Batman's Cathartic Power

Rating: 10/10 (7 August 2012)

When someone asks you about superpowers, what initially comes to mind? Unparalleled strength? Deluding invisibility? Rapid flight? How about the power to defend a city housing millions of people, to watch over them as their guardian, and to pursue villains and vigilantes utilizing as minimal amounts of directed violence as possible? The latter probably doesn't make its way to the top of your list, if at all. Why, then, does an entity that doesn't fit the bill for any decent superhero find its way to the hearts and minds of millions of people around the globe? The answer, surprisingly, has less to do with inhuman abilities and more to do with character.
Character, while usually blanketed by most superheroes' potent powers, becomes the core trait which is magnified in an individual such as The Batman. Superman, Spiderman, The Hulk, Captain America, and a multitude of other superheroes have powers that an average human cannot attain. They represent elusive heroes – appearing when needed, doing the job using brute force, and leaving. But The Batman – he is one who can be classified as a savior rather than a hero. He embodies the friend who's always there for you – through good times and bad. You may not appreciate this friend during the good times as much as you do during the bad, but nonetheless, they're by your side. And a friend like that is just what the world needs right now.
We aren't living in the safest of times. I wish I didn't have to, but it's hard not to cite the tragedy that occurred outside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado which claimed the lives of 12 innocent individuals. It's regarding instances such as these during which an individual should step back and ponder over the irony of the situation at hand. I know if we could, any of us would be willing to go back and do anything possible to prevent what happened in Aurora. But we can't, and we have to live with that reality clawing at the back of our minds. We can't, but what if someone else could? What if there existed a being among us who had the foresight to prevent the outbreak that occurred in Aurora? What if this individual had been personally touched by a similar instance, and was willing to unconditionally protect his province from such outbreaks from reoccurring? What if this individual was untouched by political endeavors, hidden agendas, or material prospects? The Batman fits the bill. Of course, it's hard to imagine a being as absolute and genuine as The Batman living amongst us, especially once we take into account the general brokenness of our societies. Nonetheless, isn't it possible that our societies, as real as they are, are comparable to Batman's Gotham City? The disintegrated culture, the social and economic stratification, the violence.
The Batman, although as unreal for us as he is de facto for Gotham City, still manages to give us a flurry of hope. And isn't that all we really need during these trying times? Thousands of people lined up in front of hundreds of movie theaters scattered across America anticipating the release of the new Batman film on the night of July 19th, and if you asked them why, you would probably hear something like: "We love Batman!" or "We want to see Batman and Bane duel it out!" What they may or may not know is that their need to see Gotham's savior win or at least to see him impede it's prime villain is correlated to their perspectives on struggles occurring in our world today, whether they regard equal rights, stratified societies, or material wars – we want to see the good guy win, or at least change the state of relations.
On my way to the theater, I was very well-aware of the mindset I had. Regardless of how the legend ended, I was satisfied to know that there is, or was, an entity that represented elemental goodness which all people, in fictional Gotham and in our factual cities, believed in and supported. It shouldn't be a matter of contemplating who the man behind the mask is, but rather, it should be one of being grateful for the presence of a mask to begin with. Gotham may not have been the most unscathed of cities, but because of one man, I have a feeling that things will soon begin to change for Gotham. I just hope that change can find its way into reality.