Mental Health | Comics
Batman May Be More Unhinged Than The Joker
A Question of Sanity
Batman and The Joker are locked in unending conflict. Batman stands for reason. The Joker represents insanity. But Batman may just have become more unhinged than The Joker.
The insanity of The Joker has been attributed to a variety of sources. Heath Ledger’s version of The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight provided contradictory stories about his insanity.
In The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, the Joker’s insanity is credited to the grief of losing his wife and unborn child, his failure as a comedian and his disfiguring exposure to chemicals. The sudden and horrifying loss parallels the creation of Batman after Bruce Wayne loses his parents.
The important difference between Bruce Wayne and The Joker is Bruce purposefully creates Batman to achieve a goal. Admittedly, the goal of eradicating crime from Gotham is a Sisyphean objective.
Up until recently, Bruce Wayne’s conscious decision to create Batman was a defining element distinguishing his activities as sane, opposed to the insanity of The Joker. Because, let’s be honest, dressing up as a bat and fighting an unrelenting war on crime isn’t exactly the definition of sanity. The Joker sums it up when he describes Batman as a figure of “simmering insanity” (Batman #129).
The Batman stories written by Chip Zdarsky have challenged the idea that Batman’s choices support his sanity. Instead, a series of conscious decisions made by Batman have become an indication of mental instability and moved Batman beyond the ability to control his decisions.
In his early days of crime fighting, a criminal exposed Batman to chemicals intended to break him by making him a coward. Batman’s fear became focused on the idea that he might have his mind hijacked. He began a number of procedures that established a back-up personality.
Batman is concerned that he might “be the most dangerous man alive” (Batman #130). And given Batman created detailed failsafe files on how to defeat the Justice League that Ra’s al Ghul uses in the Tower of Babel storyline, there is some validity to his claim.
Batman named his back-up personality Zur-en-arrh after travelling to an alien planet and encountering Tlano, who becomes a Batman for his world. Zur-en-arrh is designed to defend Batman and his principles, one of the most prominent being his vow not to take a life.
Working without Batman’s knowledge, Zur-en-arrh created a robot AI named Failsafe to activate if Batman takes a life. Just to be clear, Zur-en-arrh working in secret means taking over Batman’s body without his knowledge when he thinks he is asleep to design, build and train the robotic AI.
Not knowing the actions of Zur-en-arrh, Batman has purposefully lost parts of his own mind. This choice leads to mental instability. While Batman does not take a life, the AI believes that Batman has killed the Penguin and activates.
The following adventures of Batman provide a number of traumatic events, any of which would be enough to rob a person of their sanity. The battle between Batman and the robotic AI ends up sending Batman into a different universe. There, he encounters a version of The Joker, calling himself Red Mask, who is not insane, but wants to be. Batman has his hand cut off. He chases Red Mask through different universes. He is then possessed by Deadman and he falls into a coma (see DC’s summer crossover event, Knight Terrors). He is woken to find Catwoman, his ex-fiancé and long-time focus of his affections, has built a criminal empire that causes conflict between members of his family. And his family home is bought by an immortal criminal. All this happens while The Joker is on the loose in Gotham.
It’s been a busy time for Batman. Any one of the disturbing events would be enough to break a person. Whether Batman is willing to admit it or not (he definitely is not willing to admit it), he is psychologically vulnerable. He has created a situation of vulnerability from his attempts to protect his sanity, principles and decision making process.
The comparison of sanity and insanity is illustrated with a meeting between Batman and The Joker in Batman #139. Having followed a number of clues purposefully left by The Joker, Batman comes face to face with the villain. The Joker manages to take control of Batman and bring out Zur-en-arrh, leaving Batman powerless.
Batman’s decision to create Zur-en-arrh to stop his mind from being hijacked has allowed The Joker to seize control of Batman. To further complicate the matter, as a pure representation of Batman’s objectives, Zur-en-arrh has concluded that The Joker must die, a decision Batman is strongly against.
Chip Zdarsky’s Batman stories have been full of action and great Batman moments (like when he enters the Earth’s atmosphere without a space craft). The stories have also provided Batman with a number of challenges which he overcomes as only Batman can. Underneath Batman’s impressive planning and awe-inspiring crisis management lie issues of sanity and insanity.
Zur-en-arrh generates questions about psychological vulnerability and cause and effect. Having been created to protect Batman’s mental stability, Zur-en-arrh has made Batman inherently helpless. The cause of Batman’s vulnerability is an attempt to stop himself from being vulnerable. In doing so, Batman has created problems for himself and damaged his claims at maintaining sanity by the very action of trying to remain sane (if nothing else, this gives the impression that staying sane is hard work).
There is a valuable lesson to be derived from Batman’s predicament. The attempts to solve a problem can generate greater difficulties, especially when individuals like Batman are unable to acknowledge their own vulnerability. Batman is trying to control all aspects of his life, including his emotional reactions to a situation. Sometimes we need to be able to accept our own vulnerabilities and ask for help.
Chip Zdarsky will be taking Batman comics into the new year with stories about Zur-en-arrh before shifting to focus to The Joker with a three part Joker: Year One. The story will be followed by a couple more issues that focus on Batman’s struggle with Zur-en-arrh.
