World's Finest

Indiana Drones: I want to talk to you about Bruce.

Superman: You mean Batman?

ID: I suppose you probably know other Bruce's, don't you, yes, Bruce Wayne, the Batman. You seem to have a lot of respect for him, and at the same time, you often compare him to Lex Luthor, who a lot of people have compared to Saddam Hussein.

S: That's true, but I think that comparison is usually because Bruce is entirely different from Lex. He's an example of how it could be with Lex-

ID: But the sort of reverse of that is that Lex is how Bruce could have turned out if things had been different.

S: I don't think so; Bruce would tell you that his life was shaped by tragedy, that he's much more a product of his childhood than a creature of willpower, but I think that's just one of the many masks Bruce likes to wear. He doesn't... like acknowledging who he really is. That's why Bruce Wayne is a foppish caricature- because Bruce is afraid of being discovered.

ID: So you're saying it had nothing to do with hiding his identity?

S: I don't think it was a very effective way of hiding his identity, no. I mean, the easiest way to hide his identity would be to use commercially available weapons in his arsenal. He once let slip that his annual batarang budget usually averaged $200,000 dollars. Of course, that's not counting the Chinese smugglers he paid to bring him the supplies from the Russian arms dealers who smithed them. If he'd just used guns, or, in keeping with his creed, stun guns, he could have kept his costs within at least the realm of believability for a normal citizen. As a mask it was completely ineffectual- and Bruce is anything but ineffectual.

The one, defining characteristic of Bruce's is willpower. Most people, if they lost their parents like that, they'd drown themselves in pills or booze or whatever other things their vast riches could buy them. The rest would have buried themselves in friends and psychologists, and cried it out until they found a way to move past it.

Bruce was past it immediately. And like most people faced with horror, he grit his teeth and said “Never again.” But unlike most people, he's spent his entire life doing everything he can to live up to that. I'm sure he could quote chapter and verse the litany of times he's failed- and if you took him at his word, and counted, you might be as heartbroken as he is, but I'm not. I'm heartened by that. Because Bruce knows the name of everyone he's ever failed, and he knows how. He cares that damn much. There are times when I find myself sitting at home in bed, ready for rest, warm and comfortable in my bed, with Lois curled around me, and I'll hear a scream, and hesitate. But in that moment's hesitation (which for me takes a fraction of a second), I ask myself what Bruce would do, and getting out of bed's a little easier.

ID: So respect is

S: Putting it lightly, yeah. Bruce is my yardstick in a lot of things.

ID: Like?

S: Bruce is really the bravest man I know. It doesn’t take anything exceptional to be a good person when you’re raised in a safe, loving environment; it doesn’t take courage for a bulletproof man to stand between innocent people and a gun. But there is nothing I would do to protect innocent people Bruce would hesitate from doing- many of which I would survive while he would not. That’s why I say that.

ID: Okay, well given your mutual affection, why do you think

S: Affection is too strong. I think Bruce respects me. No, scratch that- I know he does. He doesn't want to admit it- and he certainly doesn't like that anyone close to him knows, but he does. Because Bruce likes to be in control. Because of his childhood, because of that massive and traumatic loss of control when his parents were murdered in front of him, he needs to be in control. And that's why Batman is who Batman is- because even though he's known most of us and worked with us for years, even though most of us are smart enough and responsible and capable enough to handle ourselves without his guiding hand, it's a fundamental part of Bruce's character.

And I think, especially, he feels that he has to be humanity's representative with the league. It's not something he aspired to; he's certainly tried to convince other “human” heroes to step forward and take that mantle, most notably Ollie, but at the end of the day he's always the one who brings us our human perspective, who keeps our day to day activities grounded in the same soil where most of the people who depend on us walk.

ID: Okay. But why didn't you and Bruce work together. Gotham is close enough he could probably fling a batarang into Metropolis from there.

S: There's a long and short answer to that. “I work alone.”

ID: That's a pretty good Batman.

S: Exceptional vocal muscle control.

ID: And the long answer?

S: Bruce wasn't ready for a partner yet- which, I suppose, could have been his meaning- though I doubt he'd admit anything so personal while in costume. But he wasn't ready for the tragedy of losing anyone else in his life- and not just to danger, he couldn't have handled getting close to someone and then having them move on to another relationship, another friendship, a job in another city or whatever. He was still extraordinarily fragile, because emotionally he'd never taken the time to process what happened to his parents. And because on some level Bruce understood that, he kept everyone at arm's length. Look at that time of his life- his only real friends and confidants were people he knew before his parents' murder- he didn't let new people in. He joined the League before he ever met Robin, but he was only ever there out of necessity; at the slightest breeze he was gone, mentally if not physically. But it was Robin, really, who helped him open up. I think it was seeing his own tragedy unfold in someone else's life, and realizing that he alone couldn't stop that history from repeating, I think that's what opened him up again to being a part of something larger than himself.

ID: I take it, then, that you asked him.

S: Yeah, of course I did. I was kind of a dumb kid from the sticks in Kansas- and Krypton- and he was- well, he was the Batman. I still felt self-conscious in my red and blue space police uniform, but he was cool- he was actually a little intimidating in that pointy-eared cowl.

ID: So were you at all disappointed to find out Batman was only human?

S: No- I was more impressed. Here was a guy who could do all kinds of amazing things that he had figured out for himself- or trained for a lifetime to do. There isn't a lot of video footage of the Batman in action, so there aren’t many opportunities to see it for yourself, but the closest thing I can think of is ballet. Watching him work, it's like a ballet- it's brutally, brutally violent- but at the same time, there's a visual beauty to it- it’s watching a master artisan practice an art honed over years of training. I’m just an alien who can shoot heat out his eyes; Bruce makes art with his hands and his mind. To quote Lois, I’m lucky she met me first- though I think she just says that to make me feel self-conscious.

We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.