Batman and Spider-Man both fight crime, and both of them were spurred on by the loss of beloved parental figures, Thomas and Martha for Bats, Uncle Ben for Spidey. But Bruce lost his parents when he was still a kid, eight, ten, something like that. Peter lost Ben when he was fifteen or sixteen. So here's what I'm wondering: Do their respective approaches to crime-fighting reflect some sort of difference in perspective that you'd see between an adolescent and a pre-adolescent?
The tricky part is it's kind of hard to decide what parts of their styles could be attributed to their motivation, and what could be tied to other circumstances. Bruce Wayne doesn't have any super-powers, besides having lots of money, which he used so he could travel the world and receive the finest training in sciences, criminology, martial arts, and whatever the heck else he studied while he wandered the world. He became as good as he is by working his ass off, but he was fortunate to have a financial situation that allows it. I can't see Peter being able to do that, given the more limited finances of the Parker household. However, Pete's kind of a science prodigy, or at least really interested in it, so he eagerly attends the science demonstration about radiation, gets some powers out of it, then also has enough science knowhow to build web-shooters, come up with the chemical formula for web fluid, build a spider-signal into his belt, design spider-tracers, and eventually calibrate them to the frequency of his own spider-sense, so he doesn't even have to carry around that little receiver if he doesn't want to. And he's doing all this on a budget. His natural intelligence (and parental figures who encouraged his love of the sciences) compensates for the lack of cash.
However, could you as easily attribute that to the point in their life when things changed? Sure, Bruce Wayne set out to learn all he could when he was a teenager, but his defining tragedy came when he was a child, and wouldn't a child have learned to seek out authority figures when in trouble? Like how parents teach their kids to find a policeman if they're lost*? Pete's a teenager, and you know teenage stereotypes: angry, defiant, screw authority, I don't need you old man, I can change the world by myself, and all that. So Peter does it on his own. No Alfred, no one teaching him the ropes, he just learns as he goes along. Fights Doc Ock, gets his butt kicked, gets unwitting pep talk from the Human Torch, figures out a way to beat Ock in the rematch. You could apply that to their relationships with the police, where Batman generally gets along with cops, or at least gets along with Gordon, and that's enough, whereas Spider-Man occasionally can work with the police, but just as many of them are trying to arrest him as recognize that he's a hero. That could be the age thing, or you could attribute that to the general differences in Marvel and DC, since DC heroes usually get along with law enforcement, and Marvel heroes don't, what with people in the Marvel Universe being idiots and all**.
But in terms of their style, does the age difference mean anything? Batman's The Dark Knight, Spider-Man is your 'friendly neighborhood web-slinger'. Is Batman the way a little kid would handle things? Most of the depictions of the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne show the killer*** emerging from the shadows to stand under a street lamp, or into the glare cast from the theater's, um, whatever you call the thing on old theaters where they put up titles of the movies showing****. And what does Batman like to do? Emerge suddenly from the shadows to strike fear and terror into the hearts of evildoers. The scum used the shadows to harm innocent people, Batman's going to use the shadows to scare the scum. They want to be big and scary? He'll be bigger and scarier. It could be argued that tit-for-tat method, him using their own tactics against them, but being even better at it, would be a sort of childish way of going about things. You hurt me, I'll hurt you back the same way, that sort of thing. So Batman is Bruce Wayne showing his pain, loss, and anger to the world, by being the scariest dude on the planet, the guy who even spooks his fellow do-gooders.
Then you've got Spider-Man, who takes the typical teenage tactic of denying there is anything wrong at all. All the jokes, the one-liners, the pranks on Jonah or the Torch, the blithe response to the man with the bowl haircut and four metal tentacles that wishes to remove Spidey's head from his body. It could all be him saying everything is cool, nothing bothering me. And speaking for myself, that was a pretty typical response for me as a teenager, though I tend more towards biting sarcasm or feigned indifference, but I'm not as witty as the good Spidey writers*****. His response in the face of most any situation is to make a joke about it. You have to knock his girlfriend off a bridge, or withhold an important serum from his dying aunt to get past that.
That jokey manner causes his fellow heroes to regard him somewhat oddly. Not with suspicion, but with concern as to whether they can count on him, because they just don't think he takes things seriously enough. I know Daredevil and Captain America have expressed such sentiments at various times, though Daredevil's such a morose melonfarmer most of the time that anyone who even smiles probably seems too cheerful and foolishly naive. The joke is that Spidey does understand what's going on, even if we're talking about Secret Wars, and him fighting on some patchwork world for the entertainment of a universe that's gained sentience, and oh yeah, Galactus is planning to eat said patchwork planet. The joking is just how he copes, how he keeps the seriousness of the situation from consuming him, until he can get some time to properly digest it. Until then, he'll just act like it doesn't faze him in the least (or he'll be melodramatic about to the point you know he's purposely hamming it up, which is also a bit adolescent, I imagine).
I'm not sure what to say about Spidey's costume (ignoring the black and white one for the purposes of this discussion). It's bright and colorful, which would seem to work with the idea of presenting a cheerful, unconcerned front, but it is still kind of creepy, especially (I think) with how Ditko drew the eyes, narrower, maybe giving off a sinister air. That could be him wanting to creep people out just a bit, for kicks, because he'd enjoy seeing them discomfited, but he doesn't want them totally afraid of him. Later, the eyes get bigger, a big more goofy, to the point Erik Larsen had Mary Jane describe them as looking like Felix the Cat's, and Peter responded he wasn't really wanting people to be scared of him (or something to that effect), which probably represents personal growth, Peter recognizing that he'd rather people found him amusing looking than terrifying, because striking fear just isn't his style.
I'm not sure that it works for Batman's methodical, control-freak approach towards the battle against crime, with all his plans, stratagems, contingencies, and so on. I can sort of see it working, in that I think kids sometimes overestimate how much control they can have over things, or how much control they think adults have over things, and so Batman figures he can plan everything, understand everything, so he'll always be prepared, never off-guard. Whereas Spider-Man was at the age where maybe he'd figured out that kind of control is hard to achieve, or he's rebelling against the adults who would try and impose that kind of control, so he tends to just wing it. Sure, if he has a chance, he'll come up with some vague plan, but his tendency is to do that when it's necessary. He doesn't have a computer full of files about how to handle Batroc the Leaper, for example, he'll just figure it out when he comes across the guy committing a crime.
OK, I'm turning it over to you. Have at it.
* Parents still do that don't they? I know in elementary school I read that was a good idea in a Magic School Bus book where they shrunk down and cruised around inside the kid with glasses' body, and he thought everyone had ditched him at the park. There was a quiz at the end of the book that said he should have found a cop, instead of just trying to run back to school.
** I know I say that a lot, but I think it bears repeating sometimes.
*** Is the current story that the killer was Joe Chill, or is he "nameless killer Batman never found"? Or is he known as Joe Chill, but Batman still never found him? The only version I ever read was that Untold Legend of Batman, where he found Chill, revealed his identity to him, Chill ran to crooks for help, admitted he created Batman, and they shot him for it. Then Batman beat the crap out of them, Aparo-style.
**** You know what I mean, right? It was usually jutting out right over the entrance, usually as a triangle, so they could have titles listed on both sides. I want to say "parkade", but that's not right. It's not just a billboard is it? Damn it, somebody better know, or this will drive me nuts.
***** Plus, my adversaries rarely say things that so easily lead into a biting comeback as they do in the comics. Every once in awhile it happens, but not very often.
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3 comments:
As of Infinite Crisis Batman does know that the killer was Joe Chill. But I don't believe it's been revealed which version of Chill's demise (there have been several) is considered in continuity.
And that theatre thing is called a "marquee."
diamondrock: Ah, thank you. That was really frustrating me.
I think you caught onto one of the differences between them when talking about Spidey. Spidey's actually grown over the last "20 years?", whereas Batman's kind of frozen in place since his parent's death.
You're probably right that it has to do with the tragedy at different stages of life, but it's equally the product of the environments that produced them.
Spiderman got his powers just as the Fantastic Four appeared on the scene. His main areas of New York were Queens and Manhatten, bright, hopeful and infinite possibilities for a costumed crime fighter.
For Bruce, his parents died in a world where the costumed superhero had largely vanished (if I understand DC continuity the JSA had vanished/disbanded back in the 50's?). Instead all there were, in Gotham particularly were the crime bosses who could get away with anything.
He spent his life dedicated to the one goal of fighting them in the only way he felt he could. So he simply got more and more intense as the years went by. Then a month or two before he feels he's ready, Superman appears on the field.
So for Spiderman, he was inspired by the bright possibilities that the FF and New York had made available.
Batman was hardened by the very fact that there weren't bright possibilities, and the only way to save Gotham was to sink deeper into the shadows than his enemies.
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