Deconstruction / Batman

Batman

Deconstruction in this series.

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Comic Books

• Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth: The comic dives into the psychological issues surrounding the mentalities of the Caped Crusader and his rogues' gallery. Batman's rigid and stoic demeanor is just his way of covering his severe emotional issues and sexual repression, Mad Hatter's love of blond little girls is taken to outright pedophilia, and Maxie Zeus is a weak skeletal man with a huge messiah complex and who has developed an addiction to electroshock therapy.
• Batman (James Tynion IV)
  • Crimefighting with Cash is actually very costly when you're Batman. And now that his wealth has been significantly stripped, Batman is now forced to be frugal about his equipment. Issue #106 in particular has a scene where Batman explains to Oracle how he downgraded the Batmobile for efficiency, meaning it's no longer capable of artificial intelligence-guided autopilot or automated collision avoidance to make room for a bigger engine.
  • Harley Quinn is shown having trouble getting around Gotham to stop crimes since she doesn't have all the gadgets or vehicles Batman has to get to crime scenes on time. Le Parkour isn't enough to get you places quickly.
    Harley Quinn: How the hell can these hero types afford cars and motorcycles and magic grapple guns without robbing banks every other minute?!
  • The infamous Matches Malone persona Batman uses to personally infiltrate Gotham's Underworld might have worked with the older generation of organized crime. But the criminals of today possess far too much scrutiny for that disguise to be effective against them. The second 'Matches' arrives on the Unsanity Collective's doorstep asking how he can join up with their cause, Bruce immediately gets singled out as a potential undercover cop with both his peak-level physicality and his apparent resistance to their psionic devices all suggesting he is too highly trained of an individual to be the average blue-collar crook he's trying to sell himself as. It also doesn't help that Miracle Molly, one of Mr. Wyze's subordinates, can easily tell that his mustache is fake.
  • Batman's philosophy of criminals being a "superstitious and cowardly lot" is picked apart by Miracle Molly, who points out how this is a mindset for when he started, not for where he is now, smarter and wiser about why some criminals are forced to be criminals in a system that reinforces the dichotomy. Molly asks if Batman can still be effective if he ever let the tragedy of his past go, to which Batman admits to not knowing the answer.
• Batman: The Imposter: In taking a punishingly realistic approach to Batman and his world, this mini ends up deconstructing several conventions of the Batman mythos, including Bruce's relationships with his close friends and allies, his equation with the GCPD, his skills as a fighter and the logistics of his one-man war on crime.
  • Alfred Pennyworth is traditionally depicted as being Bruce Wayne's surrogate father, mentor, butler, and closest confidant all rolled into one, usually unwavering in his support for 'Master Bruce' and his crusade. In this continuity, however, Alfred, as a mere butler, finds himself utterly unable to cope with being the guardian to a traumatized, rage-filled, and disturbed child who's also technically his boss. So, he resigns and Bruce is packed off to a boarding school in Russia instead.
  • The iconic partnership between Batman and Jim Gordon ended in this continuity with Gordon being discredited and drummed out of the police force for working with a vigilante—a far more realistic outcome for a cop in his position than the usual status quo.
  • Leslie Thompkins, far from being another surrogate parent to Bruce who is largely supportive of his crusade, is depicted here instead as someone who refuses to blindly enable his violent vigilantism and forces him into therapy by threatening to expose his true identity once she discovers it. (Although this is very Depending on the Writer even in mainstream continuity; Leslie's attitude to Batman has ranged from "largely supportive" to "will murder a child to make him stop", and is generally somewhere in the middle.)
  • All the property destruction and chaos caused by Batman's war on crime is unlikely to endear him to Gotham's wealthy and powerful, who in turn pressurize the police into taking a tougher stance on the vigilante.
  • The story begins with Batman being seriously injured and on the verge of death following an encounter with armed store robbers—the kind of low-level criminals whom, in more mainstream adaptations, he would be able to take down almost effortlessly. Here we see all too well the very real physical risks involved in even the smallest acts of vigilantism.
  • Instead of using an ostentatious vehicle like the Batmobile, Batman gets around Gotham inconspicuously using an elaborate network of ziplines and hidden motorcycles. Even this isn't inconspicuous enough, however, since the GCPD finds and confiscates many of the motorcycles and cuts the ziplines.
  • Far from being the impeccable and dignified manor-house it's usually depicted as being, Wayne Manor here is a mess since Bruce lives alone without a staff or butler—Alfred having quit during Bruce's troubled childhood years.
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns actually took Batman out of the permanent bubble of Comic-Book Time and pushed him into a future Gotham that is very much the contemporary 80s America of Ronald Reagan and Bernie Goetz. Batman's vigilante actions become a topic of political and social commentary, his actions an affront to the police and (later) the U.S. Government, and he inevitably operates as an outlaw that brings him in conflict with Superman.
  • Batman's tactics spur debates on toughness on crime. The story also deconstructs many elements of Batman's mythos, particularly his potential insanity, as well as showing what kind of world would make Batman not only possible but necessary.
  • Superman is heavily deconstructed as well, especially the characterizations from the 1950s onward where he was written as a model citizen and patriot. The character's morals are portrayed as being too rigid and simple to stand up to the messy complications of reality, such as what a law-abiding patriot is supposed to do when given orders from a senile and self-centered president. The numerous covers depicting Superman fighting in World War II are also reexamined by showing the consequences of Superman going to war and just how ugly that would be.
  • The Joker’s conflict with Batman reveals just how much death and destruction is left in their wake because Batman lets the Joker live. Much of Batman’s internal monologue in the third issue is devoted to him seriously examining whether upholding his no-kill rule is really worth it in regards to the Joker. Also, the operatic nature of their conflict is taken up to eleven with the Joker all but confirming he treats their “relationship” as a twisted kind of romance.
• Batman: White Knight
  • During their climactic fight, the Joker claims that Batman's vigilantism is less about justice and more about control, and adds that it's the Dark Knight's way of salvaging what's left of his soul. Another point brought up is the Disproportionate Retribution scenario of the event that cures the Joker. Joker was briefly returning to his days as an annoying prankster, merely skating around Gotham on a hoverboard and goading Batman into chasing him. Batman, with his military-grade vehicles and determination to capture Joker before he does any harm, causes more damage than the Joker is. And once Batman gets his hands on him, the beatdown is as violent as ever, if not more. Again, all the Joker did in the story thus far was screw around being a nuisance. Batman's response to this gives Gotham a wake-up call and everyone begins questioning the Dark Knight's behavior and the GCPD's aloofness towards it.
  • The series as a whole eschews the franchise's typical conceit that mental illness is in some cases untreatable and makes you a criminal mastermind, impossible to predict, or "super-sane"; instead, Joker's worsening state is shown as a slow downward spiral culminating in a desperate cry for help, and Jack publicly alleges that Arkham Asylum was a derelict piece of property renovated by the rich "gatekeepers" as a place to treat the mentally ill as prisoners rather than patients.
  • The massive amount of wealthy families still living in Gotham despite the city being overrun with crime and poverty is shown to be a real-estate scam; rich developers like Pierce Chapman buy up marked-down properties from the city in areas where Batman fights crime, then quickly flip them for profit rather than demolish them and construct something new. Pierce also mentions being an investor in Arkham Asylum, bringing the problem full circle.
  • The Draco in Leather Pants view on Harley Quinn is given one by splitting her into two different women, one seemingly based on the controversial New 52 Harley and the other the original Batman TAS Harley. Due to her abusive relationship with the Joker, it's oft forgotten that Harley was capable of some very despicable things such as being complicit in torturing a child and driving him insane. Murphy distills all of Harley's negative traits, most of which were present in the original animated series where she debuted, into the New 52 Harley, which seems to leave the person labeled as the "original Harley Quinn" with the positive traits of Harley's occasional longing for a normal domestic life and the repressed psychiatrist personality that she abandoned to get Joker's attention—but flashbacks suggest she had more of her classic traits prior to her reforming pre-story. Ultimately, in the final confrontation between the two, New 52 Harley accuses Harleen of hating her because she's ashamed of what she used to be, a villain in love with a serial killer.
  • Darker and Edgier is taken to town by this series, with multiple characters noting that even though things have gotten darker and more serious over Batman's career, they certainly haven't gotten better for anyone in Gotham. The escalating crime in Gotham means that Batman is being pushed to take more and more drastic measures, to the point where he beats his enemies half to death and they still come back for more. As well, the series attacks the idea that something being darker necessarily means it's more mature, as Batman's manchild tendencies and psychological profile are given a thorough examination. Ultimately the slide from goofy crimefighting antics to taking out deranged supercriminals has done nothing to help Gotham or Bruce's psyche, and it takes Jack regaining his sanity and promising to use the legal system against GCPD for things to get any better. The point of this seems to be that the Batman mythos shouldn't abandon its sillier side for darker stories, lest they become too gritty and self-serious. After all, this is a series about a man dressed like a bat fighting super criminals. Adding to this is the Seven Batmobile Squad, which hints that this universe originally had more elements from Batman's earlier, goofier Golden Age comic stories.
• Batman: Curse of the White Knight: Bruce admits to Harley in Issue #7 that being a one-man army of a vigilante is not as awesome or glamourous as comic books typically make it out to be and that being Batman has all but ruined his chances of having a normal life.
  Bruce: I spend each night on patrol. I spend each day reading crime reports, repairing vehicles, and cleaning the blood off my boots. There's no time to heal and no time to rest because shutting my eyes means letting people die. Batman's completely taken over my life— I can't even shake someone's hand without imagining three different ways of breaking their elbow. I don't know how to be Bruce Wayne anymore— I don't even really know who he is.
• Whatever Happened to The Caped Crusader?: "The Gentleman's Gentleman's Tale" segment deconstructs the entire premise of Batman, especially Batman (1966) by showing the weaknesses and mixed success of if someone really became a night-stalking vigilante to avenge their parents' death, and then deconstructs Batman's Rogues Gallery by calling attention to their theatricality and obsession with Batman, then explaining that they were all actors hired by Alfred to give Bruce someone to fight, so he would feel fulfilled.

Films

Animated Films

• Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker gives the Joker an opportunity to deconstruct Batman in a flashback where he tortures Robin until he learns all of Batman's secrets:
  "I must admit, it's sadly anti-climatic. Behind all the sturm and Batarangs, you're just a little boy in a playsuit, crying for Mommy and Daddy! It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic. ...Oh what the heck, I'll laugh anyway!"
  • Joker himself then gets deconstructed to devastating effect by Terry McGinnis, the second Batman, who calls the Joker out for being nothing more than a pathetic idiot who could never overcome his childish fixation with the original Batman and for not even being that funny. Joker does not take this well at all.
  • It also deconstructs the consequences of being a child sidekick; as the torture scene depicts what happens when they are caught as well, the consequences of which are extremely painful.
  • Locked Out of the Loop also gets painfully deconstructed, when Terry quits out of frustration when Bruce not only forces him to hand over the suit but refuses to disclose any details about his last encounter with Joker. The result? Dana gets hospitalized in an attack, and Bruce ends up being given a surprise visit by his old foe, resulting in him being nearly killed in a manner not too similar to Terry's father. All of this eventually forces Barbara to tell Terry the truth, as he's part of it all, like it or not.
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
  • When Chuckie Sol's car crashes from a pretty good drop, Sol is killed on impact, especially given that his windshield was broken and he went through a concrete barrier, unlike most cartoons where car crashes occur all the time and everyone escapes uninjured.
  • In stark contrast to most cartoons, when Batman takes a blow that leaves him bleeding and disoriented, he is still suffering from it later in the movie, and he is forced to spend a night off to heal from it correctly.
• The LEGO Batman Movie: The film, while also serving as an Affectionate Parody to the entire Batman mythos, picks apart just how really miserable Batman truly is. Having forcibly shut himself away from those closest to him just to avoid the pain of losing someone again as he did with his parents, it's taken a pretty hard toll on his psyche, to the point that he's become too reliant on the identity of Batman. Yes, he's a very egotistical version who can dish out a Curb-Stomp Battle to his entire rogues gallery, he's insanely rich, he's got a massive mansion and Batcave, and he has enough gadgets, vehicles, and suits to last him a lifetime, but all of it hides the fact that's he really broken on the inside, and is too afraid to let anyone else into his life. Fortunately, unlike the DCAU version, he's able to let go of his fear and allow others into his life, bringing him a sense of happiness he's long lacked.

Live Action Films

• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Similar to what Lois did in Man of Steel, Lex Luthor is smart enough to follow the chain of clues to figure out Superman was Clark Kent long ago. The smartest man in the world is NOT fooled by Clark Kenting. Neither was he fooled by Bruce Wayne being an Upper-Class Twit.
  • Batman gets this in regards to how much torment a normal person can handle. After 20 years of crimefighting with no sabbatical, an ever-increasing crime wave, and a dead sidekick, Batman has come a long way from the younger and idealistic vigilante audiences are used to.
  • The concept of the superhero vs. superhero fight gets examined and deconstructed as well, showing how it would theoretically happen in reality rather than glorifying it. it's ugly and brutal, and it's made clear neither participant is enjoying having to battle the other, Batman deems it necessary (even if for misguided reasons) to kill Superman before he gets the chance to snap and kill the entirety of humanity, while Superman comes to apologize for his own misdeeds and arrogance in their costumed first face-to-face meeting, as well as ask Batman for help in saving his mother.
• Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy plays out very much like a deconstruction of Batman/Bruce Wayne. The tragedy that started Christian Bale Bruce Wayne / Batman journey, learning the ropes, confronting evil beyond his understanding, losing the woman he loved who ironically didn't love him back, and then spending 8 years morbidly mourning her due to not knowing the truth of her feelings, the physical damage done to his body and the consequences of not taking care of himself during 8 years of exiled depression, etc. Basically: taking apart the romanticism of Batman by showing just how screwed up (though well-meaning) a person Bruce Wayne would actually be. Fortunately Nolan's Bruce eventually lets go of his pain and moves on with his life, unlike his comic book and DCAU counterparts.
  • In a time when the comics have made the supposedly human Batman, actually superhuman (for example, in the Batgirl comics where Stephanie Brown was the Batgirl, it was stated that Batman only needed 1-2 hours of sleep), the Dark Knight trilogy brought him back to normal. When he tried to fight a handful of panicked people in the first movie, he got mobbed and beaten up despite his armor. As well he's a Jack of All Trades and an expert fighter, rather than being a Master of All, (for example, he couldn't understand the Joker - something that any trained psychologist could do, even Alfred and the beat cop in the interrogation room knew what the clown was about and instead of building his high-tech equipment from scratch, he just pocketed overly-expensive Wayne Enterprise prototypes).
  • The Dark Knight deconstructs The Joker himself, after all the anti-heroic and idealized traits he'd acquired by fans. His previous versions in movies and TV shows, while still depraved, were particularly cartoonish, laughable, over-the-top, and bombastic. Contrasting this, Heath Ledger's Joker is much darker, macabre, possesses real weapons rather than laughing gas, and his general character is grittier and more mundane.
    • He still has a sense of humor, but he loses most of the tools and behavior that made him the audience's collective image of the Joker. Take away the fantastical laughing gas, acid posies, or the general fourth-wall eccentricities that people know him for, and you are left with his psychopathic nature that will use more mundane and unpleasant methods to achieve results. Like making pencils disappear and giving people Glasgow grins. This even applies to his Monster Clown appearance, itself a means for fear: instead of bleached-white skin and a Frozen Face, he applies "war paint"-like makeup over his own Glasgow Grin scars.
    • In fact, this Joker is very similar to how he was in his original appearance in Batman #1: darker humor, a terrorist by announcing his moves in advance, crimes that made little sense at all except that he liked committing them, etc. The Joker has come full circle.
  • The Dark Knight Rises deconstructs Bane. Much like The Joker, Tom Hardy’s Bane character was altered to make him more realistic and mundane than his previous counterparts were. Bane is every bit as formidable a fighter as in the comics, but his ostentatious luchador mask has been discarded in favor of an intimidating-looking breathing apparatus. Also, this is one of the first times he's shown his Genius Bruiser nature in an adaptation. Previous adaptations either had his intelligence as an Informed Ability, or just portrayed him as a dumb brute.
• Justice League: The film emphasizes how, despite his genius and reputation, Batman is still a human being among living demigods. While the usual comic version would easily dispatch several Parademons with well-placed explosive batarangs, this Batman is having trouble with a single mook while the other League members easily defeat multiple threats. The revived Superman even questions Batman's capability to deal with a threat like Steppenwolf compared to himself. There's also a scene where Bruce admits to Diana that he's barely able to physically keep up with what's happening. By the time of the climax, Batman believes the only thing he can do is to sacrifice himself so the more powerful heroes can save the world. Do keep in mind that this Bruce Wayne has canonically been Batman for over twenty years, and his age is catching up to him.
  • This also makes it plausible that Batman's villains, who unlike Steppenwolf are mostly just ordinary criminals with colorful gimmicks, could give him a challenge in any future movies.
    • This is averted in Zack Snyder's Justice League, which instead acts as a Reconstruction of Batman by showing him regaining his faith and hope in humanity, and showcasing himself as being capable of fighting against deadlier threats on his own terms, while still being capable of aiding his more powerful allies in different ways. But then it gets Played Straight in the Nightmare Sequence, which shows that Batman's code of honor does him no good After the End, as he outright threatens to kill the Joker the moment their alliance is over.
• Joker (2019) deconstructs The Joker himself. Not only does the film totally de-glamorize the entire idea behind The Joker, the case of many expies of the character, and all the invoked coolness, toughness, badassery, lethality and smartness that his previous counterpart was best known for, it make him look vulnerable, mentally ill, awkward, pitiable, and absolutely pathetic. Arthur Fleck is not an ultra-intelligent criminal mastermind who regularly terrorizes Gotham with outlandishly destructive schemes (at least, not yet). He becomes a serial killer over the course of the story, but he's nowhere near the super-terrorist the comics make him out to be. This makes sense as Arthur lives in Perpetual Poverty, and has No Social Skills; he could never gather the resources nor the manpower to deliberately corral people over to his side and enact violence upon the populace. The only reason he's as much of a "threat" as he is is that people impose and project their own fears and/or needs upon him—everyone assumes that the three Wayne employees were murdered to make a political statement, and are quite surprised when Arthur explains he killed them "because they were awful" - and though he did, the in-universe populace thinks he's just doing it for shits and giggles when he had very good reason to do so. His seemingly random murders of people close to him are the result of slights (perceived or otherwise), not because he feels like it. All these attributes make him the most realistic version of the character ever filmed, eventually showing that, by the end of the day, someone would have to go through hell to become as twisted as The Joker. The movie shows how miserable and sad someone's life would have to be to turn into the Joker. Likewise in contrast to the usual versions of The Joker, Arthur's rampage isn't any elaborate criminal scheme or plan but more akin to a real-life shooter tragedy. It's to the point where neuro criminologist Adrian Raine, who studied the psychology of violent criminals for over 40 years, was floored by how realistic Arthur's transformation into a violent sociopath is depicted.
• The Batman: By virtue of taking place in a universe that is a lot more grounded, The Batman examines a lot of traditional Caped Crusader tropes with more scrutiny than usual.
  • Batman's Terror Hero aspect causes him a lot of problems in this film. First, while Bruce's dedication to being a vigilante is admirable, the way he goes about it is not healthy. This is par for the course for most Batman works, but here, Bruce has none of the suave sophistication and healthiness he has in other adaptations- he's haggard, scarred, and looks on the brink of death near constantly. Second, Bruce really is just one man. While people are terrified of the Batman, Bruce has to work night and day to keep the legend of Batman alive, and people are beginning to realize his limitations. Lastly, the movie pokes holes in the idea that only Bruce would desire a way to fix Gotham's crime problems. In reality, the Riddler has also realized the city is corrupt and is working on cleaning up crime in his own way. As a matter of fact, he actually believes that he and the Batman are on the same side and is confused and hurt when Batman calls him a psychopath. In the end, Nashton ends up doing the exact same thing as Bruce, with the only difference being that Nashton kills people. Both were betrayed by the city, both are lashing out in violence, both use public appearances and extreme violence to cultivate a legend of fear, and both are willing to push themselves to the brink to achieve vengeance. By the end of the film, Bruce decides to focus less on terrorizing criminals and more on lifting up Gotham's downtrodden, realizing that he's going down the same dark road as Nashton.
  • Previous Batman works have the villains express their insanity in traditional, troperrific ways. The Joker is a walking example of Insane Equals Violent, while other villains like Two-Face or Scarecrow have exaggerated mental illnesses (i.e. schizophrenia and sadistic personality disorder) as their "gimmicks". In this film, those who suffer from mental illnesses are treated a lot more realistically. In particular, the Riddler's traditional narcissism is turned up to eleven by transforming him into a vigilante. Instead of lording over others with his intelligence and making comical schemes, Nashton becomes completely obsessed with his war on crime to the point of being unable to understand or care about the damage he's causing. The Riddler only ends up losing because his ego causes him to be unable to see the obvious connections between Bruce and the Batman, too convinced by Bruce's supposed arrogance.
  • Other Batman works paint Bruce as someone rising up to stop the cities' descent into criminality, but here he's painted more like a symptom of it- yet another wounded boy lashing out at the people who wronged him. This makes Bruce a lot more pathetic and unlikable compared to other interpretations of the character, as his war on crime is called out several times as being selfish. His character arc has Bruce realizing that he needs to be truly different in order to make a difference in Gotham, and thus commits to becoming a Hope Bringer instead of someone who wants to hurt others. This is especially strong since the film ends with Riddler's plan going off and reducing Gotham City to a flooded wasteland, so beating down crime instead of helping people in their Darkest Hour would be a truly horrible thing to do.
  • The film also takes the "Batman is Bruce Wayne's true self" interpretation to its logical conclusion. Being Batman has consumed Bruce's life to the point that there's no distinction between Bruce Wayne and Batman at all: Bruce is Batman both in and out of costume, so much so that he retains his Batman mannerisms when presenting as Bruce Wayne. We later see that Bruce is actively neglecting his civilian life and family legacy in favor of his vigilante activities, viewing The Batman as his family's true legacy. This neglect has extended to his family's finances too, as the lack of oversight on his part is what allowed the Renewal fund to be looted by mobsters and corrupt officials after his father's death.

Video Game

• Batman: Arkham Series: Due to being a kind of amalgamation of a lot of different Batman universes, the Arkham franchise really takes a look at some of the problems of the Batman mythos. The series takes a good look at a lot of the Batman's mental problems (trust issues, guilt over his parents, unwillingness to work together with others unless it's mandatory, pride and arrogance, and obsession with crimefighting), series tropes like Joker Immunity, ideas like the relationship between Batman and his rogues gallery and, in the end, if all this destruction and suffering really is doing any good for Gotham.
  • Batman: Arkham Knight
    • The final Joker hallucination takes apart Video Game Cruelty Potential; first, you have a Jokerized Batmobile that fires live rounds and missiles galore, which feels like Catharsis Factor after the "non-lethal" Batmobile you play in the entire game. But then, you play as Joker in First Person Mode with a shotgun and kill defenseless people lying on the ground while Joker mocks their deaths with pithy comments — not all that different from regular FPS games with wise-cracking main characters who toss off one-liners as they murder people in thousands, only here it's shown to have no point beyond pure sadism or self-preservation. As well, it's only really funny to the Joker, as the horrified screams of his victims prevent any satisfaction to be had. The Batman statues spawning endlessly at the corner of your vision also drives home how repetitive this form of gameplay is, with the same enemies appearing in endless waves, existing only to be shot at.
    • The game takes several aspects of Batman to their logical conclusion. Batman's refusal to kill or allow people to die results in the Arkham City inmates suing Gotham in the wake of Protocol 10. We're never given any exact amounts, but a cop early states that "Protocol 10 wiped this city clean" and a thug actually hopes the city tries to kill them again so he can pay off his mortgage. The fireman sub-mission references layoffs as the result of budget cuts, likely because of the lawsuit. The Arkham Knight and Scarecrow want revenge on Batman, which is related to his letting Joker live: Scarecrow was mauled by Killer Croc during Joker's takeover of Arkham Asylum and the Arkham Knight was tortured by the Joker. Also, a large part of the plot also stems from the fallout of Joker's tainted blood plot in Arkham City.
    • Batman's Secret-Identity Identity and his inability to resolve his Bruce Wayne and Batman persona finally leads him to lose both of them when Scarecrow forces him to reveal his identity to the world. His conflicting feelings about wanting to work alone and not being able to trust his partners ultimately causes a wedge between them, and actually compromises their safety. In the end, Batman cuts off all remaining ties to his former life and goes underground, the logical end for someone with his guilt and trust issues.
    • The game also takes apart Batman and Joker, and their impact on Gotham, as well as arguably the impact of any one person's legacy. Joker is dead but the hallucination of him does not take this very well and wants to possess Batman. He does but at the worst possible time as Scarecrow then injects him with fear toxin and shows him that no matter how many people Joker killed or how much chaos he caused, inevitably he will be forgotten and people move on. Despite Joker's Straw Nihilist Large Ham tendencies, Joker does not take this well. As for Batman, shortly after, he is forced to (seemingly) kill himself to protect those he loves when his Secret Identity is revealed and in the Golden Ending, it is shown that the city has moved on without Batman as well (though it seems like someone or something might be a new Batman in the ending).
• Batman: The Telltale Series: This version of Alfred can't numb himself to the horrors that Gotham's criminals cause almost daily, and it's causing him extreme amounts of stress.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series
  • "Joker's Favor" looks at Gotham through the eyes of average Joe. Charlie Collins isn't a trained superhero, police officer, or a martial artist, and so when he enters the Joker's sights, he doesn't have some fun adventure but is functionally being hunted down for sport by a deranged killer. Charlie is forced to flee Gotham for his safety, and when that doesn't work, he's forced to tough up and deal with the Joker himself... after which he immediately goes back to his mundane life.
  • Episode "Over the Edge" essentially shows why the Batman-Gordon relationship is so essential. If Batman got in his bad books, Gordon can shut down his operation within a week, seizing his assets, declaring him an outlaw and stripping him of any purpose and mission as a Vigilante superhero. It's all but implied in the end, that if Gordon is ignorant of Batman's identity it's more out of Plausible Deniability because he doesn't want to look deeper, or that he knows but doesn't want to upset the equation.
• Batman Beyond: The show illustrates the toll being Batman has taken on Bruce's personal life. Because Bruce's dedication to fighting crime meant virtually forsaking his personal life, by the time he reaches old age he has become a bitter and lonely old man. All of his friends and allies are either dead or resent him so much that they want nothing to do with him, and none of his romantic prospects resulted in anything lasting. Before Terry came along, his only source of companionship was a dog. Bruce's actions may have served a greater good, but this shows that being Batman does come at a price.
  • The episode "Heroes" presented the Terrific Trio, three scientists empowered by a Freak Lab Accident. Their transformations made it impossible for any of them to live normal lives — worse, it turned out that their conditions were slowly killing them. One or both of these factors drove them insane to the point where Batman had to stop them from destroying the city.
• Beware the Batman: The writers have stated they wanted to provide a look at the physical discipline that would be required by Bruce Wayne if he were a real person. It has been mentioned that he eats an all-liquid diet and struggles to find techniques to minimize the amount of time he spends sleeping.
• Harley Quinn (2019): The show essentially picks apart the idea of what it means to be a villain in the DC Universe. Here, villainy is treated like a career, and every bad guy from Lex Luthor to Bane is trying to carve out their own little niche. Harley Quinn, having struck out on her own, is forced to make her own niche, which proves to come with its own set of challenges seeing as she's seen as little more than a sidekick to the Joker.
  • The series also Deconstructs the concept of the No-Respect Guy by showing that being considered small fry in the villain community really sucks. Villains who are just looking to make a dishonest day's work can barely get by, have to put up with being treated like henchman by other villains who are far craftier and more cunning, and they eventually get fed up with being treated as little more than disposable idiots. All of Harley's gang gets no respect in the Legion of Doom, Bane is eventually mistreated rather horribly in the Injustice Gang to the point that he goes ballistic on Batman and nearly does Two-Face in, and Dr. Psycho feels that Harley isn't going far enough to being a real villain and joins with Darkseid to get the respect he feels he deserves. And keep in mind, this all started because he gets kicked out of the Legion of Doom for calling Wonder Woman a...well, a word that even Darkseid wouldn't use.
  • Additionally, all that physical and emotional abuse that the Joker inflicted on Harley really screwed her up big time. While she seems well adjusted to her fellow foes, she's too traumatized to really understand the harm her actions are causing her friends and allies, resulting in her crew disbanding for a time and Ivy refusing a relationship with her (at least at first) because she's too unpredictable and unstable to prove herself trustworthy. In truth, she's not doing this on purpose, since she really is a good person deep down (or at least as good as being a supervillain gets); it's just that she can't really understand the harm she's doing since being Joker's punching bag has made her Innocently Insensitive without her realizing it. Part of the show's plot is Harley learning to realize the mistakes she's making and work to become a better person.
  • In The Season 3 episode "Batman Begins Forever", Harley and the gang travel into Bruce's mind to get Frank's location out of him. Bruce's mental world, however, is just him reliving the night his parents were killed. Over and over again. With an adult Bruce who represents his guilt complex playing the part of Joe Chill. Bruce explains that he blames himself for his parents' deaths because he was the one that convinced them to go out to a movie and walk home through Crime Alley. He feels so guilty over believing that he put his parents in a position to die that he chooses to torture himself by replaying that night again and again in his head because he hates himself that much and thinks he deserves it. And he's become so desperate to see his parents again that once he realized Frank can revive dead plants, he modified the ability in an attempt to bring them back to life. Bruce is perfectly willing to start a potential Zombie Apocalypse if it means escaping his pain. In other words, this episode deconstructs one of the most important concepts of Batman, if not the most important. Bruce has always believed that avoiding becoming like the villains he fights means never stooping to their level and refusing to take lives. But not all villains are simply in it For the Evulz like the Joker. Many of them have awful pasts just as bad or even worse than Bruce's; they have unresolved trauma just like him, and it was this trauma corrupting them from the inside out and manifesting in the worst way that drove them to criminal acts. Now that time has come for Bruce— he's been in the same boat as the villains all along, even before he became Batman, and he doesn't even realize it.