Batman and I

My earliest memories consist of weekly trips into town. My Mom and Grandma would tote my little toddler self to the grocery store, set me in the cart, stop by the bakery inside where I'd get a free snack because the ladies that worked there seemed to adore me, and we'd go to the magazine rack where I'd pick up whatever issue they'd have of Batman out on display, reading it the entire time I was in the store, then going home and reading it again and again and again, along with the rest of my little collection.

My Dad worked late into the night, with one or two points in my life where he worked two jobs, so every night I'd get to stay up until he got home, meaning I had time to tune into Boomerang's nightly showings of Teen Titans, then Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, watching in awe at Batman and Robin with their respective teams, seeing them fight whatever baddie of the week was there that episode, and find the purposeful meanings in each story.

There's one scene in one particular episode of Justice League Unlimited that has stuck with me, since first seeing it as a little girl. Titled "Epilogue", it was the season two finale, which also served as a sort of finale for a sister series, Batman Beyond, with its' main character, Terry, finding out that he was always destined to become the next Batman, as designed by Amanda Waller, and she shares a particularly outstanding story of Batman. He and some of the other Leaguers had finished a fight with the Royal Flush Gang, with only the youngest, Ace, still remaining. Waller had informed him that the girls mental abilities -- being able to create hallucinations -- had developed into reality warping and that she was only hours from a massive aneurysm that would end the lives of many due to a psychic backlash. They're instructed to put an end to her before it happens.

Batman is the one to go in, stating Ace knows him and would let him get close enough to her. Amanda reminds him he is going to have to kill her if he does this. Silently, he goes deeper into the forest she created and goes to find the girl. He finds her on a swing set, and she vents to him the horrors she went through in Cadmus, trained for as long as she can remember to be a "weapon of justice" with her powers. "They got their weapon," she says. "I got cheated out of my childhood." To which, Batman simply says he knows what that's like. A boy who had been cheated out of a normal childhood the day his parents were taken from him in a back alley after a movie. His innocence was taken and the need to bring justice filling him since that day.

He destroys the weapon Waller gave him to use on her, confirming to Ace he was never going to use it on her. "I'm dying very soon." she tells him.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

Then, she begins to cry, and in the smallest voice, she asks him to stay with her, that she's scared. Batman says nothing at all, because there's nothing to even say. He simply sits on the swing next to her and extends his hand for her to hold.

It's a scene that's stuck with me for years. This figure many had looked at as this edgy, dark, gritty hero, too busy busting up bad guys, was, in, reality, a guardian. Someone who sat here and stayed to comfort a scared little girl who just needed someone there while she went through the most terrifying thing a child can go through. He was someone who dressed as a bat to instill fear into those that went out of their way to bring chaos and pain, but would be the one to quell that fear in others who needed him.

I think it's reasons like that that my Batman obsession kicked off as a kid.

It was something that never really went away. As a kid, I played with the toys, watched any media I could consume that had Batman in it, read the comics -- I even told my parents, at four years old, my future children would be named Batman and Robin.

I would go into phases of liking other superheroes. I'd always had a fondness for the X-Men and was all over the Avengers when Marvel was at its height. I even found myself getting frustrated in my early teens with the Batman character, not fully understanding at first why the no killing rule existed, even in the cases of the Joker -- especially when, by that point, I had begun really getting to know the mythos and the characters and knew what had happened to characters like Jason Todd (my other favorite superhero of all time) and Harley Quinn.

But, even still, Batman remained a concrete presence in my life. One that opened the door into many more stories and characters, and even shaping the way I view the world.

I grew attachments to what is known as the Bat Family, the people in Bruce's life that know his secret and work with him in trying to better Gotham, ranging from friends to his adopted children to even his own cousin. Through thick and thin, Bruce always had people willing to help him, work with him, and call him out when sometimes he wasn't making the best of decisions. They were people he had brought into his life that he trusted, loved, wanted the best for. The notion of the lone figure in the night once existed, back in the earliest days of his comics, but that lone figure hasn't truly existed since the first appearance of his first Robin, his first son, Dick Grayson.

In my adult years, now having grown disenchanted with most of the modern comics for Batman (and namely one writer for him that did far more damage than any good), I found myself wanting to read through every other Batman comic I could find. To get a better understanding of the character I'd idolized since I was a little girl. In doing so, I found the more violent side to him that had been there in the early days. The detective side, the heroic side, it all had still remained, but he was much more reckless and careless about his own safety. He was also more brutal in how he fought the villains, with the no killing rule nowhere in place.

Then Dick Grayson came into his life. And the shift was immediate.

He was more careful, more caring about the loss of life, and all of a sudden was very against guns, whereas he had not been before, even calling out to readers to fight against gun violence -- back around 1939, 1940, mind you, which is a bit wild to think about.

I've heard the line stated time and time again that Batman is better when he has Robin, and that "There is no Batman without Robin." Which, is entirely true. Having someone to care for, someone who was his responsibility, changed Bruce for the better and affected him to this day, over eighty years later. Later iterations even built upon this, by the creation of the first Bat Family in an attempt to make something akin to a nuclear family for Bruce, that continued to change and develop and grow years later. All of them people he had found, brought in under his wing, brought in on his greatest secret, and inspired them.

It's not perfect, and there are always struggles that arise, especially in the eyes of his children who are trying to make their own marks while living under his grand legacy, but there is so much love and strength and faith between them. They fight to make each other better, because they've seen what happens when they fall to the wayside and try to isolate themselves -- because they've seen what it can do to Bruce.

There are authors that scoff at this, try to tear it apart and isolate Bruce because it's what they believe fans want. Or because the authors, namely ones like Tom King, who believe Batman can never be happy, or else, he wouldn't be Batman. It's to those writers that I say; you've missed the entire point.

The lessons I've learned from Bruce is the dangers of what happens when you isolate, put the burden of everything on your shoulders and your shoulders alone and the damage it causes not just to you, but the people around you. I learned how the people you bring into your life can become your family, that wants to be there for you through thick and thin because you want to do the same for them. And that you are not alone, even through your darkest times -- and you have to be careful and not let it consume you.

Bruce battles this in the Mask of the Phantasm movie. A new villain appears, targeting specific people who all connect back to each other through one woman, who was an old flame of Bruce's. She let the anger and grief she felt from these powerful men turning her whole world upside down and taking her father from her, that she could only focus on revenge and brutality. Bruce reflects on it all after he believes she perished in her quest for vengeance, and Alfred tells him there was no saving her (a notion that, to Bruce, doesn't exist -- he has to be able to save everyone), because she fell into a pit she could not get out of and he is beyond grateful Bruce never had, no matter how close he got to that edge.

Because he had ways to cope. Because he had a straight notion and line to draw. Because he had people depending on him, and who cared about him to stand by him.

I think about that pit. The anger and the depression and the anxiety that trauma causes. The incessant need that arises to fix everything, to change it, no matter the cost. Or to give up entirely. I've known that pit since I was about fourteen and first diagnosed with depression and anxiety. You can stand too close to the edge, always trying to shuffle back away. You can feel yourself almost begin to fall. You can feel that pit almost grow something akin to limbs that try pull you down so it can swallow you whole.

Truth be told, I can't even name how many times I almost let it.

But I always had Batman.

The term "comfort character" is what I'd use to define my later relationship with Batman. It's a character I can always turn to on a bad day, when I'm sad or stressed or just depressed and empty and need some kind of pick-me-up. It's a term a lot of people these days use, all of us having at least one character we truly connect to, in whatever way we need them, something I believe is this amazing thing we get to have for ourselves and it's beautiful to hear the reasons why someone connects so deeply with any given character.

For me, as I've said earlier in this, I learned a lot from Batman about not isolating myself, the importance of family, and even the importance of fighting to keep myself from falling deep into that pit of darkness. From him, I've learned about keeping kind, to help anyone in need when I can. I learned to be analytical, to see things from every angle I can and to trust my intuition. I think I could even safely include my love of true crime came from my early years as a Batman fan, wanting to see justice be brought for the victims and for mysteries to finally be solved.

But I always think back to who he is with his villains. A good bit of his rogues gallery are ones who suffer from mental illness, dealt with abuse, dealt with not having any other way to try and get what they needed done done. And I think of Batman. Yes, he always goes to stop them from hurting others, from lashing out, and putting them away. But he works to get them the help they need, to better them and their lives. Because saving Gotham doesn't stop at just simply throwing them in the brig for the rest of their days. He wants to rehabilitate people, do what he can to actually better his city and the lives of the people around. Most billionaires would never go to the lengths that he has, both in and out of the cowl, to better his city or to try and help the "bad guys", the people he views as his enemies.

But there's Batman. Who believes that people are worth trying to save, and that if he can make a difference in their lives, even if its just a minor one, even if its just an attempt, then that difference can go onto make differences in others and that people can grow and be better and do better.

He has faith, in even these villains, because he's seen them in their darkest places, and can understand their plight. He knows they can't run around, but he does what he can to give them the tools to get another start.

Batman was that light in the darkness, shining as brightly as his Bat Signal, to try and make a difference.

I read through the stories, watch the movies (animated, primarily), watch the shows. I hold onto that symbol. I hold onto the character that never gives up in trying to make things better. That would help anyone who ever needed it. And, in my darkest times, I could turn to Batman -- and to the rest of the Bat Family -- and the absolute libraries worth of stories, of lessons, and I could find a sense of peace.

I look back to that one image of Ace, scared and alone, and Batman holding her hand through to the end. And I think of the pain and the loss and grief and struggles I've been through in my life -- losing my Mom and Grandma two months apart from each other, having lost my Grandpa just a few years prior, dropping out of college after my second year, difficulties in general with either side of my family -- and I know, when it gets bad, I could get a little bit of escapism to calm down, flip open a comic book or turn on the television, and see this guardian figure just doing his best to try and make the world better.

Batman has never left my life, and likely never will. I'll probably always have this connection to this character, to want to see more adventures and to see him done justice, to see his family, to see the constant battle to save the day and save every day after, even when my hair's gone gray and I might be senile. Because it gives me the sense of peace and hope I'll always need.

And I can only hope that out there somewhere, there's that character for you all, just waiting to be discovered.