Beginning in the 1950s comic books were thoroughly neutered by the Comics Code Authority, which de facto censored adult or controversial topics. In the comics sex simply didn’t exist, let alone prostitution, rape, or molestation. Narcotics use didn’t exist. Any hint that law enforcement or government might be institutionally corrupt was verboten. And African-Americans barely existed at all beyond a few infamous “darky” depictions. In this era Batman was thoroughly juvenilized.
So if we postulate a retro-noire 1950s Batman as a serious character, how would his devotion to combatting injustice deal with the blatant injustice that African-Americans routinely suffered– not infrequently at the hands of the very police themselves? Have any of the many takes on the character done this?
FWIW, in that same era, National Comics’ other big hero, Superman, was being used to fight discrimination, as well. This poster apparently dates from sometime between 1949 and 1956; I recall recently hearing a Superman radio serial from around that same time (on an old-time radio show) with a similar message.
Who’d have thought Batman was such a woke, socialist loser? They should fire him and give some billionaire pretty-boy like Bruce Wayne a chance to dig deep and root out the REAL criminals, like the Biden Crime Family.
Ruben Bolling created the parody comic “Social Justice Warrior,” about a 1940s superhero who’s transported to the present day:
PASSERBY 1: Ha! Check out the “Social Justice Warrior!”
SJW: Indeed! I fight valiantly for social justice!
PASSERBY 2: Nice virtue signaling!
SJW: Isn’t virtue…good? What a strange future!
PASSERBY 3: Arrest him! He’s Antifa!
SJW [led away in cuffs]: Arrested for being anti-fascist?! In America?!
I can’t find a link, but someone did a cartoon a few years ago with Bruce Wayne seriously pondering in his melancholy way how he could use his vast fortune to help society. Alfred is very supportive and mentions some worthy causes. Wayne, still pondering, says, “first, I gotta get a really cool car…”
In 1989, Batman met a new foe, Anarky, who is fighting corporate evil and homelessness. The character notes that “Batman’s misguided. He fights the results of crime, but not the causes. He takes on individual cases… but he fails to see the wider picture!” Batman takes the point and gets the social criticism; he has a small existential crisis, but soon gets over it.
Also Anarky is depicted as an insufferably self-righteous know-it-all teen, who in later stories is forced to admit some of the drawbacks and limitations of his absolutism.
Of course. The Batman franchise would collapse if the Batman had to admit he was a vigilante whose entire existence depended on maintaining an oppressive system.
Brought on by a book full of lies and distortions , written by a nutcase-
According to a 2012 study by Carol L. Tilley, Wertham “manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence” in support of the contentions expressed in Seduction of the Innocent .[4] He misprojected both the sample size and substance of his research, making it out to be more objective and less anecdotal than it truly was.[10][failed verification] He generally did not adhere to standards worthy of scientific research, instead using questionable evidence for his argument that comics were a cultural failure.[11]
Y’know, one kind of misses when Bats and Supes could be up to solving mundane interpersonal conflicts in the high school playing fields of Metropolis and Gotham in between Big Crises. These days the whole universe is about to get whacked every other week.
Yup. Because the classic format is that at the end of each story you hit the Big Reset Button, you pretty much HAVE to justify that the system is good.
Wonder how much of that is because for many decades you HAD to justify the system, or else be out of a job, and it just grew into being second nature…
…
And anyway, w/o the capitalist system as it is, where would Wayne Enterprises or Stark Industries get the moolah to keep these dudes so equipped. Batfleck put it best: “my superpower is I’m rich”.
(OK, OK, so Green Arrow is canonically rich AND a leftie or what passes for that in the USA… but way, way behind Batman in spending power.)
Which incidentally reminds me of something: EC Comics had been heavily into the kind of horror comics criticized by Wertham; I believe I’d read that Gaines himself testified at the congressional hearings. Perhaps not coincidentally EC’s flagship publication became the humorous Mad Magazine, and the latter even dropped its original comic book format. What I was thinking of was many of the stories illustrated by Don Martin; his quirky visual style leant itself to humor, but many of the stories he illustrated were distinctly dark humor. Stripped of their exaggerated comic elements, many of them could have been classic horror “Gotcha!” stories straight out of EC’s olden days, or at least Charles Addams’ dark humor.
The first couple issues of Mad are parodies of the other EC comics popular at the time- horror, sci-fi, western, and such. The artists were the same, too. It probably seemed like an easy way to add a new genre to the roster without needing new talent. Of course, it quickly grew beyond that- especially with the code hamstringing the original source material.
Mad was always a bit dark and cynical. Its core message, if it had one, was “Don’t trust anyone”- politicians, advertisers, Hollywood, all the adult institutions are trying to get one over on you. For a kid, it’s pretty heady stuff.
