonial administration. His unpopularity among both parties for seemingly contradictory views caused him to resign from Parliament. As there's no greater praise to be had on earth than the ire of Karl Marx, it's worth citing the communist author's feelings about Burke's loyalty to his conscience over party lines:

"The sycophant—who in the pay of the English oligarchy played the romantic laudator temporis acti against the French Revolution just as, in the pay of the North American colonies at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the liberal against the English oligarchy—was an out-and-out vulgar bourgeois. 'The laws of commerce are the laws of Nature, and therefore the laws of God.' No wonder that, true to the laws of God and Nature, he always sold himself in the best market."

One can easily imagine Edmund Burke at the charity gala early in The Dark Knight Rises, scoffing with Bruce at the luxurious assortment of food on the table while the city suffers. Nonetheless, being born in the Regency Room or driving to the party in a Lamborghini isn't the evil. The sin is in refusing to fulfill the responsibilities attached to power and privilege: using your gifts and virtue to better your fellow man. Noblesse oblige.

When the screen goes to black and the credits roll, the average moviegoer walks away with the lesson that Batman became a hero for sacrificing his name, fortune, body, and his whole life for the sake of his city. And while that's all true, the casual viewer might miss a greater significance: that Batman also inspired ordinary men to be heroes with him. The best counter to Bane and the League of Shadows's designs is not anarchy or even enlightened despotism under Batman's mailed fist, but the co-operation of virtuous men. Good government. Civilization.

At the final film's climax, Batman has finally regained the trust of law and order. Captain Foley, who has spent Bane's revolution hiding behind his wife at their townhouse, wakes up from complacency and leads the Gotham police, clad in full dress, in a march toward Bane's heavy guns and certain death, all to give Batman a chance to strike. He gets mowed down by a Tumbler in the execution of his office, sprawled over the pavement with all the symbols and badges of his station like a fallen soldier in a romantic painting looking back to the Napoleonic wars. Batman hasn't destroyed a corrupt government. He's restored faith in good government and redeemed the western civilization that the League sought to overthrow. In death, Captain Foley realizes Burke's unheeded lesson on unchecked evils such as those which arose in France, which is often misquoted as "evil triumphs when good men do nothing" but remains substantially true below:

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

A grimdark Christmas -- Batman: Noël

Yesterday, I took a break from more serious reading material during my work breaks to enjoy a comic book. The lady got me Batman: Noël, a one-off short story of my favorite superhero in a handsome hardcover edition. What's it about, you ask? The unseen narrator has a working-class voice, telling the tale of a Scrooge who has everything but appreciates none of it; who begrudges one of his workers for taking Christmas Day off to spend time with his son "as though he were getting away with a crime". 

The stand-in for Dickens' classic character needs no introduction: he is, of course, billionaire Bruce Wayne, who moonlights as self-appointed lord and protector of Gotham dressed as a flying rodent. Batman is on patrol for the night of Christmas Eve as though it were any other. His prey for the evening is a certain Bob, a low-level Wayne Enterprises employee down on his luck, a single father struggling to support a disabled child. The sunken economy has pushed Bob to desperation; namely, he's agreed to play the bagman and deliver a package for his new employer, the clown prince of crime. Bob, of course, is really just an ordinary working stiff, and is no match for the Bat. The caped crusader allows our part-time crook to escape solely to use him as bait later on: for Batman can rely on the Joker's retribution to swiftly bring him out into the open when he comes to collect. The pieces are in place to put two criminals behind bars, though at great risk to Bob's son at home, to which the embittered, heartless Batman nary gives a second thought... that is, until three "ghosts" come to him through the course of the night to bring him out of the shadows he's too long dwelt.

Observe, in the display case, Batman's "first appearance" costume from DC Comics #27, existing alongside an Adam West-style suit, and finally, a modern armored suit.

Lee Bermejo superbly illustrates the Dark Knight as we know and love him today: bulky, weathered, with a permanent grimace at all the injustice he wades through from night to night. The years of scrapes, bruises, near-death encounters, and seeming futility of all his efforts have taken their toll on Bruce; most of all, the death of Jason Todd. The artist plays with the motif of newer vs. older interpretations of Batman in memory panels, especially the rendering of vintage costumes in the same realist style as the rest of the comic. "We used to play, remember?", says Catwoman in the midst of their latest altercation. It was a risky move, given A Christmas Carol's descent into the realm of cliché in recent decades, but Bermejo, as both writer and illustrator for this piece, puts it all together in such a way that, at the end, old and new visions of the Dark Knight are reconciled, and even the most ardent fan of broody, Frank-Millerized Batman can appreciate why he's been cast as Scrooge for this story.

I have to admit that my own exposure to retellings of A Christmas Carol have been minimal, so I treated the book as mostly an original story; in fact, I think I nearly shed a tear toward the flip of the final page. Altogether, for masterful artwork, decent writing, and clever application of themes all in one hardcover edition that feels "just right" without breaking the bank, I give Noël 9 out of 10 batarangs.

As an aside, I liked Jim Lee's description in the forward of the book as a "neo-Gothic work". That is all.

The Once and Future Batman

I started this blog to take my love of medievalism and the Middle Ages out of history books and make them relevant to the issues and concerns of our present age. I'll be working on the design over the next few weeks to make it less (or more?) garish.

For my inaugural post, I've taken advantage of the recent release of The Dark Knight Rises to write an entry examining the values and themes of the superhero of my childhood from a medievalist's eye.

The Once and Future Batman

By J.T.M. Griffin

Despite the efforts of a domestic terrorist in Aurora, The Dark Knight Rises lived up to its title and climbed to a spectacular success at the box office. The Batman is on everyone's lips, ensuring his place in American pop culture for generations to come. A few respectable commentators and a legion of hack writers have been swept up in Batmania, publishing their thoughts on the last film's political implications. Is The Dark Knight Rises a tool of the right-wing propaganda machine to quash the Occupy movement? Is Bane a stand-in for Bain Capital and Mitt Romney? Why even bother asking these questions about another dumb superhero flick? 

Those issues have assuredly been talked to death on countless Yahoo! comment boxes and juvenile flame wars by now. I'm more interested in examining what the character of Batman means as a cultural icon. Who is this man whose likeness or logo appears on every other kid's t-shirt or bedsheets, or on billboards and bus stop posters across America? The thought that prevailed in my mind above all others as I left the theater that opening night was this: that Batman is not quite an American icon at all.

Sure, Bruce Wayne is a natural-born American citizen. Gotham City is geographically somewhere in the United States. But the connections end there. The following thoughts will examine Batman as a character and reveal why he is truly the Dark Knight... and why he is not a classically American hero, but a medieval, aristocratic one.

Noblesse oblige

"Indeed you can usually tell when the concepts of democracy and citizenship are weakening. There is an increase in the role of charity and in the worship of volunteerism. These represent the élite citizen's imitation of noblesse oblige; that is, of pretending to be aristocrats or oligarchs, as opposed to being citizens." —John Ralston Saul

Why does Batman don the cape and cowl night after night, risking his life for the people of a city so hopelessly corrupt and ungrateful? "You don't owe these people anymore. You've given them everything," Catwoman tells Batman in the third film. He replies, "Not everything. Not yet." 

As long as Batman draws breath, he owes the people of Gotham his wealth, service, even his life because he is the prince of Gotham and lives by the code of conduct of the ideal aristocrat: noblesse oblige (nobility obliges it). That is to say, that because Bruce Wayne has been blessed with wealth, resources, and privilege beyond ordinary men, he is bound by duty to use them in service of the people of his "domain", just as his father did, and his father's father, and so on. 

The principle of noblesse oblige is the counter-balance to that of divine right, presenting power as a gift, rather than something to be won. The American mindset could not be more different. "My wealth is my own, to be disposed as I please", a classic American entrepreneur would say. He spends a lifetime working, perhaps even in multiple jobs at once, to join the elite one percent of society. Some American self-made millionaires value "work" so much that they even refuse to pay their grandchildren's way through college. What do such folk have in common with a man like Bruce Wayne, born in a mansion, and who as an adult still never answers his own door or makes his own bed? Even other people born to wealth may resent the Waynes' philanthropy and charity. The comics provide such an example in the character of Roman Sionis, a fellow trust-fund baby who, unlike Bruce, led his family's company to ruin. Bruce rescued Sionis by buying out his company, only for Sionis to grow embittered and turn into the mob boss known as Black Mask.

And yet, Batman is no socialist. He does not say, "My wealth is not my own, but the state's." How could the Waynes have developed the public railway system in Gotham, research into cancer treatment or alternative fuel sources, or the many gadgets that make Batman the world's greatest detective without the resources of Wayne Enterprises? If Bruce decided to simply liquidate all his assets and make paper rain in Gotham from helicopters in the sky, most of it would simply find its way into the pockets of the criminal underworld. If he simply wrote a massive check to the IRS, the money would be squandered on weapons contracts, pointless wars, or bloated bureaucracies. No, Batman is none of the above: he is an aristocrat. "My wealth is to be given to the people, but according to how I see fit." It's a method that works effectively (at least in the hands of an ideal aristocrat like Bruce Wayne), and earns the resentment of criminals and honest working Americans alike.

The Prince of Gotham

If Gotham is in such need of dramatic examples to stir the good citizens of Gotham out of apathy, it's reasonable enough to think that Batman would like them all to don pointy-eared masks and patrol the streets, right? Perhaps allow Batman a night off?

As The Dark Knight revealed in the second scene, that route will sooner get you bound and gagged with the rest of Batman's victims than a solemn nod of thanks. Batman's crusade is his burden alone; other masked vigilantes in his city only operate with his consent and according to the same set of standards he's imposed upon himself. It's like a medieval serf picking up a sword and shield to patrol a knight's territory. It's insulting, and the serf is likely to get himself hurt. And when it comes to the business of crimefighting, ordinary Gothamites are indeed serfs in Batman's mind. The police, with a few honorable exceptions like Gordon, are little better. 

Only a natural elite are allowed to rise from the ranks to join in Batman's inner circle as vigilantes. His "squire", Robin, must endure intense training to live up to Batman's strict no-killing code, and even then, Batman often keeps Robin away from the front lines. It's no surprise that the first Robin, Dick Grayson, was stifled by Batman's control and had to strike out on his own as Nightwing, even moving to a different city. Batman essentially rules Gotham as his own fiefdom, where there can only be one man at the head. Certain comic writers have taken Batman’s control of Gotham to extreme lengths. In the miniseries Kingdom Come, set twenty years after the present, the Caped Crusader is no longer fit to patrol the streets. His future self watches over the city with an army of robots in his likeness and a surveillance camera on each corner, all which he controls from his computer console in the Batcave. Excessive? Perhaps, but in Batman's mind, still preferable to allowing outsiders like Superman take his place as the protector of Gotham.

Batman critics are quick to accuse the Caped Crusader of elitism or of being a rich bully. The truth lies in the simple fact that as most of Batman's villains are agents of chaos, Batman is a symbol of order. His entire crusade is to dispel the chaos left in the wake of his parents' murder and ensure no Gothamite will have their loved ones taken away by a madman on the streets. In the traditional medieval mind where characters like Batman fit best, order is best given from monarchy: the rule of one. It sees a city or a country not as a disparate group of voices needing to reach a consensus, but rather as a human body. The people are the heart, which pump life throughout the nation. The police and Batman's vigilante allies are two arms, enforcing justice and order. But there can only be one head, and make no mistake, it's not the mayor. The mayor of Gotham changes every election cycle by the whim of the masses. He's prone to corruption (such as whenever Gotham elects the Penguin or a member of his family, the Cobblepots), mind control (Quincy Sharp in the game Arkham City), or assassination (in countless comic arcs). It's truly the Wayne family that provides a dynastic continuity of leadership in the city by day, and the sigil of the Bat illuminated across the night sky that strikes fear in the heart of criminals. 

Blasters are so uncivilized

 "I thought the movie was terrible, just an awful trainwreck of plot holes and stupidity. Also, Batman's idiotic unwillingness to use a handgun despite him being perfectly happy strapping heavy machine guns onto every vehicle he drives has killed more Gothamites than 9/11 did New Yorkers." --A neoconservative NRA member's review of The Dark Knight Rises

Batman's aversion to guns is one of the distinguishing marks of his character... but what could be a greater blasphemy to the American spirit? We have the minuteman, musket in hand, ready to fight for independence at a moment's notice; the cowboy winning the West with a revolver on each hip; the protagonist on every other movie poster brandishing a semi-automatic at the viewer. Even a director who personally advocates strict gun control is likely to lay down heavy gun violence in his film because it's the American way.

To be sure, the Bat's attitude toward guns has evolved with time. The original Batman strips did have Batman use a firearm on occasion. Soon after, comic censorship forbade heroes from carrying guns so they wouldn't usurp the place of police and stand above the law in the imaginations of 1950's children. The old Comics Code has long since bitten the dust, but Batman's disdain for the firearm has prevailed... and frankly, it makes sense. It's not solely because Bruce's parents were gunned down in Crime Alley. Other comic characters such as the Punisher have lost loved ones to gun violence, only to pick up even bigger guns and exact vengeance. But for a man as rich, powerful, and intelligent as Bruce Wayne, guns are truly beneath him.

In the Middle Ages, a knight's prowess was tested in close combat with lance, mace, and sword. Bows were most often used by commoners, but even those required extensive training to use effectively. It was the invention of the crossbow that drew ire from the knightly caste as an unsportsmanlike, unchivalrous weapon. The crossbow allowed any peasant to point, shoot, and pierce a knight's costly armor, negating decades of training and battlefield experience. The crossbow was so reviled that Pope Innocent II allegedly forbade its use on anyone but infidels. And of course, the introduction of the firearm to Europe signaled the end of the armored knight as the prince of the battlefield. A culture of training and martial discipline gave way to a new strategy: putting guns into as many peasants or mercenaries as you could find and have them point in the same direction.

It was the gun, "the great equalizer", that allowed a vagrant like Joe Chill to murder the most powerful couple in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne's parents, at the twitch of a finger. With such a traumatic moment shaping his life, Batman would rather learn 77 ways to incapacitate an enemy rather than take the commoner's route and draw a gun on them. Perhaps the best example is in the first episode of the series Batman Beyond, where an aged Batman suffers a heart attack while rescuing a kidnapped hostage. With his body failing, he scares off the last thug with a handgun. When the cops arrive, Batman drops the gun in horror and realizes that he's become too old and unworthy of wearing the cape and cowl, then seals the Batcave for decades until a worthy successor rises up to take his place.

The Mark of Zorro

“I have so often been asked the question: ‘But how did you come to think of The Scarlet Pimpernel?’ And my answer has always been: ‘It was God's will that I should.’ And to you moderns, who perhaps do not believe as I do, I will say, ‘In the chain of my life, there were so many links, all of which tended towards bringing me to the fulfillment of my destiny.’” --Baroness Emma Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel

It would be remiss to not mention Batman's literary inspirations, neither of whom are particularly "American" heroes. The first is, of course, the colonial Californian swashbuckler known as Zorro. By day, he is Don Diego de la Vega, a Spanish nobleman who poses as a poor swordsman and a fop who cares little for the poor. This is a ruse to diffuse suspicion of him being Zorro, a hero who dons a black mask and cape to defend the oppressed from bandits and corrupt politicians. It's no surprise that in many tellings of Batman's origins, Bruce was at the theater watching The Mark of Zorro the night his parents were murdered.

Less direct but no less relevant is the character of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a British aristocrat with limitless wealth who dons disguises to rescue fellow nobles in France from the terror of the French Revolution. His playboy persona and mastery of intrigue have served as the template for Zorro, Batman, and other rich men moonlighting as heroes. The Pimpernel's creator, Baroness Emma Orczy, was an expatriate in Victorian Britain. Her family fled Hungary over fears of a peasant uprising. Those sentiments were clearly reflected in her characterizations of the French Revolution in the Pimpernel novels, as well as her many public statements in support of British imperialism and aristocracy. Whether by intention or not, Batman also frequently grapples with villains who wreak chaos throughout Gotham in the name of empowering the common people… including Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

The Once and Future Batman

            Although Batman strives for a Gotham in which he’s no longer needed, where the police and rule of democratic law will be sufficient to keep citizens safe, it’s a utopian fantasy that will never come to pass. Like the Arthurian legends, Gotham’s fate is tied directly to the presence and health of Bruce Wayne. When he disappears to train in the Himalayas, is broken by Bane, retires, or even does so much as attempt to take a vacation, the city rots. It’s the ultimate proof of original sin: men are inclined to evil and need to be governed. But in Batman’s world, the American way; cops, lawyers, and due process; is not good enough. They can be corrupted or destroyed. The people of Gotham need a dramatic example and all the pomp that goes with it. They need the ultimate symbol of benevolent order in our modern age. They need an aristocrat, a Dark Knight. They need the Batman.