Batman at 80: Hope and the legacy of the Dark Knight

Batman is fast approaching his 80th anniversary in March 2019, and in this week’s Sunday Comics Column we examine his enduring legacy of hope.

The Dark Knight might be turning 80 next month with the arrival of Detective Comics #1000, but he doesn’t look a day over his mid-30s and his appeal is as strong as ever. Batman has been a pivotal character both in the DC Comics canon and in the superhero world at large for decades. He’s easily one of the most recognizable characters of all time, and as the only ordinary human corner of the DC holy trinity triangle he shares with Superman and Wonder Woman, he’s a hero for the people.

Though he’s considered a dark character, Batman has always been a symbol of hope. There’s an inverse relationship between his suffering and fans’ hope; the more we see Batman suffer, the more it inspires us to have hope in our own lives. It’s simple: No matter how much he’s suffering, the Dark Knight always keeps going. Take away everything he has and everyone he loves, and the Bat keeps fighting.

And if Batman can keep going through it all, so can you.

My Bat Moment

I was nine years old in 1989 when Batman came out in theaters. Since my mom is awesome, she had no problem taking impressionable little Sarabeth to see it in the theater, and it was awesome as I could have imagined. Michael Keaton will always be my movie Batman, and Jack Nicholson shall forever be the granddaddy of Jokers.

After the movie we had to stop at the grocery store on the way home. We were in the pet food aisle when we heard it:

Pop!

Pop!

Pop!

People screamed. There were men shouting.

The store was being robbed.  At gunpoint. And there was nowhere to run.

My mom, being the quick thinker she is, pulled bags of dog food onto the floor and stuffed me into the shelves with my little sister. A woman near us started screaming and ran to another aisle as another shot sounded. The store went silent for many more moments. An unknown amount of time passed and then we could hear sirens. The gunmen had fled and the police arrived. We were safe. No one had been hurt.

It’s not lost on me that Bruce Wayne’s trip to the movies with his parents and a fateful robbery at gunpoint in Crime Alley led to his journey to become the Bat. While I didn’t become a vigilante after my experience, I was transfixed. Those moments in the store had been the scariest moment of my life up to that point, but I found solace in Batman. Though I had been crammed in a shelf, I kept asking myself one question: “What would Batman do?”

That was the moment that solidified my Bat-fandom.

A Batman For All Occasions

Fast forward to 2019. Now I’m a full-fledged, card-carrying adult and I get paid to write about comics. I’m still every bit invested in Batman’s adventures now as I was back when I was a kid. The stories are far more complex and often more mature these days. Just when you think the Bat has seen it all, award-winning scribes like Tom King and Peter J. Tomasi prove that there are still many ways to

torture

put Batman through his paces.

One reason Batman stories remain fresh after all these years is that the world around us has changed. Batman’s adventures used to be about bank robbers and cat burglars. These days, though, terror has a whole new look to it. Robberies, though still terrifying, are no longer what keeps people up at night. Violence has permeated just about every safe place you can think of, and superhero stories have evolved as a result. It’s no longer about Batman fighting to save Gotham City, rather Batman fights to save the planet on a regular basis.

No matter who the villains are or what earth-shattering disaster he faces, Batman is still the face of hope and justice. The villains have changed, but what he stands for has never wavered.

As we march towards 80 years of the Dark Knight and a thousand issues of Detective Comics, Batman’s legacy only continues to grow stronger. The man who wears the mantle of the Bat is less important than what the Bat stands for: Hope.

So here’s to Batman, and all that he stands for.