Writer Grant Morrison’s seminal run on Batman draws attention to the idea that while anyone can take on the mantle of Batman, only Bruce Wayne could cope with the trauma and suffering inflicted on him.
In Batman #674 by Morrison and Tony Daniel, Batman remembers a time when the GCPD and the villain Dr. Hurt attempted to recreate Batman. Hurt turned three police officers into Batmen, psychologically torturing the three in order to simulate the trauma that he believed fueled Batman. However, as Bruce recalls, none of the officers could match him. Despite their extensive training, Bruce notes, “There was something they lacked, a missing edge.” Bruce’s experiences simply weren’t replicable. Similarly, in Batman #681-682, Morrison and Lee Garbett’s tie-in to Final Crisis, Darkseid’s minions attempt to weaponize a captured Bruce Wayne by cloning him to make soldiers driven by his trauma. However, these clones are driven insane by their inability to process the pain and grief that Bruce has gone through on his road to becoming Batman.
Bruce’s trauma and mind being impossible to replicate also parallels Morrison’s examination of the Joker during their run. In Batman #673, “Joe Chill in Hell,” Batman recounts the conclusion of Batman #156 by Bill Finger and Shelden Moldoff, in which a hallucination of Robin’s death is revealed to be an experiment in an isolation chamber. Morrison retcons this story so that Bruce’s real goal here is to attempt to simulate the Joker’s insanity via isolation, so that Bruce can better understand what makes the Joker’s mind tick. However, like the inability for others to process Bruce’s trauma, Bruce fails at understanding Joker’s mind, with Joker chiding him in Morrison and Daniels’ Batman #680 for even trying.
The theme of Brice Wayne’s singular resilience is also expressed through other characters’ doubts about his ability to cope with the stresses of being Batman. Both Tim Drake and Jezebel Jet question Bruce’s mental state in Morrison’s run, with good reason. Their run puts Bruce through the ringer.From his training in the Thogal Ritual to Dr. Hurt’s isolation experiments, all these trials are presented so that the reader also questions whether Bruce can really handle them. This comes to a head during Morrison and Daniels’ Batman RIP, in which Bruce’s mind is seemingly destroyed by Dr. Hurt, but he’s able to bounce back from even this, having predicted it could happen to him.
The key to Bruce’s unique resilience, his real superpower, is expressed in that arc’s issue 6#81, in which Bruce explains how he’s able to always keep going: “But that’s the thing. Batman thinks of Everything.” Bruce’s resilience isn’t supernatural, it’s because he’s always prepared for anything. This is what makes Bruce tick for Grant Morrison: anyone can be Batman, but no one’s more prepared for the challenges that come with it than Bruce Wayne.
