Bruce Wayne for Fictional Characters

I really like Batman. Like most comic book characters, his morality, the various aspects of his personality, and where he's at in his multitude of story arcs, are susceptible to change depending on who's writing him. So, to speak of Batman/Bruce Wayne as a favorite character requires a certain way of looking at him. I present to you, in concept alone, the Batman pie. It's got an Oreo cookie crust and a dark chocolate fudge-y filling layered with a rich ganache, but there's a dollop of fresh whipped cream on top with some curled chocolate shavings that lighten the whole thing so you don't just overdose on chocolate. The slice of Bruceman Batwayne Bruce Wayne's character pie I enjoy the most is the one with the most whipped cream on it, so I can get a taste of that delicate sweetness in with each gooey chocolate bite. For Batman in-story, that whipped cream can be seen as his sidekicks.

Yes, that's right - I love me some BatFamily. The string of scrappy orphans Bruce Wayne takes under his wing in hopes of educating, protecting, and guiding in the ways of fighting crime is a decently lengthy one. Not that it's a competition that anyone's trying to win, but Bruce is definitely Winning At Mentees. Robin is more of a title than a person, being borne first by Dick Grayson, then Jason Todd, followed by Tim Drake... In there's Stephanie Brown, honorable mention to Carrie Kelley... Damian Wayne... And then Stephanie goes on to be Batgirl, but that's after Barbara Gordon's moved on from Batgirl to being Oracle. For those of you who were unfamiliar until this moment, Batman has a terrible habit of collecting children and making them part of his crime-fighting family, with poor butler Alfred Pennyworth as the ever-tolerant uncle of sorts. It's to the point where looking back along the Batman archives, Bruce Wayne has a bit of a problem.

Stop Bruce From Adopting Kids 2k16. Never Stop Bruce From Adopting Kids 2k16.

I think this is my favorite aspect of Batman for primarily two reasons:

1) This is Nice Guy!Bruce. Popular media (see: the Christopher Nolan movies) likes to portray this rough, gravely and grizzled side of Batman. He's dark! He's tortured! Everyone he loves, dies! Drink in the man-pain, we have it in bucketloads!!! I hate this aspect of Batman. He's tortured and dark, and he can be haunted by his past, but that does not a character make. I don my writer hat for this, but what makes Bruce Wayne/Batman an interesting character is what he does in SPITE of his grimdark history. One of these things is adopting and making a family of orphans. They have a family with him, and he in turn finds a family for himself with them (c'mon, you can't get more poetic than that). It's freakin' precious. It's the whipped cream.

2) I catch myself doing the very same thing to fictional characters in popular media around me, and therefore respect it in a wealthy millionaire in a onesie who can't stop building his army of small children. Wow that sounds awful when worded that way OH WELL! Characters who get hated on for not meeting the standards of tough or bad-ass, characters who have shown weakness or been taken advantage of by those in positions of power - these are the characters I want to collect into my arms protectively. These children done wrong by their writers or by their audiences are mine now. You ungrateful tasteless fools, you didn't accept these characters in their weakest moments, so you don't deserve them when they're at their best! They're my kids, and I will teach them the ways of vigilante justice and you don't get to see them kick all the bad guys' butts after all of their hard-earned character development. Never speak to me and my many fictional children again.

Maybe the second reason has a little bit more to it? Well I guess that's the topic of tomorrow's entry. I'm sure many of you are familiar with my sweet child Sansa Stark...