An Unkillable Exemplar of Batman's False Hope

Marvel and DC are going to do another crossover this fall. Or two, maybe. Both Batman & Deadpool (Batman vs. Deadpool?), but one published by Marvel (in September, by Zeb Wells and Greg Capullo), and one by DC (in November, by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora.)

My initial reaction was to groan. I fully expect Wells to go a humor route, with lots of Deadpool making dumb jokes or comments - odds on a Batman v. Superman "Martha? Why did you say that name?" reference? 1:1? - and Batman being irritated by his inability to either get away from Deadpool or shut him up. Or an opportunity for Batman to fight somebody that can take everything he can dish out and keep coming. Could get old very quickly either way.

But Deadpool is, in some ways, a perfect Batman antagonist. Wade Wilson suffers from mental illness. A highly variable and extremely comic book-y type of mental illness, but mental illness all the same. He has done horrible things, hurt and killed people, in some cases without remorse. Maybe because they threatened people he cared about, but sometimes simply because he was angry at the way things were going in his life and they were convenient targets.

And yet. . .sometimes he does the right thing. He helps people who have been hurt or exploited. He saves the world. Sometimes he still doesn't do the right thing, but not for lack of trying. He really tried to be a good Avenger, really tried to live up to Captain America's belief in him. But he was too willing to trust someone else's judgment if they gave him praise, which is how he ends up following Stevil Rogers' orders during Secret Empire.

Most of Batman's arch-enemies are people with mental illnesses. That's why they go to Arkham, an admittedly shitty asylum, but pretty much all Gotham has if you want to treat them so they can re-enter society without being dangers to themselves or others.

Some times it even works! Harvey Dent gets better. The Ventriloquist gets better. The Riddler at least shifts his impulse to prove his intelligence to solving crimes as a p.i. instead of committing them. Harley Quinn gets better. Poison Ivy, so on. Most of them backslide, sooner or later. An endless cycle of progress, then regression.

Deadpool is almost a perfect example of what Batman's working towards. Without ever getting any real help from a mental health professional (Dr. Bong doesn't count, nor does Cable doing telekinetic brain surgery), Wade Wilson still has periods where he can function. Can have friends, have a home, have a family. Sure, he still frequently beats the crap out of people, but most of them are trying to hurt innocent people. Batman can't exactly throw stones about that.

I don't know if I'll buy either book when they come out, but I can't say for certain that I won't. Which is more than I would have expected at first glance.