![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trillianastraI read the new Batman graphic novel today (Neil Gaiman's "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?").
It's not very long, but it's quite beautiful, really. It feels like the "last" Batman story (and Gaiman said in the introduction that it will be HIS last Batman story as a writer), even though I think, and hope, that there will be more. It feels like... skipping to the end of a novel to read the ending, without reading the middle bits first.
And it's made me think about the whole Batman mythology. See, generally, people think that "Batman" is just Bruce Wayne in a costume. But that doesn't feel right to me. To me, I don't think it matters that when Batman takes off his mask, he turns back into Bruce Wayne. It's a little bit like V for Vendetta, in a way (GN, not movie) - with V, it doesn't MATTER who's underneath the mask, because whoever wears it is V, for as long as they can/have to be. V for Vendetta ends with Evey taking up the mantle (and mask). And I think that, when Bruce Wayne (not Batman, this is an important distinction) dies, there will be someone else, another Evey, to pick up the baton, to wear the mask and the cape and to stand between the darkness and the light.
I don't know who it'll be, or even if the guys at DC will take this route one day. But I think it would be the right thing to do, because Batman is more than just one man, he's a symbol, an idea.
And, to use my favourite V quote, ideas are bulletproof.
(On a much, much shallower and less philosophical note, it occurred to me that a *certain couple* from one of my favourite TV shows reminds me quite a lot of Batman/Catwoman. The couple in question is Chuck Bass/Blair Waldorf, and I feel like I ought to be apologising to someone for having that thought... I just wish I knew who.)
It's not very long, but it's quite beautiful, really. It feels like the "last" Batman story (and Gaiman said in the introduction that it will be HIS last Batman story as a writer), even though I think, and hope, that there will be more. It feels like... skipping to the end of a novel to read the ending, without reading the middle bits first.
And it's made me think about the whole Batman mythology. See, generally, people think that "Batman" is just Bruce Wayne in a costume. But that doesn't feel right to me. To me, I don't think it matters that when Batman takes off his mask, he turns back into Bruce Wayne. It's a little bit like V for Vendetta, in a way (GN, not movie) - with V, it doesn't MATTER who's underneath the mask, because whoever wears it is V, for as long as they can/have to be. V for Vendetta ends with Evey taking up the mantle (and mask). And I think that, when Bruce Wayne (not Batman, this is an important distinction) dies, there will be someone else, another Evey, to pick up the baton, to wear the mask and the cape and to stand between the darkness and the light.
I don't know who it'll be, or even if the guys at DC will take this route one day. But I think it would be the right thing to do, because Batman is more than just one man, he's a symbol, an idea.
And, to use my favourite V quote, ideas are bulletproof.
(On a much, much shallower and less philosophical note, it occurred to me that a *certain couple* from one of my favourite TV shows reminds me quite a lot of Batman/Catwoman. The couple in question is Chuck Bass/Blair Waldorf, and I feel like I ought to be apologising to someone for having that thought... I just wish I knew who.)
