Warning! Contains Spoilers For Batman: Brave and the Bold #6!
Batman is known for cultivating an aura of mystery, and building a mythos around himself, in order to intimidate the criminal class of Gotham – this, and a general aversion to attention, lead him to shun the spotlight, something other characters, such as Spider-Man, are more willing to embrace. Batman actively goes out of his way to avoid having his image captured, which is very different from Spider-Man.
During the events of the story “Batman: Pygmalion,” from Batman: The Brave and the Bold #6 – by Guillem March and Arif Prianto – Batman has lost his memory, and is slowly relearning how to be Batman with the help of a young girl, who is a Batman superfan.
This girl, named Aurora, is teaching Bruce everything she knows about Batman, and one of the biggest lessons she has to teach him comes after he saves an old woman in a public area. One of the biggest parts of being Batman, according to Aurora, is to not be seen, no matter what. In her words, Bruce should avoid being the “friendly neighborhood Batman.”Related: Spider-Man vs. Batman Action Figure Animation Is Smash Brothers Come to Life
Batman Is Not Meant To Operate Like Spider-Man
Batman does absolutely everything he can to use stealth to avoid revealing himself to the public at large. Batman is at his best when he is a shadowy urban myth; it is a lot harder to be scared of something if it can be viewed online easily. Batman wants criminals to be unsure if he’s right around the corner, and that illusion is harder to maintain if criminals are certain Batman is just a man. On the other side of the coin, characters like Superman and Spider-Man thrive in the light, with half of Spider-Man’s identity literally revolving around putting pictures of himself in the newspaper.
Characters like Spider-Man and Superman do this because they have great strength, and don’t want to be feared by the average person, but this has its downsides. Spider-Man has often been viewed as a public menace, and has done absolutely everything he can to break the image, by plastering himself saving people as much as he can all over the internet, as well the Daily Bugle newspaper. But the downside to this, as Ben Urich has stated, is criminals don’t fear Spider-Man. They don’t see him as scary, or even really a threat; similarly, Superman has struggled with the Boy Scout moniker.
Batman And Spider-Man Approach Crime Very Differently
It is because Batman sticks to the shadows that he is able to terrify criminals much more effectively than Spider-Man. Every time a criminal goes out at night in Gotham, he can’t be one-hundred-percent certain that Batman isn’t in the nearest shadows, waiting to take him out and deliver him to the police gift-wrapped. This is partly because of Batman’s careful attempt at making sure no one has really seen him, or can be certain he’s just a man in a costume. This is why, unlike Spider-Man, Batman can’t afford to be seen as a friendly figure in the neighborhood.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #6 is on sale now from DC Comics!
