Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)

Batman definitely considers himself--the real him--to be Batman, primarily. He grudgingly accepts that Bruce Wayne is also a part of who he is, but he still identifies with Batman much more than Bruce. AS good example of this is during the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive saga. After he is framed for murder and escapes from prison, Batman is actually glad that he can't be Bruce Wayne anymore. He says that he feels free for the first time in his life, and is happy to finally be rid of the cumbersome chore of pretending to be Bruce Wayne. Later, he finally decides that the Bruce Wayne pesona is worth saving, because a dying police officer asks him to solve the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne--because he believes that their orphaned child deserves justice and couldn't really have grown up to be a murderer. At this point, Batman does decide that there's something worthwhile to Bruce Wayne after all, and sets out to clear his name. But his reaction to the idea that Bruce Wayne could be gone forever speaks volumes.

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Originally Posted by Holy_Knight

Batman definitely considers himself--the real him--to be Batman, primarily. He grudgingly accepts that Bruce Wayne is also a part of who he is, but he still identifies with Batman much more than Bruce. AS good example of this is during the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive saga. After he is framed for murder and escapes from prison, Batman is actually glad that he can't be Bruce Wayne anymore. He says that he feels free for the first time in his life, and is happy to finally be rid of the cumbersome chore of pretending to be Bruce Wayne. Later, he finally decides that the Bruce Wayne pesona is worth saving, because a dying police officer asks him to solve the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne--because he believes that their orphaned child deserves justice and couldn't really have grown up to be a murderer. At this point, Batman does decide that there's something worthwhile to Bruce Wayne after all, and sets out to clear his name. But his reaction to the idea that Bruce Wayne could be gone forever speaks volumes.

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It's starting to piss me off that people keep ignoring the fact that the dark, twisted Bruce Wayne existed for a good decade or more before he invented Batman as an outlet for being himself. He might say that he considers himself Batman not Bruce Wayne, but the fact of the matter is that he is Bruce Wayne, the psycopath who runs around dressed like a bat. (Notice I didn't mention "rubber.")

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

It's starting to piss me off that people keep ignoring the fact that the dark, twisted Bruce Wayne existed for a good decade or more before he invented Batman as an outlet for being himself. He might say that he considers himself Batman not Bruce Wayne, but the fact of the matter is that he is Bruce Wayne, the psycopath who runs around dressed like a bat. (Notice I didn't mention "rubber.")

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I don't necessarily disagree with you on that, but I think you're putting too much emphasis on the name "Batman". Bruce Wayne became someone totally different on the night his parents died, and this new person eventually took on the name "Batman" to represent what he considered his real self. That doesn't change the fact that it's this new self, and not the "Bruce Wayne" front that he has been putting on for others since that time, that is what he considers to be the real him.

Bruce Wayne died that night in the alley with his parents. He then became a transexual named "Mary Sue" and somehow gained the spectacular power "Plot Armor" to hide this change, he put on a bat outfit and ran around putting psychos in minimum security environments and convincing himself it's not his fault when they kill again and again and again.

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Originally Posted by Alchemistmerlin

Bruce Wayne died that night in the alley with his parents. He then became a transexual named "Mary Sue" and somehow gained the spectacular power "Plot Armor" to hide this change, he put on a bat outfit and ran around putting psychos in minimums security environments and convincing himself it's not his fault when they kill again and again and again.

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ROFLMAO!

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Originally Posted by Holy_Knight

I don't necessarily disagree with you on that, but I think you're putting too much emphasis on the name "Batman". Bruce Wayne became someone totally different on the night his parents died, and this new person eventually took on the name "Batman" to represent what he considered his real self. That doesn't change the fact that it's this new self, and not the "Bruce Wayne" front that he has been putting on for others since that time, that is what he considers to be the real him.

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Ok, have it your way then. From now on I will refer to Bruce Wayne/Batman as Mary Sue.

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

ROFLMAO!


Ok, have it your way then. From now on I will refer to Bruce Wayne/Batman as Mary Sue.

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That doesn't sound like my way at all... :(

Where does this whole Mary Sue character come from???

its a literary term for a character that's at hin stand in for the author herself

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Originally Posted by battleburn

Where does this whole Mary Sue character come from???

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Its no where, its a silly statement invented solely for humour value in this thread.

I think people are starting to see what I was trying to point out, that name or no the personality that truly exists in the entity calling itself Batman is the dark, night stalking avenger. Bruce Wayne as a person doesn't exist, and hasn't for a long time. He called himself Bruce Wayne for lack of a better term until was invented as a name. Its the Batman personality that I look as being the most accurate and true to the character.

This is of course the fun with Batman as opposed to say Spiderman. Spiderman is Peter Parker in a wonky outfit, we now this since in terms of personality they really aren't that different. Bats and Bruce are very different people, or rather Bruce begins to separate them after some time, where Batman is very much him, and the Bruce Wayne that interacts with the world at large very much isn't.

So I guess it comes down to figuring out if Batman is put on by Bruce Wayne, or Bruce is really Batman and acts the part of billionaire playbody.

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

It's starting to piss me off that people keep ignoring the fact that the dark, twisted Bruce Wayne existed for a good decade or more before he invented Batman as an outlet for being himself. He might say that he considers himself Batman not Bruce Wayne, but the fact of the matter is that he is Bruce Wayne, the psycopath who runs around dressed like a bat. (Notice I didn't mention "rubber.")

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Sorry to piss you off, CelestialStick. (Of course, all of the silly vs. threads piss me off...)

Look at your statement. Basically, the "dark, twisted Bruce Wayne" is Batman. That's what we mean when we say that Batman is the real personality.

I think in the Batman origins too, both graphic novel and movies anyway, Bruce's encounter with the bats in the cave came before his parents were killed. That's when the Batman personality started.

The real Bruce Wayne died that night with his parents, like Holy Knight said. That left only the Batman personality. The Bruce Wayne front that he puts on is an act -- it's not even a personality.

(Oh, I haven't seen Batman Begins yet...)

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Originally Posted by Ing

its a literary term for a character that's at hin stand in for the author herself

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You deserve a cookie. ;D

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Originally Posted by Haggis_McCrablice

Bruce quotes philosopher George Santyana in one episode ("I Am the Night", I think). He once said that when fighting monsters, one should take care not to become one. What does Bruce see when he looks in the mirror each morning, I wonder: man or beast?

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Regardless of what Wayne/Batman sees, Santayana got that line from Nietzsche.

Nietzche... some people just say more than others...

I thought Spider-man was Peter Parker free from the downtrodden looser of Peter Parker. Spider-man is the Peter Parker who can make all the witty remarks that would get someone like Peter mauled. Peter uses the Spider-man persona to indulge in another part of his personality. For Bruce Wayne however I got the idea it was more of a public act. As I believe someone else said, the DC heroes use their secret identaties to hide who they are whilst Peter Parker hides behind Spider-man.

Peter Parker is Peter Parker, no matter what clothes he's wearing. Bruce Wayne, "public-figure millionaire playboy" is as much a mask as his bat-suit. I was never sure how much Bruce enjoyed being a playboy but it seemed to me very much like it's said in Batman Begins, an excuse for what someone with that much money does with it. Batman is the same thing, except this time it's a persona for criminals to fear rather than the public to read gossip magazines about. The real Bruce Wayne in some hard-working guy who spends too much time in a cave.

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Originally Posted by battleburn

Where does this whole Mary Sue character come from???

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From the post by Alchemistmerlin above. As someone said, it's just thread humor, though exceptionally good thread humor. :D

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Originally Posted by TinSoldier

Sorry to piss you off, CelestialStick. (Of course, all of the silly vs. threads piss me off...)

Look at your statement. Basically, the "dark, twisted Bruce Wayne" is Batman. That's what we mean when we say that Batman is the real personality.

I think in the Batman origins too, both graphic novel and movies anyway, Bruce's encounter with the bats in the cave came before his parents were killed. That's when the Batman personality started.

The real Bruce Wayne died that night with his parents, like Holy Knight said. That left only the Batman personality. The Bruce Wayne front that he puts on is an act -- it's not even a personality.

(Oh, I haven't seen Batman Begins yet...)

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The death of Bruce Wayne's parents turned him into a vengeful, borderline psychopath who runs around dressed like a bat and calls himself Batman. He could call himself He-Man and the Master of the Universe, and he'd still be Bruce Wayne running around in a funny costume calling himself a funny name.

While there are endless interpretations of Bats, my personal preference is for the Bruce has chosen to be Batman type. In this he could choose not as well. He chooses to because of what he suffered when his parents were killed, but some day he might decide he can no longer be Batman, or should no longer be Batman.

That's just my preference. But with all the interpretations out there, there are plenty enough of renditions to make everyone happy... er satisfied.

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Originally Posted by Beleriphon

Let me say this upfront I know that Bruce Wayne is Batman.

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No, I'm Batman.

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Thats not the point of this discussion. I want to discuss who Batman is as a person. We all know the history, some of you know much more than I do, and I consider myself pretty well versed in the history.

To start I got this idea with a comment I made in the thread about Marvel's Civil War series detailing the US government try to force supers to reveal themselves publicly. This made me think about Batman, and what he would do if somebody tried to make him take off the mask.

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Well, if The Dark Knight Returns is to be believed, he'd just stop (although he really "just stopped" more because of Jason Todd's death). If The Dark Knight Strikes Again is to be believed, he becomes a soulless anti-government asshat who revels in his own insanity.

IMO, though, he would continue to fight crime, just not necessarily as Batman. Contrary to what certain misguided writers have tried to claim, Bruce Wayne doesn't need the Batman identity to survive. There's also the "Matches" Malone identity, and others. In one story from the 50s or 60s, Bruce Wayne disguises himself as Starman to fight crime.

Bruce dresses up as a bat not because he fetishizes bats, or because of some metaphysical totemic source of his internal power, but because bats are scary and he uses fear to aid him in his battle against criminals.

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Then I started thinking about Bruce Wayne and Batman dynamic. Is Bruce Wayne Batman, or is Batman Bruce Wayne. The comics tend to teeter between one or the other. At times its in the middle where Batman and Bruce are the same person just presenting different extremes of the personality.

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I've written about Batman on my livejournal (more to put the ideas down somewhere and record them than anything) but in my opinion, there is only one voice inside his head, but he portrays himself differently depending on the circumstances. When it's just him, or him and Alfred, or him and Robin, or him and someone he's actually friends with, that's the real guy. Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy philanthropist and philanderer is an act, and so is The Menace To The Criminal Underworld, The Batman.

Of course, my Batman is much more sane and human (and thus bad-ass) than most.

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For me I always envisioned Bruce having died in that alley with his parents. We may not know it them, but a new person, a new personality festers and boils until a suit is donned and a new person emerges. Bruce is the veneer that Batman uses to appear normal. Its his given name, but its not the person that he is anymore. So is man the name that was given to him, or does he name himself?

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IMO, neither. Although the mainstream Batman has, in recent years, fallen into the trap of living the legend he's wrapped himself up in.

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Anyhoo thats my philisophical take on Bats, now for a more comic book legal take. If Batman arrests somebody, and being a deputy of the Gotham police it is possible, does the crook get to face his accuser in Batman or Bruce Wayne.

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The answer depends on the times, but since Batman isn't anymore a deputy of the police, except in an unofficial capacity, I'd have to answer it in the reference that the question makes the most sense. Back in the fifties and sixties (and seventies, and forties, and even eighties, before Crisis on Infinite Earths), it wasn't uncommon for Batman to appear in court as Batman--in fact, the original origin for Two-Face shows Batman trying to leap in to stop the acid Boss Maroni throws from hitting Harvey Dent in the middle of a trial.

Nowadays, Batman is full-on unofficial, and probably takes great pains to make sure that he isn't the accusor, just that all the evidence is made available to the police so that they can build a proper case. It might make for an interesting story, where a defense attorney tries to get a case thrown out because the police had to rely on Batman to break the case and make the arrest, but as a status quo type thing, it would probably get boring real quickly.

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While linked to the above the question is more are you being arrested by Bruce Wayne wearing a costume, or could Batman be considered a separate entity for the purposes of the justice system, being that the Batman is the deputy in name, not Bruce Wayne. I'm not a lawyer, or American, but I could see a slick attorney going either way.

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Depending on how it helped their case, yes, but this discussion would all depend on Batman being unmasked completely.

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Originally Posted by kamikasei

In my view there are not two, but three Batmen. Call them Bruce Wayne, Batman, and The Bat. Batman is the real person, and is who people like Superman, Robin, Nightwing etc. see and know. He's a driven, hyper-competent Uberman, with emotional issues but ultimately human (with a dash of Vulcan or mentat thrown in). Bruce Wayne the billionaire playboy twit is an act. The Bat, then, is the face he presents to criminals, the shadow seen out of the corner of the eye around which legends and fear accrue. The Bat is not a person but a symbol, which Batman has to put in a lot of work to maintain.

Batman Begins gives a good example of this, I think. Think of Batman as Christian Bale when dealing with Alfred, with Fox, and so on. It's clear there that Bruce Wayne, as seen with the obnoxious grin or in the hotel with the supermodels, is an act. The costumed Bat, with raspy voice and dark theatrics, is another act.

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Yes, EXACTLY. I can only hope that Paul Dini and Grant Morrison, about to take over writing for Detective Comics and Batman, respectively, make it as effortlessly obvious.

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Originally Posted by battleburn

After the murder of his parents, he becomes a tool for revenge.

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::Sigh::

No. Justice. Not vengeance. Justice

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

The death of his parents made Bruce a near-psychopath

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NO!

He doesn't dress up as a bat to beat people up because he's crazy! He dresses up as a bat to SCARE PEOPLE who PREY ON THE INNOCENT, because he wants to help people.

As the line goes in "Batman Begins," the man's clearly "got issues." But he's not crazy.

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Originally Posted by Tarlonniel

Laughing?! With the man who killed his protege?!! :o

That's neither human nor Batman. That's completely OOC and psychotic.

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A) This occured before Joker killed Jason Todd, who's alive again anyway.

B) The Killing Joke was written to push the limits of Batman stories, but the author, Alan "Watchmen, V For Vendetta, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and many more exellent books" Moore has since said that he kind of regrets some of what goes on in the book, because it has become more a blue-print for dark stories that glorify violence against women instead of laying the groundwork for the eventual reconstruction of the genre, which deconstructionist works are ideally supposed to be.

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

It's starting to piss me off that people keep ignoring the fact that the dark, twisted Bruce Wayne existed for a good decade or more before he invented Batman as an outlet for being himself.

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He was never supposed to be "dark and twisted." Dark, yes. But you're focusing on Batman as only him in the suit. That's not what most people mean when they say "Bruce Wayne died with his parents, and was reborn as the Batman," or something to that effect (something I don't agree with, anyway). He stopped being slightly-spoiled rich kid Bruce Wayne that night, and began to become something else, something that eventually became known as Batman.

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He might say that he considers himself Batman not Bruce Wayne, but the fact of the matter is that he is Bruce Wayne,

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He may be, but he's not "idle rich millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne" either.

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the psycopath who runs around dressed like a bat.

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He's not a psychopath. He's too connected to his own emotions--even when poorly written--to be a psychopath or a sociopath. A sociopath or psychopath could never be perceptive or empathic enough to be dubbed "The World's Greatest Detective."

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque

I like the darkness of Batman, but someone linked a new comic by Frank Miller that I think goes way too far.

I like how Bruce Wayne is portrayed in Batman Beyond -- I still see him as the real Batman, but he no longer has to wear a facade.

too far? you mean the crazed rat eating "goddamn" batman?

Miller's managed to make batman sound like Sammuel L Jackson

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Originally Posted by malagigi

While there are endless interpretations of Bats, my personal preference is for the Bruce has chosen to be Batman type. In this he could choose not as well. He chooses to because of what he suffered when his parents were killed, but some day he might decide he can no longer be Batman, or should no longer be Batman.

That's just my preference. But with all the interpretations out there, there are plenty enough of renditions to make everyone happy... er satisfied.

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This seems to run contrary to the recent Batman Mary Sue literature, in which he's a borderline psychopath and can't stop himself from going out to gain vengenance repeatedly. In Batman Beyond, it's only the combnation of his weak heart and the fact that he nearly shot a criminal that caused him to give up the Batsuit. As the mature Barbara Gordon explains to Terry, fighting crime with Bruce was once like ballet, like poetry, but there came a time to hang up the leotards, only Bruce wouldn't do it.

Your view, however, fits in better with the earlier decades of Batman. The Batman who was the great detective or the 1940s, or the campy paladinal character of the 1960s, didn't seem compulsive or borderline pyschotic. Rather, he seemed, as you suggest, to have chosen the role.

To aaronbourque: Because of the length of your post, I won't quote it, but it contains some good points.

Whether or not Batman is a borderline-psychopath (or as in one comic I read during the 1980s, an actual, foaming-at-the-mouth psychopath) depends on the version. The Batman of my youth not only wasn't even a borderline psychopath, but not even dark. The Batman of the 1960s live-action show and the 1970s animated Superfriends really had no darkness to him at all, and while I read some of the comics of the 1960s, I didn't come away with an impression of Batman any different than the one I developed watching the tv shows. Perhaps if I reread them as an adult I'd see a difference, but I'm pretty sure that even if Batman was darker in the comics of the 1960s he wasn't twisted.

The dark, twisted, nearly- or actually-psychopathic Batman of the comics seems to have been an overreaction against the campy Batman of the 1960s and 1970s tv series. I really had no connection with Batman during the 1980s, other than that one comic, and it was the Batman movies of the 1990s really that introduced me to the dark, twisted Batman who seems to prevail today in several media.

You probably don't like the old campy Batman, and I confess that I've enjoyed seeing a darker Batman as an adult, but the old campy, paladinal Bruce Wayne took on the mantle of the Batman as a choice, to do justice, and not to wreak vengence.

Paul Dini's Batman seemed for a time to have struck a decent balance between the psychopathic Batman of the 1980s and the campy Batman of the 1960s. Toward the end of JLU, however, Dini seemed to veer, if not toward the psycopathic Batman of the 1980s, certainly towards the intensely paranoid Batman of the more recent comics. The earlier Batman didn't have plans to destroy every other superhero on the planet; Batman had long been friends with Superman, going all the way back to the frequent appearances of Batman and Robin in the 1940s radio serial. While I enjoyed seeing a darker Batman, clearly different in personality from Superman's boyscout, I can't abide a Batman who would gloat about having his hands around Superman's throat. I can almost se the later Batman of Dini, with his paranoid plots to kill every other superhero (which, happily, backfire and help the badguys in a lesson that the paranoid Batman needed to learn), doing the gloating. In fact I seem to recall a full-length Batman/Superman film, the one that launched The New Batman/Superman Adventures, in which Batman does sort of gloat in front of Superman over his little sliver of kryptonite. The immature, gloaty, and paranoid Batman, whether psychopathic or not, has no place so far as I'm concerned. The Batman who strove for justice wouldn't have waved a pice of kryptonite in Superman's face to begin with, much less gloat over it.

So while Dini might take the comics away from the near-psychopathic Batman, the Batman who compulsivley fights crime, I don't have so much faith that he'll produce a Batman who isn't still sick and twisted, paranoid and gloating. I hope I'm wrong, but as I probably won't read the comics anyway, I probably won't even know, at least for some time.

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

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Your view, however, fits in better with the earlier decades of Batman. The Batman who was the great detective or the 1940s, or the campy paladinal character of the 1960s, didn't seem compulsive or borderline pyschotic. Rather, he seemed, as you suggest, to have chosen the role.

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Yeah, alot of people raved about Batman Beyond. I didn't watch much, but it never clicked with me the way some other portrals did. The writing choices made simply conflicted with my idea of who Bruce is.

I also think my idea fits in with Batman: Begins, and Batman from 89'. That said, I have never cared for the campy Batman as it robs the character of a lot of dramatic power.

There was an episode of the later B:TAS "Gotham Knights" series in which Batman has been dosed with a toxin by Scarecrow that, instead of inducing fear, actually inhibited it. (This was also the first ep to show the revamp of Jonathan Crane's costume, which evoked an image of a hanged corpse.) The gas caused Batman to become violent, homicidal, and just plain not give a frig about his well-being or that of others. Robin has to actually physically stop him from strangling Scarecrow in a fit of rage. This is probably the closest the Timm/Dini Batman ever came to being truly an out-of-contol psychopath (though Martha Kent casually dismisses him as "that nut in Gotham" in S:TAS).

This thread is just awesome to read this thread could easily be used as an offical refrence to Batman.

In relation too all of this I like the batman from the new series "The Batman" that presents him as a mix of the early happy go lucky batman of the super friend with the dark batman of B:tas.

My 2 somethings
TSK

I don't know about The Batman. He always seemed a little too happy in that one. I don't imagine that Batman is does what he does for the thrills, he's driven to do what he does out of some kind of desire to see justice done for his parents, and all people really. In The Batman Bruce almost seems to be having fun as Batman.

i actually agree. you have several identities

The Bat= his vigalanti persona. he goes to great lengths to give himself the APPERANCE of being a psychopath and a monster, thus to be frightning, those who know the batman know that this is not the real him, but many fear that playing the monster for so long may actually twist him and drag him down into darkness. this persona gives the illusion of twisted, dark, and psychopathic. when people worry about batman's health they worry that this persona is phasing into his real life and is no longer becoming an act.

Bruce Wayne= the public persona of the playboy. an act, entirely a smoke screen used to missled people as much as the Bat is. though it also acts as a way for him to revel stress as he gets to play the role of a privleged person. you know that after all the danger and stress he must at least find a release in dating playboy modles and the like. it provides a needed break from his real life

The Batman= his real presona. its obsessive, sngle minded, focused, and even a little cynical and cruel, but its the real him. he desires justice and acts it out. this is the calmer 'at rest' batman that's seen in the batcave, doing the detective work, talking to Alfred, training or somtimes bantering with his partners. he's dark and focused and tortured, but not a psychopath. only a few really know this true image, those include Alfred, Selina Kyle, Tim Drake, Barbra Gordon, James Gordon, and The Joker who saddly knows batman better than even most of his partners do. most of the Robins and Bat(blank) have not seen this true persona. the 3rd and 4th Robins probably didn't as did all batgirls and huntresses after Barbra, they probably mistakenly believe that The Bat is the real personality.

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Originally Posted by Haggis_McCrablice

There was an episode of the later B:TAS "Gotham Knights" series in which Batman has been dosed with a toxin by Scarecrow that, instead of inducing fear, actually inhibited it. (This was also the first ep to show the revamp of Jonathan Crane's costume, which evoked an image of a hanged corpse.) The gas caused Batman to become violent, homicidal, and just plain not give a frig about his well-being or that of others. Robin has to actually physically stop him from strangling Scarecrow in a fit of rage. This is probably the closest the Timm/Dini Batman ever came to being truly an out-of-contol psychopath (though Martha Kent casually dismisses him as "that nut in Gotham" in S:TAS).

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Yes, I recall that episode. Batman lost all of his fear, including his fear of hurting himself or killing. It turns out that a fearless Batman isn't a good thing after all.

I vaguely recall that "nut in Gotham" comment, but the real Dark Nut is Frank Miller.

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Originally Posted by Beleriphon

I don't know about The Batman. He always seemed a little too happy in that one. I don't imagine that Batman is does what he does for the thrills, he's driven to do what he does out of some kind of desire to see justice done for his parents, and all people really. In The Batman Bruce almost seems to be having fun as Batman.

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I don't much like The Batman. While I have no trouble with the lighter Bruce, I don't like the kiddie Batgirl or the general kiddie tone of the show. Dini managed to make an animated series that appealed to both kids and adults. Oh, and the Catwoman looks horrible. Her outfit looks more like the bug-eyed mouse-woman.

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Originally Posted by Ing

i actually agree. you have several identities

The Bat= his vigalanti persona. he goes to great lengths to give himself the APPERANCE of being a psychopath and a monster, thus to be frightning, those who know the batman know that this is not the real him, but many fear that playing the monster for so long may actually twist him and drag him down into darkness. this persona gives the illusion of twisted, dark, and psychopathic. when people worry about batman's health they worry that this persona is phasing into his real life and is no longer becoming an act.

Bruce Wayne= the public persona of the playboy. an act, entirely a smoke screen used to missled people as much as the Bat is. though it also acts as a way for him to revel stress as he gets to play the role of a privleged person. you know that after all the danger and stress he must at least find a release in dating playboy modles and the like. it provides a needed break from his real life

The Batman= his real presona. its obsessive, sngle minded, focused, and even a little cynical and cruel, but its the real him. he desires justice and acts it out. this is the calmer 'at rest' batman that's seen in the batcave, doing the detective work, talking to Alfred, training or somtimes bantering with his partners. he's dark and focused and tortured, but not a psychopath. only a few really know this true image, those include Alfred, Selina Kyle, Tim Drake, Barbra Gordon, James Gordon, and The Joker who saddly knows batman better than even most of his partners do. most of the Robins and Bat(blank) have not seen this true persona. the 3rd and 4th Robins probably didn't as did all batgirls and huntresses after Barbra, they probably mistakenly believe that The Bat is the real personality.

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Bruce Wayne is the dark and perhaps or perhaps not twisted soul who dresses up at as a Bat and calls himself the Batman. He might or might not pretend to be psychopathic, depending on which version of him you're talking about. Sure, he puts on different faces at different times, but then so do most of us. I could run around calling myself emperor of the world but that wouldn't change who I really am.

FYI there have been more "light" versions of batman then dark. I prefer the dark though.

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

Bruce Wayne is the dark and perhaps or perhaps not twisted soul who dresses up at as a Bat and calls himself the Batman. He might or might not pretend to be psychopathic, depending on which version of him you're talking about. Sure, he puts on different faces at different times, but then so do most of us. I could run around calling myself emperor of the world but that wouldn't change who I really am.

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This point of yours has been addressed (to my counting) twice in this thread. When people say Bruce Wayne is really Batman, they're saying exactly what you're saying in fewer words.

From the context, the implication is usually that:

"Batman"= "the dark and perhaps or perhaps not twisted soul who dresses up at as a Bat and calls himself the Batman" = The real Bruce Wayne.

"Bruce Wayne" = "Millionaire playboy pretending to be someone he's not" = The fake Bruce Wayne.

The terminology isn't perfect, obviously, but it's not impossible to understand either :P
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Moving on, I agree with the "Trinity" suggestion of "The Playboy, the Batman and the Bat"... which just got me thinking of a really lame pun involving baptism...

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Originally Posted by CelestialStick

Bruce Wayne is the dark and perhaps or perhaps not twisted soul who dresses up at as a Bat and calls himself the Batman. He might or might not pretend to be psychopathic, depending on which version of him you're talking about. Sure, he puts on different faces at different times, but then so do most of us. I could run around calling myself emperor of the world but that wouldn't change who I really am.

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You could, but there is a big difference between saying that and thinking it. So to further disucussion does our Dark Knight think of himself primarily as Batman, or as Bruce Wayne dressing up as Batman? Obviously from a personality stand point I think we've all more or less agreed on who he is, and how he acts.