WARNING: The following article contains SPOILERS for Detective Comics #983
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Detective Comics #983 has introduced a new Batman villain - one who believes that Batman works better as a lone Dark Knight than as the leader of a team of like-minded vigilantes. To that end, this unnamed villain has started to target Batman’s sidekicks and anyone who dares to disrupt his idealized vision of Batman as a figure that inspires terror.
This villain’s belief mirrors a long-running, real-world debate between Batman fans as to the “true” vision of Batman and a conflict in portrayals that frequently arose during the post-Crisis era of DC Comics. The Batman comics of the time depicted Batman as an urban legend, whom most of the people of Gotham City didn’t believe existed. By contrast, every other book published by DC Comics depicted Batman as a public figure and a member of the Justice League. It has also often been pointed out that for a troubled loner who walks a dark path none may follow, Bruce Wayne has built up a rather large support network.
It is this vision of Batman as the publicly-known leader of a vast “Bat Family” that has come to dominate Batman comics in the Rebirth era. It is fitting then, that this new villain’s first target should be The Signal - a young metahuman with strange vision-based precognitive powers, whom many seem as symbolic of how much the Batman books have changed in the past decade. The idea of Batman lending his support to a metahuman who operates in broad daylight in Gotham City would have been unthinkable in the post-Crisis era and that opinion seems to be shared by the new Batman villain.
The unnamed villain first murdered Darin Griffith - a 16-year old YouTube-famous Bat-fan, who built up a following on his channel Bat Fam talking about his love of Batman and the other vigilantes of Gotham City. The Signal discovered Griffith’s body and just barely survived the explosion of a bomb hidden at the crime scene. Batman later discovered a USB drive stuck into The Signal’s wounds, containing an audio file in which the villain explained his belief that Batman needed to return to the shadows, become a figure of fear again and quit depending on others. Ironically, Batman listened to this message while pursuing another group of criminals down one of Gotham City’s main streets, as dozens of passersby took pictures of him with their phones.
As interesting as the concept for this new villain is, there is another layer of metatextual interpretation to his actions. With talk of how Batman was once “something glorious” but is now “a novelty… a brand that you share with unworthy children,” the villain sounds not unlike many obsessive fans, who have protested recent efforts by publishers and film studios to make greater strides towards reaching out to a wider audience.
While the number of Batman fans who protest The Dark Knight being made to lighten up is relatively low compared to the number of Star Wars fans complaining about a more diverse vision of a galaxy far, far away, it is born of the same spoiled sense of entitlement and it will be interesting to see how The Bat Family deals with this menace in coming issues.
More: Batman Threatens To Take Batwoman’s Name Away
Detective Comics #983 is now available from DC Comics.
