I will start this short article by stating clearly that I will take into considerations some aspects of a fictional character that I particularly like, this being Batman. I will not bore you with tales from my childhood and spare you a Proustian moment of spiraling memories; suffice it to say that I grew up with the 1992 animated series and for a number of nostalgic reasons, up to this day, it is still one of my favorites.
A word to the wise, given the fictional nature of the character and the fact that different writers contributed to the global development of his background, Batman has been portrayed in many nuances along the years. What may be considered (more or less) canon, in my opinion, is merely a question of taste and not rigorously objective. That being said, we may acknowledge that certain key aspects have been steadily anchored to the general lore of the character: the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, the training path towards the cape and cowl, the ever-present butler, certain background stories, the death of the first Robin (Jason Todd) and so on. These details are not set in stone: there are either stand-alone comic book issues or complete sagas that utterly subvert the above-mentioned status quo.
Historically, while (almost) always being called Bruce Wayne, many were the faces and stories of the Batman, and every fan has his personal favorite. May it be the young and still inexperience Wayne from Year One or the old and decrepit Dark Knight that Returns, the more recent one that is made out Metal, or the one that can become a vampiric Crimson Mist, the roles and faces of the Batman are virtually infinite. I will not even quote by name each of the authors that molded these stories or the artists that made them come to life because they deserve much more than a mere quotation in an article; for now I will just thank them deeply.
Before finally arriving at what I had originally intended to write about, I want to add one last thing that is important for my analysis, that being the complexity behind the main character. The Dark Knight and Bruce Wayne are two distinct counterparts that continuously struggle to co-exist in the same body. Their relation is often times, at best, adversarial: the fight for righteous and justice is in conflict with the veiled will of killing off the so-called villains. Batman knows that deep down there is no remorse for the villains in his world and yet he wants to believe that they will somehow see their errors. This is even more emphasized when considering the abusive relation he has with others: he pushes everyone away because he believes he is protecting them and yet he knows that they are his only salvation – he does not trust anyone, ironically not even himself. Bruce Wayne becomes merely an empty shell, a surrogate that has to live in the light of the reflectors and mundane wealth while his truer nature strives for the concealment of the shadows.
What does any of what I have just said has to do with the 2017 Batman: White Knight comic written by Sean Murphy? Well, pretty much everything.
The comic heavily concentrates on contrasts and dualisms, just as I have explained about the core characteristic of the Dark Knight; it tries to disrupt the reader’s view point by any means necessary – even the title itself represents the antithesis of Batman.
Batman: White Knight ponders the figure of Joker, the main counterpart of an already internally divided Capped Crusader. The comic book emphasizes the brilliance, possibly closer to folly than intelligence, of Batman’s iconic rival. The Joker, following the plot, succeeds in becoming a normal man, who then sues Gotham and becomes the so-called “good guy”. Again, this is certainly not an innovation, but it works, especially considering the fact that it keeps the reader guessing. Even though he is taking medications, is he merely faking it or in fact there is no act at all and his condition is real? Another turning point is the fact that the Batman is depicted as a hero that is losing his ethical and moral code; not even Batgirl, Nightwing, or James Gordon are able to make him reason or to talk with him – he has become completely detached, the shell of a shell.
To add to this fractured mirror of personalities and contrasting interior and exterior character traits, the comic book inserts a somewhat different detail. It is explained that the Harley Quinn that was with Joker before him turning back to a human version of himself was a fake and that the Joker was so absorbed in trying to get Batman’s attention that he had not even noticed the difference. The abusive relation that Joker has with his harlequinesque counterpart becomes somewhat of a deformed reflection of the relation Batman had with his “bat-family”.
Good and Evil, one unable to exist without the other, two sides of the same coin; Batman: White Knight does an outstanding job of giving a better introspection of characters that are so deliciously complicated they cannot be extricated and analyzed as a part. Batman and Joker, just as Bruce Wayne and the Dark Knight, will be forever intertwined and will continue an endless battle that will have no end. The purpose of these antithetical forces is to fight continuously, without ever prevailing, for if even one were to win it would also simultaneously mark its defeat.