Everyone has seen the evil Superman trope, from the Injustice games to Homelander to Omni-Man. It seems like every writer and their mother has tried to spoof the Man of Tomorrow by making a version of him that’s evil, but I feel like by this point we’ve collectively agreed that this trope is overplayed. Superman shouldn’t be evil. And today I argue that the same courtesy should be extended to Batman. Over the past decade especially, it’s become commonplace to accept stories where there are extremely over-the-top evil versions of Batman, and sometimes Batman himself is portrayed as a villain similar to those. Both of these types of stories misunderstand and misrepresent core aspects of Batman’s character, and there have been so many recently. We don’t need any more evil Batman stories, and I can prove why.
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Evil Batman Stories Misrepresent Him
Stories about evil Batman miss the point of his character about as much as stories about evil Superman. Worse, they are even more egregious because they usually aren’t alternate takes on the character in completely separate universes as is the norm with evil Supermen, but things that the actual Batman deals with in his comics. They always emerge in one of two ways: either a deranged alternate reality version or by blowing one of Batman’s real flaws way out of proportion for no reason.
When I say there’s an evil version of Batman, I don’t mean a purposeful mirror image of him like Catman, who is meant to be similar but also distinct from the Dark Knight. I literally mean an alternate version of Batman that is evil, like Owlman or any of the variants from the Dark Knights: Metal event. One of the things that makes these villains so annoying is that they are always absurdly overpowered. The best example of this is with The Batman Who Laughs, who Bruce literally calls the personification of the idea that Batman always wins in The Batman Who Laughs mini-series. But this idea of Batman always winning is an annoyingly pushed facet of his character that nearly ruins it. It takes Batman from a man who attempts to plan for everything and struggles to save as many people as he can to being a Bat-God that can take down the entire world if given an hour’s notice. It makes him into a Mary Sue type by handwaving all the human limitations that Batman should deal with, and makes it seem less like he plans for the worst case scenario and more like he’s prophetic. And it makes no sense. The idea that Batman can easily take down every member of the Justice League but then struggle against the Riddler is straight insanity.
Batman Is a Hero
Beyond all the issues of evil Batmen making Bruce into more of a deity than man, the type of story where Batman himself is portrayed as near evil is just as bad. These stories almost always follow the same pattern of a villain showing up, Batman pushing away everyone close to him, said villain and loved ones and usually a new character ask Batman how he can live with doing “X” bad thing, he says he’s a bad person, he stops the villain, everyone is mad at Batman but he promises to do better, and repeat. These stories have a habit of forcing Batman to make a choice that is only marginally in character, along with erasing all of the good he’s done for Gotham to focus on the harmful impact he’s had, which is usually also not his fault. The new idea for these takes on making Batman go too far is to have him fight his own children. In the last year alone we’ve gotten “Gotham War” and “Hush 2,” two completely unrelated storylines where Batman comes into conflict with his children for reasons that hardly make any sense at all. These stories constantly try to “subvert” expectations by showing the bad aspects of Batman’s character, but those aspects are almost always either not real issues or blown up massively for the sake of the story.
How many times is Batman going to be berated for inspiring the insane of Gotham to put on costumes, like they don’t like in a world populated by literal hundreds of other costumed heroes and villains? These stories always push Batman to the brink and force him to justify his existence, but instead of letting him argue they just kind of have him shrug and keep on chugging. They bring up some usually baseless argument, like the better before Batman, apply it to Batman, and just have him accept the blame and move on. Batman is not a perfect man by any means, but he is nowhere near a villain.
I’m not saying there’s no place for evil Batman stories. I love evil counterparts to Batman like Owlman and find The Batman Who Laughs really interesting if done in a certain way, and a good deconstruction of Batman can build him up higher than ever, but it feels like these are the only stories we get nowadays. Batman continuously, repeatedly will either find some dark reflection of himself that people say is extremely close to who he is, or have his entire existence slandered for a perceived problem with him. Batman comics have been in a downward spiral of this treatment of him for years now, and it’s very clear that treating Batman like he’s one step from being a villain is having a major impact on his public perception. Batman has always been a hero who has faced the darkness inside himself and others far more intimately than his compatriots, but importantly he never gives into that darkness. That unyielding integrity is what makes Batman so compelling as a character, but constantly showing us evil versions of him completely misses the point. Evil versions of characters have their place, but when they’re overused, they’re just annoying.
