Tagged: Batman

The Law Is A Ass

BOB INGERSOLL: THE LAW IS A ASS #322: BATMAN BUYS THE PHARM

103241-100705Technically, we can’t call Batman a “white hat” hero. Even back in the 50s in his brightest days his hat – er cowl – was blue. But back then his actions were noble. He was and acted like a white hat hero, even if his headgear didn’t match.

Now, however, his hat is somewhere between dark gray and black. And his actions frequently trend even darker. Like in Catwoman # 29.

Now before you go further, I should issue a customary SPOILER WARNING, because I’m about to give away more than you could have wanted to know about the plot to Catwoman # 29, unless what you wanted to know was how it ended. If that’s what you want to know, then keep reading, because that’s what you’re about to get.

In this story Catwoman was attending a large black-tie publicity party being held by Taylor Pharmaceuticals. The purpose of said party was two-fold. The first was to celebrate the imminent launch of MR-40, a chemotherapy drug with minimal side effects that will revolutionize cancer treatment. The second was to celebrate the fact that WayneTech , which wanted in on the ground floor of MR-40, just purchased Taylor Pharm for 30 million dollars and the CEO was about to ride a golden parachute into the Caribbean sunset.

Now I have no problem with any of that; at least not in so far as it involved a legal problem. There was none. I do think 30 mill seemed a bit cheap for a big pharm company that was about to revolutionize cancer treatment. A few more zeroes to the left of the decimal point would seem the more likely asking price. In 2000, the Cleveland Indians, a team that wasn’t revolutionizing much of anything – including bringing an actual championship to Cleveland, sold for 320 million dollars. If a mere baseball team was worth 320 million in 2000 dollars, imagine what a big pharm company that was about to revolutionize cancer treatment would be worth in 2014 dollars? Were I the shareholders of Taylor Pharmaceuticals, I’d would have preferred that Taylor Pharm swallowed a poison pill rather than sell for chump change and would have wanted the heads of the Board of Trustees in a silver mortar.

But undervalued sale prices is not why we’re here. We’re here because of what happened next.

What happened next was that Catwoman used her cat burglar skills to break into the Taylor Pharm R&D department and steal the prototypes of MR-40 and something called ADR-17. Stealing prototype drugs was a little out of Catwoman’s usual M.O. Taking jewelry or art was more her usual line, but someone had hired her to get the MR-40 for him.

Everything was going smoothly until the lab’s security alarm went off as Catwoman was taking the vials of said prototype drugs and some poor schlub of a security guard confronted her with his gun drawn. Catwoman had been hired to steal the MR-40 and ARD-17 prototypes and deliver the MR-40 to her employer. Her employer told her to smash the vial of ARD-17, although he didn’t say how. So, as a distraction, Catwoman threw the ARD-17 at the guard. Who promptly turned into a New 52 version of the Incredible Hulk, except that he was flesh-colored and couldn’t even manage the vocabulary complexities of, “Hulk smash!”

The fight which ensued between Catwoman, the hulked-out guard and the other security guards who answered the alarm spilled out into the party. (Seriously, the Taylor Pharm party ballroom was on the same floor as the R & D labs? That didn’t seem like a security, and maybe even health, hazard to anyone?) Taylor security subdued the security guard with seven doses of a sedative then tried to capture Catwoman, but she made her escape by diving out of a window on the 27th floor.

Catwoman scampered off to deliver the MR-40 to her employer. Those of you who were wondering where and how Batman comes into this story will probably not be too surprised to learn that Batman was Catwoman’s employer. He hired her to steal the MR-40 as a distraction. Her real mission was to smash the vial of ADR-17, which was an experimental steroid offshoot of Venom. (No, not the Spider-Man villain but the DC super-steroid which powers up Bane. (No, not Mitt Romney’s company, but…) So that explains why when ADR-17 hit the security guard, he didn’t just grow like Topsy, he growed like Topsy on… Well, on steroids.

Anyway, Batman decided that a newer, more powerful version of Venom was too dangerous to exist. So while Catwoman was stealing the drugs and destroying the only physical sample of the steroid, Batman was wiping the formula and all of the ADR-17 research files off of the Taylor Pharmaceutical computers and servers.

Tomorrow, the new owner of Taylor Pharmaceuticals, Bruce Wayne, would reassign all the people working on ADR-17 to work on restoring MR-40 and, he hoped, no one would even notice that the experimental steroid was missing. Although given what happened to the security guard, someone is probably going to suspect something. But that’s why Batman also set off the security alarm, so that the guards would see a masked cat burglar stealing prototype drugs and assume she made off with both the MR-40 and the ADR-17, too.

Now I’m not a ruler-wielding nun in a parochial school, I don’t even play one on TV. But if I were, I’d probably tell Batman he needed a time out to think about what he had done.

What had he done? Well, he hired Catwoman to break into a research lab and steal the prototype of a valuable new chemotherapy drug, that’s what he’d done. And what laws did he break by these actions? You know my methods, apply them.

But to point you in the right direction, you might remember that Gotham City is supposed to be somewhere in New Jersey and start with the New Jersey statutes governing conspiracy, complicity (or aiding and abetting, as those of us who aren’t fancy-word-slinging state legislators call it), burglary, theft, and assault. That should be enough to let you hit the ground running.

I’m not concerned with the crimes Batman committed, however. I’m more concerned that in order to stop development on a new steroid, a potentially dangerous new steroid I admit, he interfered with the development of a new chemotherapy drug for the treatment of cancer. Even if Batman’s actions only delay the development of said drug by, say, a week, that’s one week later that said drug will come onto the market. And, because we’re talking about a drug designed to fight and control the spread of cancer, even one week could mean that several people might die, who would not have died if said drug had been delivered to the market one week earlier.

Batman, or Bruce Wayne but for our purposes what’s the difference, was about to take over Taylor Pharmaceuticals. He could have ordered all work on ADR-17 to stop. He could have ordered that all files on ARD-17 be destroyed. He could have….

Well, he could have done lots of things. Surely there were other ways that Batman could have arranged for work on ADR-17 to stop without potentially endangering the lives of untold cancer patients.

Batman’s actions were callous, uncaring and, frankly, mean. And, in this case, I’m not sure that the ends – destroying ADR-17 – justified the mean.

The Point Radio: Kevin Conroy On Keeping BATMAN Fresh

BATMAN ASSAULT ON ARKHAM is the newest direct-to-DVD DC feature with a lot of familiar parts including Kevin Conroy reprising his Batman role, and telling us how he manages to always keep it fresh. Plus, comedian John Lehr goes from Geico caveman to western funny man in the Hulu series QUICK DRAW, and talks about how improv is a huge part of the show.

THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE on ANY mobile device (Apple or Android). Just  get the free app, iNet Radio in The  iTunes App store – and it’s FREE!  The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE  – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

The Law Is A Ass

THE LAW IS A ASS #323: Insane in the Bat Brain

df742dcc8d326a4aea7b20db3459ee50Insanity, they say, is hereditary; you get it from your kids. Not me. My insanity comes from comic book stories. Comic book stories like Batman: The Dark Knight # 29. 

This story featured as its bad guy one Abraham Langstrom. Unlike Tevya, Langstrom was a rich man. Not just the one percent rich, he was in the one percent of the one percent. He was so rich, he used 50 dollar bills to light 100 dollar bills then used them to light his cigars. He was also a self-styled corporate raider of such ferocity that even William Quantrill would have thought Langstrom gave raiders a bad name.

Langstrom considered himself an overlord, one of the ones who had to make tough choices to “ensure that the system runs smoothly for those who matter.” To Langstrom a poor or homeless man was, “a bum who bloodsucks valuable resources from contributing citizens, straining Gotham’s social services cashing another welfare check.” I’m guessing Langstrom wasn’t one of those “compassionate conservatives” you hear about.

Because Langstrom considered himself to be an overlord who had to make the tough choices, it shouldn’t surprise you that he made several. And because he’s a man named Langstrom in a Batman story, it shouldn’t surprise you that Abe’s son, Kirk, was the man who invented the Man-Bat serum. Nor should it surprise you that Not-So-Honest Abe’s tough choice involved said Man-Bat serum.

The tough choice that Abe made was to drink the Man-Bat serum and become a Man-Bat. Then he hunted down the homeless who took from his city without contributing to it, killed them, and sucked their blood. Yes, vampire imagery in a story about a ruthless one-percenter. The subtlety boggles the mind.

Because this is a Batman story, it should also not surprise you that Batman got on Abe’s trail. I mean, what kind of Batman story would it be if he never went after the bad guy? What might be a surprise to you, however, is that…

SPOILER WARNING!

Batman caught him. Hey, nowadays so many of the comic book bad guys get away at the end of the story, telling you that Batman actually caught one is something of a spoiler. But Batman catching the villain wasn’t the end of the story. The ending was…

SPOILER WARNING! 

when the jury found Abraham Langstrom not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Which is where my own insanity came into play. As in these things drive me crazy.

The doctor who taught my law school Law and Psychiatry course told us that there isn’t any such thing as temporary insanity. Temporary insanity argues that the defendant was insane at the time of the criminal act, but the insanity didn’t last and the defendant is feeling much better now. It’s argued in an attempt to have the defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity but avoid having him committed to an asylum afterward. The regular insanity verdict does the exact same thing. So, like landing gear on an ocean liner, a temporary insanity verdict isn’t necessary.

In the United States a defendant is found to be not guilty by reason of insanity – or NGRI, because only a crazy person wants to keep typing “not guilty by reason of insanity” over and over – when he commits a crime and, at the time of the criminal act, he had a mental defect or illness that so affected him that he did not know the wrongfulness of his act. (Yes, I know I’m using the dreaded universal masculine here. Are there any women out there who want to complain because I’m not calling them insane?) Anyway, insanity only concerns itself with the defendant’s mental condition at the time of the criminal act. It doesn’t concern itself with the defendant’s mental condition either before or after the crime.

Say a man has mental illness which gives him the delusion that another man is a Great White dropped out of the sky by a Sharknado, so kills him. He would be NGRI. He had a mental illness. His mental illness gave him a delusion and because of that delusion, he didn’t know the wrongfulness of his act. After all, it’s not against the law to defend oneself from a shark. It might also not be against the law to kill someone to prevent him from making Sharknado 3, but that’s another column for another time.

If the defendant was found NGRI, the judge can’t send the defendant to prison. Remember, the NG part of NGRI is “not guilty.” The defendant wasn’t convicted of the crime, so he can’t be sent to prison. That would violate the defendant’s Fourteenth Amendment not to be deprived of his liberty without due process of law. Instead, the judge will order that the defendant undergo treatment for his mental illness. And, because the defendant was not guilty, the treatment must be in the least restrictive environment consistent with the defendant’s treatment. Anything harsher would also violate the defendant’s aforementioned right to liberty.

So what happens after an NGRI verdict? The judge will order doctors to perform a mental evaluation of the defendant. If the doctors find he is still mentally ill, they will make a recommendation of what treatment is the least restrictive.

If the defendant is violent, the doctors will recommend the defendant be confined and treated in a high security asylum for the criminally insane such as Arkham. If the defendant is not violent, the doctors might recommend treatment in a less-restrictive mental health institution. And if the defendant’s mental illness can be controlled with treatment and medications so that he doesn’t manifest any further symptoms of the mental illness, the least restrictive environment would be supervised release with the condition that the defendant continue taking his medications.

Defendant’s who have been found NGRI are continually evaluated for their present mental condition. If the doctors ever determine that the defendant no longer has any mental illness, they will tell the judge that the least restrictive environment is outright release. If the judge agrees, the judge must order the defendant to be released. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the defendant can only be confined in a mental health institution for as long as is required to restore his or her mental state. If he is cured, then he must be released.

So what would really have happened in Langstrom’s case is not a jury finding of temporary insanity. The jury would have found Langstrom NGRI. Doctors would have evaluated Langstrom. Those doctors would have determined that Langstrom had been insane because of the effects of the Man-Bat serum but now that it wasn’t in his system, he was no longer mentally ill. Then the judge would have ordered Langstrom released. See, the NGRI verdict does everything that a temporary insanity verdict could do. So the temporary insanity verdict is unnecessary.

On the other hand, maybe I should hope that there is such a thing as temporary insanity. After all, Batman wasn’t insane in his early days, but he sure acts like he is now. And the Batman fan in me has got to hope that the condition isn’t permanent.

John Ostrander: To Be A Hero

Doctor Who has aired a new trailer for the upcoming season that starts August 23rd*. You can see it here. It’s our first real glimpse at the new Doctor played by Peter Capaldi and I think it all looks very promising. He’s very different from the past few Doctors. In some ways, he’s more reminiscent of the first one.

Something bugged me, tho. At the end of the trailer, he asks his companion, Clara, if he is a good man. She seems a bit flummoxed by this and answers, “I don’t know.”

My first reaction to the question was “I do. The Doctor is a good man. He’s a hero. He has saved the planet, the galaxy, all of reality about a bazillion times.”

Then I thought about it some more. Do you have to be a good man in order to be a hero? You don’t have to be a good person to be the protagonist; many good stories have been told using someone bad or even evil as the center of the story. Hero, on the other hand, is a different matter, isn’t it? A hero needs to have certain moral values – honor, nobility, courage, self-sacrifice and so on. They may have these qualities from the onset of the story or acquire them along the way. They can rise up as heroes as the story progresses or the qualities they already have can be tested.

The hero is something we might want to emulate. Superman in my youth was a big blue Boy Scout. Even Batman, for all the fact that he dresses more like a villain, was more of a hero in a traditional sense.

Then Marvel came along with its more complicated set of heroes. Spider-Man had a lot of hang-ups. At the same time, they were heroes because they rose to the challenges. They exhibited a certain honor, nobility, and so on.

The anti-hero seems more in tune with modern society. He or she is the protagonist of the story but not the moral center. Typically, they are in it for themselves and what they can gain or they are simply tossed around by life and not masters of their own fate. Kafka’s Joseph K in The Trial is an anti-hero because his choices simply do not matter. He is a victim and cannot change his own fate.

I tend to write more towards the anti-hero side of the scale. I like the moral complexity they present; it interests me as a writer. Even a good person will struggle to find the right thing to do in a given situation. J.K. Rowling in one of the Harry Potter books has her character Dumbledore say that the time is coming when people will have to choose between what is right and what is easy. There’s always a cost involved to do what is right.

Can you be a hero without also being a good man or woman, at least to some degree? I don’t think so. It may be difficult for the character to make the “right choice” but they need to have somewhere inside of them a degree of courage, empathy, honor and so on. George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life has to struggle with his frustration and sense of helplessness. He lashes out in anger towards the climax of the movie against people he loves. Yet even in his deepest despair, he will jump off a bridge to save what he thinks is a drowning man.

So, is the Doctor a good man? He certainly is a hero and, whatever his failings, he is a good man. The fact that he asks the question makes him a good man; a bad man wouldn’t care.

* Also coming to a handful of movie theaters, probably not near you. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martha Thomases: Where’s My Batman?

Ever since I moved to New York in 1977, I wondered what it would be like if there was really a Batman.

Sure, Superman lived in a version of New York as well. So did the entire Marvel Universe. But Batman is the one who felt most like the way I lived, in my tenement apartment. Batman belonged in a city with fifth floor walk-ups.

I don’t mean that I looked up at rooftops for someone to fight crime. Even then, I didn’t normally feel physically threatened on the streets. And Batman was not going to stop the men who made disgusting comments to me as I went to work, did my chores, or met with friends. I might have been in my naïve 20s, but I knew that Batman wasn’t real.

My 20s were not only naïve, but pretentious. I hung out at CBGBs and The Mudd Club. I went to art openings at downtown galleries because I knew the artists. I stayed up all night and wore black, even though I had to be properly dressed at my very proper day-job at 8:30 AM. I knew the kinds of people who could help me stay up all night and get to work on time.

This was a different New York. There were local banks. There were local stores. There were local donut shops. Everything wasn’t part of a chain. Rents were, if not reasonable, at least affordable for someone working an entry-level job. There were bands forming and breaking up and reforming. There were alternative weekly newspapers, alternatives to the alternative weekly newspapers, poetry ‘zines and underground comix. There were community gardens and the beginning of the Green Markets.

In short, it was the kind of city where Batman would be noticed. Even the version of Batman that was then current, the urban legend thought to be a myth by most, known only to Commissioner Gordon and a few others.

I mean, this was a city where punk bands wrote songs about Bernhard Goetz and Gary Gilmore. Certainly, rumors of a giant bat (or a man dressed like a giant bat) would capture the creative imagination. Patti Smith was writing songs about Rimbaud and Verlaine; of course she would have comments on what flew through the streets at night.

As would the Dead Boys. I bet if I look closely, I can find myself in that video somewhere.

And then there is Bruce Wayne, reclusive billionaire. He’s like the opposite of Donald Trump. What would Spy Magazine have made of him? Would they send someone to dig into his affairs the way they did with Trump? Would he have a Spy nickname, like Trump did (“short-fingered vulgarian”)?

I like to imagine that New York-based fashion designers would include a lot more capes in their collections.

It’s more difficult to imagine Batman in present-day New York. While we have gang-related crime, it’s a much smaller part of our lawlessness than you’ll find in corporate boardrooms. The artists and musicians have been gentrified out of town by the international trust fund kids and their investment-minded parents. We have lots of problems, but they aren’t the kind can be fixed by someone bursting through a skylight.

We need a new kind of hero. Has anyone ever seen Elizabeth Warren and Batman in the same place?

 

Dennis O’Neil: Happy, Happy Batday Baby…

batday-1748179So look! We have a new holiday. I don’t know exactly where to slot this one in the holiday calendar (and surely such a thing must exist) – probably somewhere south of all those presidents among the feasts that don’t actually embody a human need but are celebrated because someone said they should be. Not up there with Christmas or Easter, which are actually about something.

I refer, of course (of course!) to Batman Day, celebrated on July 23rd. The cynic in me opines that Batman Day is probably the brainchild of some marketing guy hunkered in one of those mid-Manhattan skyscrapers But I’m not certain and… I don’t know – maybe there was a St. Batman.

The character is arguably popular enough to merit his own holiday, which might lead us to a question I’ve been asked once or twice: why?

I shrug, and smile, and admit that I don’t know. Let us table the matter until somebody smart can attend to it.

Or take a clumsy-ass shot at answering it.

Begin with the iconography. He looks evil, with the dark and scalloped cloak and the horned skull. Squint a bit and can’t you see an avatar of he damned? He inhabits the night, the traditional realm of bloodsuckers and soul stealers and the unfortunates forced to confront him encounter someone or something cold and ruthless and implacable. Nothing warm and cuddly here, nothing you’d want to take home to mom, unless mom lives in an asylum.

But these darkling creatures, inhabitants of areas devoid of even a glimmer of light…they fascinate us. We respond to villains, maybe because they can’t really hurt us; watching them is a bit like riding a roller coaster: the thrill of danger that isn’t dangerous.

Or maybe – and now we descend into murk and psychology – maybe we see in their villainy fragments of ourselves; cruelty and selfishness we relegate to our shadow selves where they hide from everyone, including us. Maybe especially us.

Which brings us back around to Batman. (We will continue to assume that he hasn’t been canonized.) He looks mean and pitiless, someone given to ripping out hearts, but he’s on our side. His bleak self is at our service. Demonic though he is, he’s our demon. We get to hero worship and, at the same time, enjoy whatever pleasure we get from contemplating evil from a safe distance.

There is a fairy-tale aspect to the Batman mythos and that, too, may be an element of his popularity. At the center of the Batman saga is a story that presents a child’s most horrifying nightmare, witnessing the slaying of parents. By experiencing this trauma vicariously, though the psyche of the Batman-to-be we, are able to face it, process it and finally integrate it. We identify with Batman’s survival of the tragedy and that reassures us. See?You can get through the nightmare. If this theory is valid, the Batman tale is a specialized instance of what the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim says often happens when children interact with stories.

Finally, there is the matter of the mask. Batman wears one and so do most of us and we have ever since we figured out that mommy will give us a treat if we behave one way and a frown if we behave another way and, hey, doesn’t this make Batman our (gloomy/saturnine/grouchy) brother?

And a happy Batday to you, bro.

 

Dennis O’Neil: Batman’s Toys and Storytelling

batman-3571888All right, everyone quiet down and take a seat. I’ve been asked to remind you about the pep rally and don’t forget that finals are week after next. Now, where were we…

Today we’ll begin with a brief review of the material we covered last week. You’ll remember that we began by discussing what Batman’s mortal enemy – I refer to the Joker, of course – called Batman’s “wonderful toys.” We mentioned the Batmobile, the Batplane and that line-shooting device, the technology of which would surely be revolutionary though Batman seems to take it for granted. Putting the shoe on the other foot…the Joker, who does not appear scientifically inclined, mixes up some sort of disfiguring goop that can be passed off as over-the-counter cosmetics – in itself, no mean feat – and then smuggles it into retail packaging throughout the city. His point is to distress the citizenry and apparently he succeeds.

I explained these wildly improbable events by suggesting that the screenplay which encapsulates them is a hybrid of funny animal/funny person cartoon shorts, the likes of which were movie theater staples when I was a nipper and can sometimes be found on television, and crime drama: call it badge opera, if you like. The critter on the screen, human or otherwise, has what he needs when he needs it and we don’t care where he got it, only how he’s going to use it. Outrageously, we hope.

But, for a moment, consider: Could the script have been written in such a way that the anomalies are explained? Well, don’t expect me to write it, but the answer is a qualified yes.

I choose to believe that the very bright guys behind Hollywood computers are capable of the kind of mad ingenuity the job would require. In fact, they and other scriveners do something like it every day.

Let me remind you of a basic: art, which includes storytelling, involves a process of selection: the writer determines which incidents, real or imagined, will best tell his story and those are what he shares with us. He has to determine how deep into the story he wants to go. Go too deep – put in too many trivialities – and he risks boring his audience; put in too few and the thing might not make sense. Do we care where the hero bought his trusty .45? Probably not, so don’t bother to distract us with the sales slip. But if the plot requires him to shoot the sweat off a bumble bee at 100 yards, maybe we’d better have some idea of how he acquired that skill, lest in wondering where the skill comes from we lose interest in the hero and his world.

It seems to be a matter of degree, doesn’t it?

Ol’ Nobel Prize-winning Papa Hemingway had opinions on this matter and they’ll do to end this session.

Know what to leave out.

Write the tip of the ice-berg, leave the rest under water.

Is that the bell already?

 

Coming Soon: “Batman: The Complete Television Series”

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Cinephilia: Batman: The Movie (Photo credit: enigmabadger)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will officially unveil the details of its highly-anticipated November 2014 release of “Batman: The Complete Television Series” at a Comic-Con International panel – featuring special guests Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar – on Thursday, July 24 from 6:00-7:00pm in Hall H.

The actors behind Batman, Robin and Catwoman will give fans their first inside sneak peak at the most anticipated home entertainment release in fanboy history. All the details will be revealed, including an initial look at exclusive content, limited edition packaging, and dazzling HD remastered footage from the landmark series.

Take a look!

Dennis O’Neil: Wonderful Bat-Toys

batmobile-2529797Where does he get those wonderful toys? the Joker wonders in the 1989 Batman and it’s a pretty good question. Where did the Batplane come from and how does it happened to be equipped with exactly the hardware Batman needs to thwart the Joker’s mass homicide? And that line-shooting gadget Batman totes: a device that stores a cable (or something similar) able to reach several stories into the air and whatever propels it, all crammed into something the size of a handgun. And the Batmobile… nobody notices it on the highways in and out of Gotham ad figures out where it must come from? Nothing in Tim Burton’s movie tells us that Bruce Wayne, bright guy that he is, has the kind of engineering/scientific smarts to devise such stuff and get it past the prototype stage virtually overnight. He just has what he needs when he needs it and we, sitting and watching in the darkness, don’t wonder how that can be. We’re being entertained, and entertainment is what we paid for.

We don’t ask how the gangster the Joker used to be mixed up some disfiguring chemicals and snuck in into (presumably) thousands of retail packages. Nor do we ask where Wiley E. Coyote gets those heavy objects he drops onto the Road Runner when they’re in the middle of nowhere, either.

Which is why, maybe, that I don’t have a name for the kind of screenplay Burton’s Batman is. It has to be a hybrid of crime story and cartoon and it works as what it is and, while we’re on the subject, the cartoon aspect is why we shouldn’t worry about collateral damage. Batman blows up an industrial plant and fills Gotham’s air with toxins? Does he poison his home town? If not, why not? Go away! You want hard facts, seek them elsewhere. That’s not what we’re selling here. And neither are we here to let you pick holes in a story that, really, doesn’t claim not to have those kind of holes. Fact is, in this context, they can’t be called holes. What, then? Narrative tropes?

Do we really care?

Later Batman films do, in fact, fill some holes. The wonderful toys are supplied by a genius who works for Bruce Wayne’s family corporation and he’s had prototypes of them in storage because the company’s number crunchers couldn’t figure a way for them to turn a profit. But in The Dark Knight, Batman and his resident genius put together an apparatus that allows them to monitor every electronic transmission in a city of 7,000,000 and have it up and running in a couple of days. Even if the technology preexisted…a couple of days?

We don’t live in Silicon Valley, we lovers of the strange and unnamed fantasy-melodrama we’re discussing. No, find us in the disembodied realm of myth and fairy tale. Very sophisticated myths and fairy tales, to be sure, but nobody says these things can’t be sophisticated. Today’s Batmobile might have been a horse-drawn pumpkin in times past and… we still don’t have a name for it, do we?

Aw, who cares?

 

 

 

 

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