Continuing with my superhero miniseries, I now turn to the latest reboot of the Batman mythos.

First off, as I pointed out in Superheroes and The Narrative:

…Frankly, you have to hand it to the pop culture svengalis because it takes talent to sell an aspect of The Narrative as oxymoronic as feminism (that women are superior to heterosexual men in every way, yet simultaneously oppressed victims of them).

That’s not the only difficult task they’ve cut out for themselves.–they’ve taken the Batman and turned him into a blatant oxymoron which gets swallowed whole by millions.

Let’s not forget that the Batman is A VIGILANTE. He’s a wealthy, property-owning individual who recognizes that the so-called criminal justice system is hopelessly broken. He dedicates his life to disciplined training for a one-man war against the criminal class. Using his own capital, he arms and equips himself for the war. Once he reaches his physical prime, he circumvents the authority of the state and deals out justice personally, concealing his identity from both the criminal underworld and the corrupt system. In the beginning he wasn’t afraid to terminate scumbags with extreme prejudice, and at least once used firearms to do so.

You can’t get much more right-wing than that.

And yet, after Robin was first introduced in the early 1940s, Gotham City took a turn for the bizarre. Batman became a de facto officer in the Gotham PD, working so closely with Commissioner Gordon that one wonders why he bothered to keep his identity secret. You can see the transformation visually in the appearance of his costume, BTW.

So…he’s a vigilante, but he works with the system. Oh, he’s gone through phases in which he is hunted by the cops, but it never lasts long and it’s usually as a result of him being framed by an enemy. He’s also become quite the anti-gun activist.

Since at least the 1980s, the writers at DC have become more bold about inserting their leftist worldview into the comics. (The latest movie trilogy was a pleasant surprise, except for the last one, depending on perspective. If you’re a “law and order” cuckservative/Rino/NeoCon you probably thought the underlying message in Dark Knight Rises was just great.)

So what you have is an anarchist character who is written to be an agent of the state, and most passionate about collectivist causes (gun control, the dangers of privacy, etc.). He’s also a capitalist operating with nigh-autonomy, in a fantasy world where the free market is the problem, and autonomy should be exclusive to leftist politicians.

It takes some talented snake oil salesmen to peddle this stuff; and it takes some gullible chumps to swallow it without question.

Having said that, on to the TV series. I’ll list pros and cons.

PRO: This series has the best performances I’ve seen by a child actor playing the young Bruce Wayne.

CON: In this show Oswald Cobblepot (AKA the Penguin) has more in common with the horrible Tim Burton character revamp than with the Penguin of the comics (at least the first half-century of the comics). In fact, this characterization might be worse: Cobblepot is petulant, impulsive, and sometimes downright stupid. Hardly the stuff supervillains are made of. His segments get tiresome to watch after a few episodes. And was the creepy mother fixation really necessary?

PRO: Young detective Gordon is played very well, though the actor’s voice gets increasingly raspy–like he’s auditioning to play the part of Batman.

CON: Bruce Wayne doesn’t become Batman until he reaches adulthood, right? In this series he’s still a child…and yet the writers seem determined to have every single character in the Batman universe cross paths when Bruce Wayne is pre-pubescent. This is becoming a typical plotting fetish when these superhero franchises are rebooted, and it wasn’t all that clever the first few times. Plus it just isn’t credible. Only so much disbelief can be suspended for the more intelligent viewers, so save your improbable points for stuff like, you know, an unarmed dude with no superpowers attacking gangs of armed criminals, dodging all their bullets and vanquishing them with his bare hands.

PRO: The exception to the foolishness of the fetish summarized above is the early development of Edward Nygma (AKA the Riddler). Making the pre-Riddler E. Nygma a forensic technician for the Gotham Police may just have been a stroke of genius. Some might even find him likeable, in a nerd/loser way. The writers/directors have built for themselves an opportunity here to mold a very solid, credible villain via a patient character arc.

CON: Alfred is now a British SpecOps vet. Really? Facepalm. He’s a butler, okay?

CON: Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman) is a child, who personally meets and befriends the child Bruce Wayne many years before they grow up to have a kinky love/hate cat/mouse (flying mouse, that is) relationship in masks and tights. Holy overused plot gimmick, Batman. And of course at 12 years old (or whatever) “Cat” is a badass streetwise thug-with-a-heart-of-gold who pulls little Brucie’s fat out of the fire any time the writers can dream up an excuse to contrive it. Oh yeah, both of them also know the young girl who will grow up to become Poison Ivy. Holy ho-hum.

CON: Maybe you’ve noticed we’re missing something. Where are all the sympathetic sodomites? Are the cultural svengalis slipping? Ah, never fear: no less than James Gordon’s future wife (and future mother of Batgirl) is now AC/DC. Her erstwhile rug-munching buddy is one of only two honest cops on the Gotham PD when Jim Gordon joins the force. Hmm. I’m not sure they went far enough–maybe she should be a war hero, too. There’s all sorts of potential checkboxes to choose from in the Perversion Peddling Playbook.

The cultural svengalis are in lock step and their Narrative is as predictable, ultimately, as how any given post-season will end for the Minnesota Vikings. They may lull you into complacency with some good writing, good acting, good whatever for a while, but only so they can sucker-punch you once your guard is down..