The Ring Of Distrust

When I did my comic reviews back in August, I mentioned I didn't like the addition of a tragic aspect to Inque's origin in Batman Beyond #8. I still don't like it, at least not as Beechen chose to present it.

I still think it was a poor idea to start the issue with her killing a half dozen people for no reason other than meanness. It was a bunch of guards who were no threat to her, she had what she came for, just leave. Instead she killed them, but not Batman who is actually a threat to her. No, she contented herself with knocking him out. I imagine the point was to make her look really bad, but once we see how she's gotten to this place, we'll be more understanding. Except I think it went too far. Stealing was fine, I could have rolled with that, but needless killing is a little harder to swallow.

It was an act fairly in line with Inque's behavior in the cartoon, where she was at least a little sadistic, wanting revenge on the old man (Bruce) who helped defeat her the first time, using that poor sap that took care of her while she was locked up, opting for painful looking methods of killing people. Still, I didn't think it was the best thing to remind the audience of, right before making a sympathy play. It makes Inque look worse than Deadshot. Say what you will about Floyd Lawton, but he rarely bothers to kill or harm people who haven't done anything to him, unless he's been paid to do so. In this case, Inque was paid to steal, not to kill, and did so solely because she felt like it. On the whole, I'd chalk it up to poor execution by Beechen.

Maybe it was watching War Wagon that gave me a different a line of thinking. When I was discussing the movie yesterday, I mentioned that the audience could see Pierce dying at the hands of an employee as being "what goes around, comes around", since Pierce was in the process of killing that employee for trying to bail out. I also pointed out Tal Jackson killing Pierce would have functioned even better for that purpose, but the film opted not to go that way*.

So yesterday I realized that Inque could be seen in that light. She's been used by people who were unconcerned with her well-being her entire life. The end result has been that Inque cares for no one but herself and her daughter. What's more, Inque seems to have passed that on to her daughter along with the mutation. It leads to a strange sort of cycle. Inque has more than likely stolen from or performed corporate espionage or sabotage against the company that experimented on her. It may have been for a payday, but in that sense, their callousness helped create their own downfall. But that feeds back on Inque as well. Her own daughter regarded her as nothing more than a money source, to the extent she took advantage of her mother's weakness to gain access to her bank accounts, drained them dry, and tried to kill Inque. Girl learned the lessons of heartlessness well. Now that the situation is dire, Inque has to take jobs where she receives doses of mutagen just to keep her and her daughter alive. No more big cash paydays. Because of the way she operates, she can't find someone who would perhaps find a way to stabilize her condition simply to be helpful. She doesn't trust anyone enough to take that chance, but more critically, she's proven herself to untrustworthy. No one decent enough to help that could is dumb enough to, because it's entirely likely she'd show her thanks by killing that person five seconds later. So any advances that could be made by studying Inque's condition are lost along with any chance of a longterm solution to her problem. Everyone behaves callously, which prevents any trust from building, which blocks any true collaboration, which means everyone loses.

* I discussed it with my dad last night, and he said it had to do with how morality and ethics tended to be presented in movies then. It was important Tal not be seen as a thief and a murderer. The movie makes certain to point out the gold was mined from land Tal Jackson owned, which Pierce used underhanded tricks to take from him. In that way, it could be argued the gold was Tal's all along. He isn't stealing, he's taking back what's his. It sounds needlessly convoluted to me, and I don't see how an adult could have watched the film when it was originally released and not realized the plan would require Pierce to die somehow, and betting on a fearful employee to do it wouldn't be the wisest course, but maybe a character's unspoken intent was irrelevant.