3 Years Later, DC Is Reusing Their Best Batman Idea In a Much Better Way

The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh being an alternate personality that Bruce created in case his mind was ever compromised was introduced back in Batman #678. Previously, he had been an alternate world’s Batman, but now he was an intrinsic part of Bruce. Zur-En-Arrh was a brutal, insane version of Batman taken to every emotional extreme, but he was still Batman at his heart, meaning he fought to save lives and protect his home. However, this alternate personality did not stay heroic. He was Batman without Bruce Wayne, meaning he lacked his morality and humanity. Eventually, he became the exact problem that Bruce created him to stop.

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Zur-En-Arrh was the main villain of Chip Zdarsky’s controversial run on Batman. The back-up Batman infected Bruce’s mind, slowly driving him insane in an attempt to take over their body once and for all, and finally free himself by occupying the Failsafe robot he built to defeat Batman if he ever crossed the line. While this specific story definitely fell short of fans’ expectations, the idea of Batman being corrupted and slowly losing control was very interesting, and thankfully, DC has brought it back in Detective Comics #1103.

Batman Realizes He’s Lost His Edge

This arc of Detective Comics, called “The Courage That Kills,” started when Batman found an abandoned ship in the Gotham harbor. He realized the dead passengers were infected with a disease that stripped them of all fear, and thus all restraint and mental faculties. Worse yet, he was infected. Batman followed the trail to a new villain named the Lion, who brought down his own mountain base on top of Batman in an attempt to slow him down. Batman barely dug his way out, but lost consciousness in the Bat-Plane.

This issue began with Oracle calling Superman, who flew to Bruce and woke him up. Batman said that he needed to speak to Lois. He had found evidence that the Lion was affiliated with Star Labs, and she had known contacts inside their facilities. Lois used her reporter savvy to find out that Star Labs worked on an anti-fear virus, but the project was shut down, and only one of the original team was still alive. Batman and Lois went to Toomey’s apartment, but Intergang was waiting for them. Batman disabled the Intergang agents, but Toomey used that time to jump out the window.

All too late, Batman realized that Toomey wasn’t kidnapped by Intergang but was working with them. He leapt after the fearless man, saving him by crash-landing in the building across the street. As he did, Batman realized that he didn’t consider the possibility of Toomey working with Intergang because he didn’t want to. He also had plenty of safer ways to save Toomey, but he took a risky, quicker alternative. He was getting reckless, fearless, and it was taking away everything that made him a great detective.

Batman Losing His Mind Is A Terrifying Propect (In a Different Way)

With Zur-En-Arrh, Batman lost his mind in the most mundane way possible. Bruce started behaving erratically and making decisions that he would never normally make, such as fighting his family and hypnotizing Jason. Batman was crazy and off-balance, but at a certain point, he stopped feeling like Batman and more like a standard crazy villain convinced he was doing the right thing. This arc, however, presents the idea of Batman losing his mental stability in a much more thought-provoking way.

Just like Lois called out in this issue, deduction requires fear on some level. It requires being suspicious, but if Batman can’t feel fear or worry, his brain will naturally look past possibilities he doesn’t want to consider because he won’t be worried about being wrong. Batman is losing his objectivity to the virus, and a Batman without something to ground him is a very, very scary thing. His ability to think through things rationally has always been one of his biggest strengths, but now he’s losing an essential piece of that, making his entire system break down, but he doesn’t even notice.

Batman is losing the ability to trust himself at the same time that he loses the ability to fear that possibility. He can’t trust himself anymore, but has to keep charging forward, even as he begins to get sloppy. This is Batman going crazy in a very Batman-specific way, where it specifically targets his biggest strength and skewes it just a bit. Batman has always relied on his mind and courage above all else, but now those things are the very things doing him in. Batman has been overcoming his own fears since he was a child, but now that is punishing him. It’s a unique way of Batman going crazy, and it definitely makes me happy to see DC re-explore this idea in a more interesting way.

Detective Comics #1103 is on sale now!

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