I hate to blog an article about Batman "for real". But the article is in Scientific American, so that shows it's a serious subject, so there!
"How would all those beat-downs have affected his longevity?
Keeping in mind that being Batman means never losing: If you look at consecutive events where professional fighters have to defend their titles—Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Ultimate Fighters—the longest period you're going to find is about two to three years. That dovetails nicely with the average career for NFL running backs. It's about three years. (That's the statistic I got from the NFL Players Association Web site.) The point is, it's not very long. It's really hard to become Batman in the first place, and it's hard to maintain it when you get there."
The article, though, does not go into what I consider more interesting: the psychological and sociological reasons why there is no Batman. Or just any serious and lasting vigilantes (if unlike Batman you don't mind using a gun, it'd be a lot easier). Given the everlasting popularity of vigilantes in popular fiction, it's clearly a deep-seated fantasy.
I'm guessing a person who is obsessed enough to do it won't have the skill and persistence to actually do it. And also, society just won't allow it. If somebody actually did, the fear of the vigilante would quickly become greater than the fear of the criminals, and the police would be forced to hunt him down. The Dark Knight Returns actually dealt with this question, one of the reasons it was such an outstanding book.
13 comments:
The real reason there couldn't be a Batman has to do with what this guy says when asked about whether one of us could be Batman. He says that if you figure out the percentage of people who become billionaires and the percentage who become Olympic athletes. To find someone who is or could be both would be pretty rare. And the reason that Batman and Zorro and Doc Savage and a lot of those guys are rich is because otherwise they couldn't do it - they'd never be able to get some shut eye.
Which makes me think it's a bit much how they have Batman these days not only being Batman and playing being a billionaire playboy, but also having a direct hand in running his empire. Early in the comics he inherits money but doesn't run a company. As Bruce Wayne he is basically like a male Paris Hilton who inherits the family money but has no business to run.
As for his longevity, I think this guy is looking at it in the wrong way maybe. Using the example of champion fighters like Ali or elite athletes is the wrong approach. Batman isn't fighting his opponents openly in a ring and playing by the rules. It's the same reason your lethaly trained SAS or Commando or Delta Force or SEAL guys (the best of the best of the best huh!) might not do so well in the ring but would kick almost anyone's ass outside a ring if they were an enemy combatant. It's the same as with the police. They don't fight fair. They use moves that would be illegal in the ring even if they weren't lethal (since Batman these days doesn't kill). Batman has his smoke bombs and other technology. I'd be uses night vision or heat vision or something like that. In Batman Begins he's trained as a ninja. He would make sure he didn't have to fight too many people at once and he would make sure the odds were in his favor.
I think as far as vigilantes go The Punisher is probably closer to the most realistic even if he isn't a hero. Even though he's more than willing, even eager, to kill he'd still probably need a team of equally skilled people to back him up. And he'd need to be a billionaire too.
Well, in the real world there are no supervillains either, so you wouldn't need the fancy gimmicks. You'd just need a few hours per day (or night), knowledge of where criminals hang out, and a gun.
I don't know that I'd call Batman's enemies supervillains. The Joker has no powers. Harvey Dent has no powers. In Batman Begins I guess the Scarecrow had that fear dust. Not really a big deal. Certainly not in the same league as Lex Luthor or Brainiac! ;-)
"Well, in the real world there are no supervillains"
I dont really think that's the issue. I think alot of it may be that should a person get to the point where they feel the need to stop 'crime' they are putting themselves into the category of 'right' and anything criminal as 'wrong'. It's easy to have that definition but to act on it, like societie's scalpel could smother one's self with far more pressure than a person with the right/wrong belief could endure.
I think you're right. Many people are very sure in their judgement of others, but it would take extreme conviction and courage to act on it like this.
A person without fear could do it too, but then a person without fear has no such desire to judge and condemn.
Courage is suppressed fear, by "no fear" I mean nothing to suppress, which is extremely rare.
That doesn't apply to Batman at least not of The Dark Knight who acted only because crime was so bad in Gotham. Otherwise he probably wouldn't have bothered. In the movie he says that with Dent Batman might no longer be needed.
It's not to hard to see why what organized crime does is wrong. That's who Batman mostly goes up against.
No one is allowed to take justice in his own hand, hence a vigilante is a criminal by definition in our justice system, and is immediately hunted down by the authorities. With greater might than the ordinary criminal, might I add.
For authority, crime is a necessary evil, for it is what justifies its existence. For that reason alone, it cannot allow a truly efficient "right-doer" to exist.
bert doesn't like the idea of a vigilante. He's afraid of would happen if a vigilante ever found all that child porn on bert's hard drive.
"bert doesn't like the idea of a vigilante"
Not true at all. I think we should all have Troll-hunting licenses.
I'm picturing bert as this kind of real-life Comic Book Guy. Morbidly obese, below-average intelligence, yet strangely arrogant despite his lack of ability. I bet he's a Star Trek fan too. Must get tons of chicks. Were I you, bert, I'd be bitter too.
"Not true at all. I think we should all have Troll-hunting licenses."
I've got a mental image of Batman tracking down everyone who leaves an insulting comment on the internet and scaring the ever living shit out of them. This is the hardest I've laughed in a long time.
Guess he must have some superpowers after all. A milder version of Wolverine's endless healing factor...
Actually, there ARE people who want to become vigilantes, and who do, sort of. These people are usually known to the rest of the world under various colorful names with unjustly negative connotations (everybody bashes at the poor vigilante), like islamist "terrorists", paramilitary groups, bent cops, mobsters, the Dictator's private guard, or serial killers. All people deeply concerned, in reality with their own sincere conception of justice and its enforcing. I ask you, is that so wrong?
Even your open-minded commentators fall into the stereotype trap head-on: "I think as far as vigilantes go The Punisher is probably closer to the most realistic even if he isn't a hero." Like, say WHAT?
Sir Brian is correct: wealth is a definite trump for avoiding the mundane tedious of having to earn a living. I say, perhaps this is why young Peter Parker's life is in such shambles, and what not.
Bert got excited...
"I think we should all have Troll-hunting licenses."
Hey, some trolls are very nice people, you know. On another planet...
Anonymous creativised...
"I'm picturing [...] this kind of real-life Comic Book Guy."
Wow, this takes some serious imagination processing power! And some serious foolhardy bravery.
(shudders) Gee, couldn't you just picture the Addams children with some Paris Hilton clone as their babysitter? Oh, the humanity!
"Were I a grapefruit, I'd be sour too." ;-)
Eric,
Really man, you should give us a fair warning, some sort of health advisory. I'm currently under oxygen after a hyperventilation paroxystic attack, and it's all your fault. I've also cracked four ribs.
You know what? You're more dangerous than the friggin' Batman! You... you Joker!
I'm telling on you, just you wait. Oi'm telling Professor Higgins, oi am!
"Hey, some trolls are very nice people, you know. On another planet..."
Unfortunately, we're dealing here with an iTroll, which is not quite as charming, and decidedly far from smart...
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