currently going on a re-read-through of every bruce wayne appearance ever published, and also heavily procrastinating working on essays for my substack.
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a character study of these two, and the big elephant in the room after secret six. i wanted to write a comic that properly captured both of their perspectives, and did not mention jon at all (because who gaf). takes place rough between issues 6 and 8 of Batman by Matt Fraction
i unironically like how bitter & sarcastic bruce is in these scenes. the alfred line is very obviously a joke, but it gives such a nice glimpse into the mind of someone stressed & teetering on the brink of mental decline, because a mental state like that is never pretty
it's a private moment, so bruce is less reserved about coming off wrong or choosing his words, and while he's definitely mean, it's just so unbelievably raw to me. gotham is on the edge of imploding essentially, a lot is hanging on his shoulders and he's trying his best to get them out of this situation, and here comes Alfred criticizing him for something unrelated. his first response is an annoyed and snappy retort & it's just so human to me. who hasn't snapped at someone while they were irritated ?
i also like this focus on infallibilty, because as people will recall, gotham war essentially happened because Bruce didn't calculate impossible circumstances, therefore i think it's accurate to see him hunker down on everyone being absolutely perfect, which alfred calls out.
bruce has this really repressive flaw of closing in on himself whenever he makes a mistake, and it is understandable considering lives Are on the line when he messes up, but constant perfectionism Is Damaging, to not only yourself, but also others, which is what happens between Bruce and Damian.
Confronted with his own meager understanding of what's happening in Gotham, Bruce snaps at Damian by telling him he 'knows nothing', when really it's projection. Bruce has very little idea on that Vandal is up to, everything bruce says to damian here can be applied to himself, in fact, i'd argue that the way he confronts Damian is the way he'd confront himself privately, which is what goes wrong here.
Damian did accidentally mess up, but Bruce confronts him with a level of strictness & cruelness he usually only reserves for himself when he messes up AS BATMAN. he also uses intimidation tactics he would use as batman, like punching the punching bag to make Damian focus on him. it's such a fascinating scene.
it's also not lost on me that Damian also learned this habit of beating himself up from his father, it also is probably a trait of their trade considering the high stakes they deal with all the time.
anyways back to bruce's mental state, what i really appreciate about both moments is that while we see Bruce lash out, be mean and irritated, you can still see his more rational self immediately regret those explosions of emotions,
of course, alfred acts as another alley of showcasing his subconscious thoughts. it shows us that while he does mess up with how he reacts, this anger doesn't define him and more importantly, he doesn't want it to define his relationship with damian, therefore he goes straight to making it up to his son
despite so much bad faith reading of these scenes i've seen out there, i'm glad they were included. i like it when my superheroes act human, and that includes snapping while being irritated and stressed, which is a common experience of parenthood i feel lmao !
anyways i just wanted to break down little moments of this conflict because i have so many other thoughts but i needed this out there because i'm very enamoured with how human bruce feels in this run
Yes. Bruce gets on Damian for being arrogant and entitled, and yet often acts like arrogance and entitlement are requirements for the job. What I mean by this is that the root of both arrogance and entitlement is confidence: If you are a hero, and you don't think you're good enough to be arrogant, and you don't feel entitled to the things you need to do your job, what fucking good are you?
Bruce's own "proper" upbringing and his notions of what makes a respectable gentleman actively clash with what hero life demands of your mental state. Like, humility is great. Up to a point. If you're too humble in this line of work you're no more than a doormat for the people who'd take advantage of that kindness, as we've seen happen to numerous heroes before. You need that spine.
Damian's arrogance and his entitlement are traits that do hinder him, often socially, but they also often shield him from the kind of pressure that would kill literally anyone else in his position. Save Duke and Steph, Damian is under far more scrutiny than any of the other robins. He gets treated like hes a time-bomb, waiting to turn evil at any moment. The fact he has a "ill show you!!" attitude is what has kept him from dying when no one else has his back because often, nobody does.
And Bruce should know what that feels like. Its his arrogance and entitlement that keeps Bruce able to walk amongst the people he does, the Gods and Mages of the world. But one of Bruce's big problems is that when he gets frustrated he forgets his empathy. Empathy is often treated like its innate (problematically, since this idea is often used to sanist ends), but it is often a learned skill, and learned skills are the first to fall out of you when you're under stress.
i unironically like how bitter & sarcastic bruce is in these scenes. the alfred line is very obviously a joke, but it gives such a nice glimpse into the mind of someone stressed & teetering on the brink of mental decline, because a mental state like that is never pretty
it's a private moment, so bruce is less reserved about coming off wrong or choosing his words, and while he's definitely mean, it's just so unbelievably raw to me. gotham is on the edge of imploding essentially, a lot is hanging on his shoulders and he's trying his best to get them out of this situation, and here comes Alfred criticizing him for something unrelated. his first response is an annoyed and snappy retort & it's just so human to me. who hasn't snapped at someone while they were irritated ?
i also like this focus on infallibilty, because as people will recall, gotham war essentially happened because Bruce didn't calculate impossible circumstances, therefore i think it's accurate to see him hunker down on everyone being absolutely perfect, which alfred calls out.
bruce has this really repressive flaw of closing in on himself whenever he makes a mistake, and it is understandable considering lives Are on the line when he messes up, but constant perfectionism Is Damaging, to not only yourself, but also others, which is what happens between Bruce and Damian.
Confronted with his own meager understanding of what's happening in Gotham, Bruce snaps at Damian by telling him he 'knows nothing', when really it's projection. Bruce has very little idea on that Vandal is up to, everything bruce says to damian here can be applied to himself, in fact, i'd argue that the way he confronts Damian is the way he'd confront himself privately, which is what goes wrong here.
Damian did accidentally mess up, but Bruce confronts him with a level of strictness & cruelness he usually only reserves for himself when he messes up AS BATMAN. he also uses intimidation tactics he would use as batman, like punching the punching bag to make Damian focus on him. it's such a fascinating scene.
it's also not lost on me that Damian also learned this habit of beating himself up from his father, it also is probably a trait of their trade considering the high stakes they deal with all the time.
anyways back to bruce's mental state, what i really appreciate about both moments is that while we see Bruce lash out, be mean and irritated, you can still see his more rational self immediately regret those explosions of emotions,
of course, alfred acts as another alley of showcasing his subconscious thoughts. it shows us that while he does mess up with how he reacts, this anger doesn't define him and more importantly, he doesn't want it to define his relationship with damian, therefore he goes straight to making it up to his son
despite so much bad faith reading of these scenes i've seen out there, i'm glad they were included. i like it when my superheroes act human, and that includes snapping while being irritated and stressed, which is a common experience of parenthood i feel lmao !
anyways i just wanted to break down little moments of this conflict because i have so many other thoughts but i needed this out there because i'm very enamoured with how human bruce feels in this run
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people will look you in the eyes and say Bruce suggesting Damian go to college in Batman #3 and it leading to them having a little disagreement in the same scene is on the same level as full on child abuse because they are incapable of understanding that sometimes you just disagree on certain things.
he's not forcing damian to go to college. can we be serious? He's suggesting it as a way for Damian to expand on his desire to go into the medical field, especially because the focus lately has been about both bruce and damian keeping in touch with their civilian identities instead of repressing themselves into their vigilante roles. it's the exact opposite of child abuse, he's making sure his son knows he's able to pursue a life outside of crimefighting, is able to partake in socializing with people and experiencing as much of a normal life as he can give him.
Battle for the Cowl and everything surrounding that era really did fuck up the evolution of the batfamily by going against the then-established notion of "the batman mantle shall never be inherited, because Bruce Wayne would never wish for any of his children to be stuck carrying his legacy", because since then every conflict can be traced back to the idea that Bruce's children need to challenge him for the mantle or prove themselves worthy in a roundabout way as potential candidates, even if they're not specifically after the mantle.
there are barely any stories that differentiate his children from him in any tangible way, every solo story focusing on his children wants to sell you the idea of why they'd be a better potential batman candidate, not why they're good characters that can stand on their own away from his shadow.
it's like everyone is fighting over land deeds for an island that has sunken into the ocean. there's literally nothing to fight about because it goes against the core of Bruce's character to imply he'd ever want someone else, especially his children, to go through the torture he puts himself through.
Batman is meant to be an identity through which he fights for a better future; his biggest fear should be the fact that Batman will continue to be needed, and the even bigger fear (as Knightfight correctly assesses) should be that this future burden would plague his children, whom he's also fighting for. it would be the biggest indicator of failure, not a spectacular legacy he'd be proud of.
at the end of the day, the cyclical nature of batman comics does mean writers also retread old conflict with his kids he should've learned from ages ago, much like how the rogues continuously escape arkham, and how him and his love interests never find their way to each other, or how gotham manages to decline despite all of the resources he's pumping into it. i do wish it were different though, but it feels almost inescapable at this point
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i think the most emotionally devastating fic i've ever conceptualized is about what would happen to bruce wayne if, instead of his usual fear of his body failing him, his mind began to decline after being diagnosed with early onset dementia. i genuinely cannot even open my outlines without getting choked up
sometimes you can really tell which writers see Batman as a commanding officer, and which see him as the patriarch of a family, and that minor distinction does wonders for his characterization.
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maybe i missed the memo or something, but i'm not sure why there's this widespread notion that Arthur never doubted Dutch once up until the very end of the game, or that he didn't ever try to stand up to their way of life.
it's never insistent, but he does tell dutch that they are "thieves in a world that does not want them anymore", alludes to being worried about how many men they're losing, and does ask Dutch whether or not they really have to do this one last take.
very clear to me that he's been conflicted since the beginning, but it's only after his diagnosis and the multiple gang member deaths that he takes more a direct and vocal approach toward the path of redemption since his clock is ticking ⸺ but imo those values were there since the beginning & shone through his conversations, especially with his feelings toward Mary and the life they could've had. maybe it's the fact that arthur isn't all that outwardly concerned with the morality of what they're doing and seems to be more worried about the gang's wellbeing, but a part of it definitely is the small, incessant shame he feels for leading such a life in the first place.
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