Batman is arguably the most popular superhero in the world, with legions of fans who discuss him every day. That kind of impact is a sign that people truly care about and find entertainment in Batman’s character. He clearly means a great deal to millions of people, and that’s the highest honor that a fictional character can have. Heck, even people who don’t like Batman know at least a little about him through cultural osmosis alone. However, large fanbases aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. One of the worst things about characters being popular is when subsects of the public inevitably misunderstand the character, but spread this idea like it’s the bible.
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Fan theories and interpretations are some of the best parts of fandom culture, but it can get rather annoying when a vocal part of that community parrots wrong information this way. Every character suffers from this, but Batman deals with it to an extreme degree. The most popular misrepresentation, backed up by some evidence and adaptations, is that Bruce Wayne is a mask while Batman is his true self. This theory has been disproven time and again in comics, but it always persists. However, twenty-four years ago, Batman confirmed this idea was correct in the only way that made sense, and it’s brilliant.
Bruce Wayne: Murderer, Fugitive, Mask
Batman #600, “The Scene of the Crime,” comes smack dab in the middle of the joint “Bruce Wayne: Murderer Turned Fugitive” storyline. Bruce Wayne had been accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Vesper Fairchild, and all evidence pointed towards him doing it. Faced with an iron-clad case and jail time, Batman busted out of prison. Instead of solving the murder, however, he planned to simply let Bruce Wayne disappear. When the Bat-Family confronted him, he told them that Bruce was a mask he wore to blend into society, but he had outlived his usefulness, so he was retiring Bruce to focus on being Batman.
This led to a fight between Batman and Nightwing, who refused to accept that Bruce Wayne wasn’t real. Unfortunately, Batman stayed true to his guns and escaped the Bat Cave, intent on leaving his entire past behind. While the rest of the Bat-Family was left reeling and trying to find evidence to prove Bruce didn’t kill Vesper, Batman redoubled his patrol of Gotham. At a glance, this seems like fairly cut-and-dry proof that Bruce Wayne isn’t real, but the reality is very much the opposite. Bruce Wayne is Batman’s heart, not his mask, and the reason that it only makes sense in this issue is that Batman was wrong and unstable, as the same storyline later proved.
Batman Is a Mask to Cover Pain
Batman’s decision to abandon Bruce Wayne only came when he was at one of the lowest points of his life. At that point, Bruce’s life was falling apart at the seams. He’d faced countless tragedies and hardships, from countless tragic storylines like “Officer Down” to having a bodyguard shoved onto him, to whom he was forced to reveal his identity. While Vesper isn’t a well-known love interest, Bruce truly cared for her, and his heart broke when his repeated absences as Batman cost him the relationship. As he prepared to give up his civilian life, Batman recalled all the pain of lovers who left him because Batman got in the way. Being Bruce Wayne had brought Batman nothing but trouble and heartache.
Batman cutting off his Bruce Wayne identity wasn’t revealing his true self; it was running away from all the pain of being human. He tried to live only as Batman, and by the end of the story, discovered that he couldn’t. Bruce Wayne was what drove Batman. Without Bruce Wayne, Batman couldn’t exist. Batman tried to be a cold, lonely crime-fighting machine, but nobody can be. Only when he embraced all his pain and human connections, the thing that Bruce Wayne embodied, did he save the day and prove his innocence. Batman being Bruce’s real face isn’t something to admire; it’s a bad end where Bruce becomes a shell of his former self.
Which Batman take aggravates you the most? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts on the ComicBook Forum!
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools.
