The Immigrant Rosemary’s Baby is one of my favorite stories for Jean Paul Valley period. When we see him as Batman, he is someone with a very black and white view of the world. His concept of right and wrong is defined by the legal definition of “criminal.” For this reason, he wrongfully attacked Catwoman and suspected her of something nefarious despite her actively trying to help the city. He showed no remorse when his criminal informant was killed by Mekros. Both of these people were criminals, and so he couldn’t feel for or trust them.
When Jean Paul meets the mother in this story, Rosemary, she is trying to recover her baby from child traffickers. Jean Paul stops these gang members from attacking her, but he refuses to help her recover her child on the basis that she is an illegal immigrant. Despite being an otherwise well intentioned and harmless woman, he cannot get past the fact that she broke the law. All criminals are lumped together in his mind. Jean Paul’s simplistic, underdeveloped views leave no room for nuance.
Following his talk with her, he planned to leave the case with GCPD. But Rosemary had appealed to his emotions in mentioning his own mother—A woman he never knew, in the way her son would never know her if Batman refused to help. He becomes engrossed in the case, working for days on end investigating the trafficking ring and Rosemary’s past. It’s unusual behavior for Jean Paul, who notably hates detective work. Throughout the story he contradict his own methods and beliefs due to his emotional investment in the situation. We see this in how he handles the smugglers as well.
Jean Paul was an incredibly strict Batman who valued results above all else. He was not incapable of saving someone, but his priority was taking down criminals. When he catches the smugglers transporting the children, he lets them potentially escape so that he can make sure the babies were unharmed after their vehicle crashed. He is incredibly protective over them and displays a level of empathy and concern we don’t often see from Azbats.
Selfishly, he only got involved because he had managed to relate the problem to his past, but in doing so he was able to empathize with people he likely wouldn’t have helped otherwise. It challenges his belief that legality is somehow a baseline for goodness and it humanizes his Batman quite a lot.
