What makes Batman cool? A psychoanalysis of the man in black tights

He jumps around in black tights, sounds like he’s being choked by his mask and has ‘Bruce’ as a first name? How is it that Batman still manages to be cool?

Well, as the world’s most eminent, non-super superhero he certainly does come off looking pretty good in his latest movie The Dark Knight. Fighting the lowdown criminal scum that haunts Gotham’s streets, Batman can be described as nothing less than super-cool.

His arch enemy is the exact opposite. A psychotic, anti-social maniac devoid of every last trace of remorse, the joker is not the kinda guy you would want to invite to your birthday party. He does make for an interesting character though — completely repulsive and yet utterly compelling. We never find out the true source of his demented personality or his scarred smile, but we know it had to be something truly horrible to turn him into what he is today.

Could it be as horrible though as having to watch your own parents being killed in front of you? Well, there probably aren’t many things worse than that, and yet this is the very scar that drives Batman’s desire to do good in the world. All of his epic Bat endeavours are towards avenging his parent’s unjust death at the hands of common criminals and protecting others from the same terrible fate.

But besides being arch enemies, both Batman and the Joker have one thing in common – they are driven. Both characters are obsessive in their efforts to do what they do. The Joker’s feats of logistical brilliance are out-shadowed only by the vast complexity of what it takes to run a Bat empire.

You see, at the end of the day Batman and the Joker are really very much the same kinds of character – just different sides of Harvey Dents’ coin of fate. The difference between them though has nothing to do with fate.

The thing that separates Batman from his fiendish Joker foe is choice. The choices they both made a long time ago. The Joker chose to take his pain and suffering and randomly inflict it on as many other people as he could. Batman chose rather to try and save others from the very same pain and suffering he had endured.

He has some pretty hard core martial arts skills, a spacious Bat cave and a truly awesome car – but what makes Batman really cool is his conscience and his desire to do good in the chaotic, out of control world.

I rate him top of the list for superhero role models our children should be learning from.