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Batman Compassion by Frank Miller

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This is a collage tribute to Frank Miller's All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder (awesomely atmospherically illustrated by Jim Lee) featuring Batman's compassion, and a rebuttal to ignorant accusations that Batman is a heartless psychopath. Batman compassionately drives Robin Dick Grayson to find his parents grave in remembrance.  Batman prays for a second chance with Robin. A fresh start. We see Batman’s remorse and compassionate side as Batman comes to realize that his weeks of teaching and training of Dick Grayson to become Robin was rushed and flawed, not perfect. He's not a Batgod. 

Frank Miller's editor and friend Bob Schreck explained in the introduction to All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder in 2008 that All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder is "a revitalized, modernized reexamination of the core beginnings of the relationship between two American icons: Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder. Herein, writer Frank Miller brings us the opening salvo in a frenetic prequel to his revolutionary 1986 blockbuster, The Dark Knight Returns, a book that had an enormous impact on both the comics industry and the world at large. All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder stands as a 'Batman: Year One-and-a-Half' tale wherein we witness a reckless, young, untried seeker of justice finding his path on the outskirts of the law - a path made more difficult in the crime-ridden cesspool known as Gotham City." 

Frank Miller explained in 2005, "He explains it to Alfred in the story, saying, 'I’m a young man, but I won’t always be young, and the mission has to continue.' Robin is his apprentice. He’s training his replacement. That’s the life he intends for Robin. Well, he didn’t want to get Dick Grayson at this age. It was the murder of his parents that forced his hand. Bruce was going to wait, as he puts it, 'Until the kid was old enough to shave.'" (Those explains to Alfred are probably in the scripts Miller wrote for the Dark Knight: Boy Wonder issues).

NRAMA: So Bruce wasn’t going out, shopping for a 12 year-old?

Frank Miller: "No, but he’d been watching Dick Grayson because he was the most talented kid he’d seen yet. He was planning on taking him under his wing in maybe another six years, but instead, he has to do it when the kid is still too young for the job. 
I always loved the 'Boy Wonder' line, before he was turned into the Teen Wonder, and almost a 'Grim Robin.' But I just love the idea of a young Robin. That’s why I created Carrie Kelley in Dark Knight - I just loved the contrast between this stocky, tough, dark adult, and a colorful little pixie running around. Also – if you’re older than 12, are you going to come up wit that costume?"

NRAMA: So Robin chose the outfit?

FM: "Do you think Bruce would?"

NRAMA: Now that you mention it, not really.

FM: "Robin creates 'Robin', essentially. Bruce hadn’t thought this thing through enough, given that he was somewhat “forced” to take Robin in before he – both Bruce, and Dick – were ready. Bruce is clearly winging it. This is a young Batman who’s trying to figure out what he’s doing. He’s got all the cool toys – he’s got the Batmobile, and is building the cave, but he’s this bachelor. He can solve any murder you want him to, disguise himself as anyone in the world, but handling a kid? That’s kind of outside his purview – somewhere outside of what he trained himself for. So he’s struggling with the whole thing." archive.today/IWNWf#selection-…

Batman as like an army drill Sargent "warring on crime" and Robin as like his "lieutenant soldier"? That's nothing new. In creator Bill Finger's text says Batman made an oath "And I swear by the spirits of my parents to avenge their deaths by spending the rest of my life warring on all criminals" in Detective Comics #33 (1939) and Batman #1 (1940). Bill Finger's text says "The Batman and his right hand lieutenant--Robin, The Boy Wonder" in Batman #6 (1940) "The Secret of the Iron Jungle." 

As Peter Sanderson explained, Batman's initial treatment of Dick Grayson was "Batman's version of acting like the stereotypical drill sergeant training new recruits, or the sensei in martial arts stories who initially seems out to humiliate his new pupils. The idea is to break the trainee's old sense of self so that a new self can be molded. 
It reminds me of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta, in which the masked vigilante V, who is himself a variation on the same archetype as Batman, has chosen the young woman Evie to be his apprentice and eventual successor. He therefore forces her to undergo a recreation of the circumstances of his own origin: not knowing that her captor is V, Evie is imprisoned, has her head shaved, and experiences psychological torture. At the end of her ordeal, she is symbolically "reborn" as V was on his escape from prison: the visual image of that rebirth for each of them is standing nude amidst the rain, as if being baptized. Then she begins her training in earnest that leads her to become the second V. The traumatic experience that led to Bruce Wayne becoming the Batman was witnessing the murder of his parents when he was a child. Now Dick Grayson has watched his parents get killed as well. History has repeated itself. Presumably Batman recognizes that this makes Dick Grayson an even more appropriate choice to be his apprentice, to follow in his path, and to become his eventual successor, a second Batman. Surely Batman identifies and empathizes with Dick Grayson, newly orphaned the way he himself had been." archive.today/IWNWf#selection-…


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