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You, Too, Could Be Batman In 10 To 12 Years
jmcbain tips a fascinating interview in Scientific American with a professor of kinesiology and neuroscience (and a 26-year practitioner of Chito-Ryu karate-do). The question was, how much training would it take for a normal person to become Batman? The professor says: "You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess... In terms of the physical skills to be able to defend himself against all these opponents all the time, I would benchmark that at 10 to 12 years." The problem is, even after that amount of training, no one could remain on top of their game for more than a few years. And "Batman can't really afford to lose. Losing means death — or at least not being able to be Batman anymore."
Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
A large portion of the Batman storyline revolves around the question of whether or not that's really true.
One of the more poignant observations made in the comics was by Commissioner Gordon when he pointed out that there were always regular criminals in Gotham before Batman arrived, but there weren't any supervillians until after Batman made room for them.
Weird slashbug #455
What about the mental component? While the movie Batman Begins didn't do too much with it, Batman's greatest asset is his mind.
He's a genius and one of the greatest minds in the DC universe. He uses it be one of the greatest detectives and occasional research, and use strategies/tactics to take down even the greatest forces (even Superman).
It isn't his physic and toys that let him stand with the greatest heroes and face the most dangerous villains, but his greatest asset: his mind.
Without his mind he's just some generic tough guy.
Well, if you're going to remove yourself from the context of the storytelling, obviously there aren't going to be any supervillians like the Joker...
But within the context of the story, the point was this: Batman attempted to impose order by brutalizing the criminal element until it was too beaten and scared to stand against him. When that happened, only a few well-financed, high-powered, or outright-insane villians could continue to fight him, and with organized crime no longer in control of the underworld in Gotham, they had an arena in which to do it.
By taking street crime and organized crime out of the picture, Batman removed a barrier that prevented the supervillians from moving in to take Gotham, because the "common" criminals had just as much a reason to oppose the supervillians, in most case, as Batman does. No matter how deadly Joker is, he can't exist in a world where both the corrupt police AND organized crime have a reason to oppose him because they'll hunt him down and destroy him, but if he's only opposed by Batman, he's a one-man army facing a one-man army.
A common theme in Batman his how Wayne is tortured by the fact that he may have caused a lot more suffering in Gotham by donning his mantle than if he had simply internalized his own suffering and let it him alive.
The question becomes: Did Batman help Gotham by taking up his crusade, or did he just unleash the pain he was suffering on the entire population?
Weird slashbug #455