It was one hell of a movie. Not Nolan level, but pretty darn good. And I can’t help myself. Maybe this is atonement. But here it is:
Batman is vengeance! For real. He is humanity’s vengeance against humanity.
For what you ask? We killed our heroes. We obliterated them. The best of our ancestors, their struggles, sacrifices, values… we denied them.
They were incredible humans and as humans, they were our role models. We saw in their lives love; love for God, love for humanity, for us! Their love galvanized us; it taught us to love.
But loving is painful. It demands struggles, sacrifice, perseverance… Being loved, on the other hand? We love that! So we deified them; turned them to gods.
We made them incredibly incredible, but no longer human. They became fictional characters!
Those myths weren’t going to make it through the Enlightenment Age. Phuff! So we became those who “killed their prophets” and “denied the signs” that spoke to us about them.
We relegated them as fiction.
But what now? “How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?”
We embraced a new fiction. Found a new set of superheroes. They are incredible. They love us. Sacrifice for us. And we love them too. But a different sort of love; we don’t have to emulate them.
There is injustice in this world. If cities that don’t look like New York are still considered part of this world. Far bloodier than “Hell’s Kitchen” or Gotham City. Ask Ukraine. Palestine, Kashimir, Myanmar… Less bloody, more subtle, but just as pernicious everywhere else in the world. But we don’t have to do anything about it, we vicariously fight all our battles in Marvelverse and DC-land. We sit in wait for our Messiah. After all, only a superhuman can address all the problems we live in, right?
What rubbish is this, you say. We only watch for entertainment. It means nothing more. Nothing! Sure we spend hours watching it. Many more reading about it and commenting on it. Again and again and again. We know the dialogues well enough to recite them. We instinctively respond, with anger, if anyone gets a “fact” wrong about our beloved heroes. Spend thousands on merchandise and are willing to pay extra for these sacred relics if they are in mint condition. Literally, spend more than the entire budget of countries… But we don’t worship this stuff. It’s just entertainment, right?
So Batman is one hell of a vengeance.