Batman Comes Out: Secrets

ID: We’ve danced around a lot of things in our interviews. But the biggest, I think, has always bugged me. Because I wanted to be investigative. I wanted to tear away all of the secrets. But I didn’t. Because I knew it would get innocent people hurt.

I also suspected you’d punch me. But that’s all moot now. Because Lex News has outed your bat family. Using the same technology the US Government does to track down terrorist sightings, they proved with a great degree of certainty, who is behind the various masks.

I still wrestled with how to handle it. But ultimately, Lex News is a major media organization, and it’s been tweeted and retweeted, blogged and possibly even moblogged now. This genie, no matter how much we might wish otherwise, is now out of the bottle. Your response?

B: Lex Luthor is a coward.

ID: Because…

B: Because he’s gone into hiding. Pre-emptively. But that’s fine. Aside from saving him from a little kidney punching, it’s not going to save him.

ID: What do you mean?

B: I mean I warned him. I told him we had a “nuclear option.” Namely, over the years, he’s managed to commit a bevy of crimes in front of heroes whose identities were public- people who could legally enter an affidavit into the public record, people like Captain Atom. I’d been collecting these testimonies for years. And now, he’s just handed me another dozen more people who can link him to horrible things on the record. I mean he’s going to prison for the rest of his life; he’ll probably avoid the chair, since neither New York or New Jersey have an active death penalty. But with just a little luck maybe he’ll get caught in Kansas.

ID: Neat. But the reason I’ve personally struggled is that it’s all so obvious. I mean, yeah, back in the 80s or 90s, it would take an investigative journalist to track down old microfiches to match the deaths of the Graysons up with the appearance of your first Robin, but today? A little Google and a bit of the old Gotham Gazette and Daily Planet archives online, and I had that same information in minutes. And the internet is full of pictures, blurry, maybe, but they’re there. Evidence of the Robins is particularly damning, because you can watch as Dick Grayson’s public pictures match up, in build and age, and even to the hair styles, of Robin. Then he outgrows that costume and takes on the Nightwing persona, and your new semi-adopted son becomes Robin. Then later a third Robin. Then, briefly, a girl Robin- who Lex News identifies as one Stephanie Brown, romantically linked to that third Robin, your second adopted son, Tim Drake. And baby, by which I mean your first bio-son, second and a half if you count the adopted ones, makes Robin number 5.

I’m sorry if I come off critical, but did you think that could last forever? They don’t even wear full masks, for God’s sake.

B: I guess… we got behind the times. Or maybe we just never anticipated this kind of an attack. There are elements of the government, people like Amanda Waller, who have known who I am for years, maybe decades. But this, it’s unprecedented.

ID: Your batgirls

B: And woman

ID: can't believe you’re being cute at a time like this- but they’ve faired better. The full face masks really do help out. Chin analysis isn’t quite caught up in the same way as facial recognition software. But they did out Barbara Gordon. The hair, the fact that her crippling happened around the time the first Batgirl retired.

B: Strangely enough, she’d actually quit just before it happened. I think she finally realized how much more good she could do outside the tights. 

ID: But my point is you’ve lied, by omission, to me, and our readers. And at times, I’ve helped you. So now that our bag is catless, we’re going to endeavor to set that right.

When we talked about Barbara before, you said you turned her away when she wanted to help you. And as it goes, that was true. But she didn’t listen, did she? She sewed her own batsuit, and trained herself. It was only when she bumped into you on the streets, fighting alongside you, that you agreed to take her in and complete her training.

B: You do realize you’re encouraging children to disregard their elders, and do crazy and stupid things, right?

ID: No, you did, by reinforcing her disobedience.

B: She wasn’t a dog. I don’t think whacking her on the nose with the Gotham Gazette was going to do it. And you’re the one publicizing it.

ID: I’m reporting. It’s different. In spirit, if not in kind. But if you want, you’ve got a post from which to dispute that.

B: Kids, listen to your parents. Listen to adults you trust. And if you really, really want to put on some spandex, train. Take martial arts. Pay attention in school. Become the best person you can be first, and then, when you’ve reached adulthood, you can decide if you still want to run around in tights, or join the military, or be a doctor.

ID: The more you know- cause knowing is half the battle.

B: I hate you.

ID: But getting back to Barbara, when the Joker shot her, do you think he knew she was Batgirl?

B: No. Absolutely not. Because I don’t think she would have got off so easily. Seeing what he did to Jason…

ID: Right. It’s hard to imagine him suffering a Bat-anything to live; I guess Robins are birds, so winged things... but she was your mentee. It’s hard for me not to feel it was… creepy for the two of you to form an attachment.

B: Barbara and I had a long friendship. If we’d become intimate in other circumstances, when I was mentoring her, say, I’d agree. But she was an adult, a strong, intelligent woman completely in command of herself. In fact, at the time, I was a wreck. What Bane did to me, it stripped away all of the pretense, all of my defenses.

In a way, I think I’d started to forget how human, how vulnerable, I really was. And he not only made me vulnerable again, but he disabled me. I couldn’t walk. I hadn’t felt that helpless since I was a child, and I mean emotionally. That I was also physically impaired just added to the frustration. On a good day I’m not the most patient man, but then… I’m still surprised Alfred didn’t push my wheelchair down the stairs. I was a terror on wheels, for a while there.

And Barbara was who I needed to have in my life at that time. I loved her. I’d probably still be a grump, in my bed, curtains drawn, refusing to even get in the damned chair, if it weren’t for her- feeling sorry for myself like a spoiled, rich brat. She rescued me from that, when I wasn’t strong enough to do it myself. She was my hero, when no other hero would do. And the fact that she was at her most heroic outside of the costume- um, I mean just not wearing it, though she was wearing other clothes- the fact that she did it post-batgirl, and from a wheel chair, that inspired me even more.

If there is a silver lining to this, to our secrets being out, it’s that maybe, finally, Barbara is going to be seen for the hero she is, for the sacrifices, and beyond the tragedy, for the truly inspiring person she is.

ID: And how has her father taken all of this?

B: Actually, he was fairly understanding about the last interview. He pulled me to the side at a policeman’s ball, and said, in that gruff voice of his, “Thanks, for protecting my daughter’s honor.” I think this’ll probably take a little more to paper over. But I think if he’s honest with himself, he’ll see I’ve always tried to protect her, as his daughter, as my friend, as someone I respected, completely. 

And honestly, my relationship with Jim has always been based around mutual respect and deception. So this is mostly just more of the same.