(Inspired by a post about the Batcave you really should read. Not inspired by Disney-Marvel stuff, because I’ve said all I can about that here.)
Scipio at the Absorbascon has gone on at great length about how the Marvel and DC Universes are different, but there is one aspect I don’t believe he’s talked about. To wit:
Why is the DC Universe full of museums, but the Marvel Universe isn’t?
Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in the Silver Age contained statues and exhibits of his past exploits, and Geoff Johns I believe has brought that back. Whatever headquarters the Justice League is using at the moment usually has a trophy room of some sort. The Batcave has, famously, the giant penny and the dinosaur, but also a bunch of other reminders of past cases. The Flash Museum is … well, it is a museum.
But you don’t get that in the Marvel Universe. The Fantastic Four and the Avengers probably store things they confiscate from supervillains, but it’s not organized and kept under glass with little plaques the way the JLA trophy room is. There’s no statues of the Fantastic Four’s pals in the Baxter Building, no exhibit in Avengers Mansion labeled “Blade of the original Swordsman, RIP.”
Now, there’s a simple explanation for this to some degree. Marvel heroes tend to be more street-level and are less likely to keep secret headquarters; if Peter Parker maintained a SPIDER-MAN HALL OF TROPHIES (BELONGING TO ME, PETER PARKER, WHO IS ALSO SPIDER-MAN), it might slightly arouse the suspicion of his roommate. And you can come up with in-story explanations for the DC museums; Superman keeps a memorial to his homeworld, Bruce Wayne thought a trophy room would keep up the spirits of a young Dick Grayson, and the JLA keeps all that crap because you never know when you could actually use a Gamma Gong.
But it seems like there ought to be some fundamental reason or reasons. Is DC’s intended audience a little brainier than Marvel’s? As a kid, I loved museums, and I still do (it’s why I’m interested in this subject in the first place), but I admit it is one of my nerdier attributes (and I say this as a person who is at this moment writing about the role of museums in superhero fiction). Marvel, on the other hand, is all about misfits tearin’ it up on the streets. Batman follows clues and Barry Allen uses scientific know-how to defeat his enemies; the Thing, by contrast, famously announces the specific time at which he intends to clobber someone (Answer: USUALLY RIGHT NOW).
But no. Surely a publisher whose most popular character got his powers because he attended a science demonstration after school instead of going out like the rest of the kids can’t be accused of anti-intellectualism. (I will say, however, that Marvel trying to skew a little older in the Silver Age may contribute, the older Marvelite having outgrown boyhood clubhouses, which is what most superhero headquarters ultimately represent.)
What else, then? It might seem to suggest that DC heroes are more sentimental than their Marvel counterparts (and by extension that DC as a company is more sentimental than Marvel), but that can’t be right, either; it doesn’t get much more sentimental than emblazoning “Stan Lee Presents” on your stories, after all.
And yet: perhaps it’s not sentimentalism, not exactly, that DC heroes have over Marvel, but rather a different set of priorities. Is it that DC heroes tend to measure their accomplishments using external signifiers (i.e. trophies and stuff), and that Marvel heroes measure their accomplishments in non-material ways?
DC’s Silver Age pantheon was largely full of professional men: reporters, cops, test pilots, captains of industry. Oftentimes, their jobs (both civilian and superheroic) interfered with their personal life, but to no great psychological detriment; Clark Kent may be a bit bummed that Lois Lane flips for Superman and not him, and Barry Allen gets chewed out by fiancée Iris West, but these seem to be minor irritants or inconveniences – certainly not sources for the kind of churning anguish Marvel superheroes felt about their loved ones.
At the risk of sounding inflammatory, might we accuse the Silver Age DC heroes of being somewhat materialistic? Job first, personal life second. Superman is, after all, merely disguised as Clark Kent (a source of great debate, but that is a matter for a whole ‘nother post, if anyone is interested in my take on it), and much has been made of the notion that Batman is the “true” self and Bruce Wayne is the “mask” (a matter I think is more complicated than this easy sound bite, but again, maybe we’ll get into this another time, if you’ll have me). It makes sense, then, that they might keep a bunch of mementos around to remind them of their professional accomplishments. They require some concrete evidence for validation.
In old comics, a hero will be given a plaque, say, “In gratitude to Superman for rescuing Boy Scout Troop 153 from space-bears.” This is something they can hold onto. At the end of the night, Batman can turn off the lights to his trophy room and say, “I accomplished these things, and there is the proof.” Ordinary people use conspicuous consumption to demonstrate what they’ve done; Batman has a giant penny and a deactivated mechanical dinosaur. And, of course, the DC heroes are notable when compared with their Marvel equivalents for their stability; and, as anyone who’s lived in one place for several years can attest, stability results in you accumulating a whole lot of stuff anyway.
The Marvel superheroes, on the other hand, are personal life first, professional life second; surely, Peter Parker was more concerned about what Betty Brant or Liz Allen thought of him than whether or not he was a model employee at the Daily Bugle. Matt Murdock was a successful attorney, but he seemed more concerned in the original comics with his pretty secretary Karen Page. Stephen Strange left his medical practice and rarely looks back. The X-Men have their mission (and their complicated interpersonal dynamics), and thus little time for trophies. Even workaholic Reed Richards is motivated by his own internal thirst for knowledge; why would he keep souvenirs of the past when there’s so much new stuff to be done?
And when their superheroic lives get in the way of their personal lives, you get anguish. Peter doesn’t chuckle knowingly to the audience about his Spider-Man activities coming between him and dates; it eats him up inside. Even if Peter did have a trophy room, one imagines Stan Lee providing thought balloons to the effect of, “All these mementoes and plaques … what do they matter if I can’t have … her??”
Now, before you protest, I don’t mean to get into a whole materialism-is-bad thing here, or that Marvel heroes are better than DC heroes. I’m just suggesting they may subscribe to two different philosophies. After all, DC’s Silver Agers seem considerably happier than Marvel’s; having a trophy room seems to work wonders for the JLA’s self-esteem, and who’s to say Daredevil wouldn’t be happier if he had some tangible reminder of all the lives he’s saved?
Most superhero fans, of course, read from both of the Big Two, but they usually have at least some slight preference one way or the other, if not an out-and-out favorite. So I ask you out there in internetland: do your own priorities affect your reading habits, even if it’s not conscious? Do professionals read DC and romantics read Marvel? (I’ll grant, with Marvel’s approach to superheroes becoming the industry standard, the line has blurred over the years.)
Or, conversely, do those of you who are married to your jobs secret long for the exquisite agony of the Marvel hero? And do those of you who resist being defined by your careers drift live vicariously through the material assurance Superman possesses that everything he’s done over the years has meant something?
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The Avengers used to have a hallway full of pictures of all the past members. No idea how that works now that they’re all either a: evil, b: on the run or c: whatever the hell Slott is writing. And I think the FF have something, since they do tours or something of the Baxter Building…
There’ve been several scenes of various trophies in the original Avengers Mansion; the puppets that Wanda and Pietro had their consciousness transfered into, for example. And a Captain America story ended with the death of old time foe Porcupine and Cap placing his armor in a Mansion trophy case with a plaque reading something like “In memory of honored foe Porcupine”.
Another reason for the relative lack of trophies could be the usual worse or less formal relationship between Marvel heroes and the establishment. After all, all those DC trophies were originally private property of someone other than the person/group whose trophy room they ended up in. So either they’re all up for grand larceny or they were awarded them by various governments.
Actually, I’m not sure about the Baxter Building either. In the Lee/Kirby days the Thing’s sculptress girlfriend Alicia Masters always produced sculptures of the FF, their friends and their enemies, so I expect a few of them are still to be found in the living quarters. Xavier Mansion also always featured framed pictures of past and present X-Men, New Mutants etc., which usually seem to have been replaced whenever the Mansion was destroyed. In one of the later versions of the Mansion I believe there also was a monument to the fallen in the gardens. (Even the Great Lakes Avengers/X-Men/Initiative have a wall of pictures in memory of their fallen comrades). And in Sensational Spider-Man #32, Mary Jane Watson-Parker meets the Invisible Woman at the “Hall of Heroes” exhibit at Madame Tussaud’s in front of wax figures of the FF.
The biggest Marvel superhero museum (apart from the Collector’s) would probably be the one Rick Jones assembled in the alternate future timeline ruled by the Maestro.
Not sure about the distinction you make between the attitude of Marvel and DC heroes to work and private lives. I certainly did not get the impression that Superman was more obsessed with being a model “Daily Planet” employee than what Lois Lane thought of him or that Batman was more dedicated to his job as head of a business empire than Tony Stark or Matt Murdock were to their jobs. Also, it is no surprise the job at the “Daily Bugle” was less important for Peter in the old days, it was not Peter’s intended life career (unlike Clark Kent’s employment at the “Planet”), it was more or less a temp job because due to his more parlous financial situation he needed money then and now. His real profession then was being a student, first in high school, then at ESU, and he wanted to become a scientist. And BTW, Dr. Strange did not give up his medical job by choice, but because a car accident had left him physically incapable of performing delicate surgery.
I don’t really read DC, so I may be wrong about this, but it seems like Marvel teams have their headquarters destroyed or have to move more often.
That being said, I think any discussion of a superhero’s gallery or museum needs to remember Alan Moore’s take on the subject in Supreme. The main character, a superhero pastiche, has an amazing amount of alien technology, the accoutrement (SP? early in the morning) of many villains, and even the Hell of Mirrors (think the Negative Zone, prison for the worst of the worst). Throughout the series characters regularly criticize Supreme for being tacky in triumph or irresponsible for keeping super weapons in one spot and alien technology away from a world it could better. It becomes a problem when villains are able to get in (or our of the Hell of Mirrors) because they have immediate access to the most powerful arsenal on the planet. Then there’s Amarynth, the planet whose population has been turned into light and you wonder if the best place for it is in a solo superhero’s fortress and not with a group of (super) scientists working to fix it.
So it seems that a superhero’s museum may be a little gauche, a little silly (why placards if no one else comes to the Fortress of Solitude?), and even more than a little dangerous, depending on the contents.
No, I get it: what draws people to Marvel is different from what draws people to DC. The DC heroes are a pretty good case of fantasy wish-fulfillment: always justified. The Marvel heroes are lucky just to be vindicated once every couple of years, and frequently have to settle for forgiveness instead. Or, you know, not get either. Hell, I’d be ascetic too.
Not to mention, I’d buy the shit out of Marvel comics as a teenager.
Oh no wait.
And I always figured the placards in the Fortress of Solitude were there so that at least SOMEBODY would be saying something to lonely, lonely Superman.
I’d say that you’re making a couple of mistakes. Of course Marvel has superhero museums, but unlike DC, the superheroes don’t run them. Someone mentioned a Tussaud’s exhibit, which makes sense, and given the NYCentricity of Marvel, it’s impossible to imagine that there aren’t a number of museums throughout the city dedicated to the heroes, either in general or specific (given that Avengers Mansion sat on Museum Mile there’s probably one dedicated to them next door).
Additionally, Marvel heroes tend not to be as fond of their adventures as DC heroes. Leaving aside the Avengers, who do sort of have a trophy area, it’s not like Spidey is fond of beating the snot out of two-bit hoods in animal-themed powersuits, or the X-Men particularly want to remember the time they were forced to let one of their best friends die to save the [X|X={village, town…supercluster, universe}]. The FF, of course, have floors and floors of storage for trophies, but who’s going to arrange them? Half the Baxter Building is probably poorly-lit rooms full of alien artifacts and earth-shaking inventions shoved into boxes marked “Shoes (Ben)”.
I think that it’s just that the DC villains have cooler stuff than the Marvel villains. Let’s face it, when you beat up Doctor Octopus, all you’re getting is a set of metal arms. And he’ll probably just mentally recall them when he gets out of jail. Meanwhile, Two-Face puts in the effort to procure (or quite possibly manufacture) a giant freaking penny for use in his crimes. That’s the kind of thing I’m claiming as a souvenir, Batcave or not. “Um, Bruce, there’s a giant penny in the swimming pool!” “Yes, it’s something of a conversation piece. I bought it off Batman after he defeated Two-Face last month. I thought about having it bronzed, but it seemed somehow redundant.”
DC villains tend to have cool, outrageous, or just plain goofy gimmicks more often than Marvel villains (especially during the Silver Age, which is really when the “trophy room” idea became enshrined in continuity.) Those things lend themselves better to display than just, “Oh, and I defeated the Red Skull again,” or “Oh, this is when I kicked the crap out of Loki some more.”
BSD: Not entirely true. The Superman’s Fortress, the Bat Cave, and to some extent the JLA may maintain their own trophy rooms and are generally private, but the Flash museum and the JSA’s trophies are maintained by others and open to the public. (I believe the Central City government runs the Flash Museum, and the JSA hired someone to upkeep theirs.)
In the JLA/Avengers crossover Captain America made note on how the DC universe doted over their heroes and treated them like celebrities, whereas few Marvel Universe heroes got that sort of treatment. That’s probably why we see more museums, parades, statues, and whatnot in the DC universe. Their heroes are generally liked and approved of by the public, so there is a calling for it, as opposed to that menace Spider-Man or those stinkin’ muties.
Amazing Spider-Man #600 has a short story where Peter is in a museum that is having a Spider-Man display and is having to hear all the flak against Spidey everyone has. Of course the best part was when a kid who was heckling Spidey got wrung out by his mom, becasue Spidey saved the kids dad.
What about Tony Stark’s various armories? Displaying his old armors for show, even a personal show, seems museum-ish. ‘Course, I wouldn’t be against any argument that Iron Man is actually a DC character trapped in the Marvel Universe.
To some extent, it is simply that Superman and Batman have both the means to acquire interesting souvenirs, and somewhere to put them. When you have a place the size of a football stadium, you have to fill it with something. Consider the last time you got new shelving or the like set up. How long did it stay empty?
I think at least part of the issue is the relative reputations of the heroes in question. People like the Flash, so they make a Flash Museum. People like Superheroes, so they make a superhero museum (yes, this is my obligatory Booster Gold reference, but it is part of his origin story.)
Try to make an X-Men museum and you get a bunch of protestors shouting “Mutants aren’t human.” JJJ probably has a “Make a Museum for a Masked Menace?” editorial ready to go at the slightest suggestion of a Spiderman museum. These days even a Captain America museum would be laughed at.
tl,dr; the common man in DCU likes their superheroes. The common man in Marvel doesn’t.
“Meanwhile, Two-Face puts in the effort to procure (or quite possibly manufacture) a giant freaking penny for use in his crimes. That’s the kind of thing I’m claiming as a souvenir, Batcave or not.”
The giant penny had nothing to do with Two-Face; it was a memento from a case involving the Penny Plunderer.
Ooh, pretty glaring error on my part to say “The FF don’t have statues” when two of their members used to date THE SAME SCULPTRESS… (or wait, was Johnny’s Alicia *always* Lyja?) Nevertheless, it still seems slightly different, at least to me. Alicia’s statues are a gift from a friend, but you get the sense that Silver Age Superman set up those wax dummies of him and his friends all by himself.
Also, I’m going to say that framed photos don’t really count as museum pieces, because ordinary people have framed photos too (and if you lost your house in a fire, you’d try to replace them, too). But you usually don’t have, like, a statue of your mom, or the banged-up door from a bad car accident you were in with a little placard bearing the date of the crash.
As for the placards in the Fortress of Solitude, plok’s got the emotional/symbolic reason I’d give as most important, but a fine in-story explanation is that Superman used to take people up there sometimes (as Supreme did the radio station reporters in that early Moore issue). Again, that fits in with his whole “Nothing to hide to keep the ordinary people at ease” … it might sound scary that Superman’s got some secret citadel nobody’s allowed into, so Superman periodically lets people know, “Look, it’s just a getaway spot full of some statues and a little zoo; would you like to see it?”
BSD makes an important distinction I left out, which is that the DC heroes run their museums themselves for the most part, and primarily for their own benefit. Even with the public-run Flash museum … Wally and Barry seem to hang out there a lot, don’t they? Regular attendees; I get the sense that it’s agreed upon that all that stuff *belongs* to the Flash, but he just puts it somewhere that everyone can see it to raise a little money for the city.
“The giant penny had nothing to do with Two-Face; it was a memento from a case involving the Penny Plunderer.”
It was Two-Face in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, which is probably what they were thinking of.
C’mon guys! The commenters at this site can do better than nitpick! Sure, Marvel has occasionally mentioned a museum, but the overall point still stands.
As for why, perhaps it is a generational difference. There is something quite patriarchal about museums–“No, Greek people, you can’t have those marbles back; we can take care of them better”–whereas marvel is all about anti-authoritarianism. Marvel characters are perpetual teenagers, whereas DC characters never were. (Batman comics make a huge deal about how Bruce Wayne became an adult at 8, and Superboy is pretty much the opposite of a stereotypical teenager.) Adults tend to mythologize the past, while teenagers ignore it.
And Andrew Burton: I’m having a hard time thinking of a counterargument for the armory; well-spotted. Does he keep anything else besides the armors, though? It seems like a sheerly practical thing to do, but he *does* usually seem to keep them in a sort of display, you’re right.
Not entirely ready to give over Tony Stark to the DCU, though. What could be more Marvelly than getting hit with your own weapon, and then becoming dependent on your superhero armor to keep your heart beating?
A few people have pointed out Marvel locales like Avengers Mansion are pretty routinely destroyed. So, knowing it’s only a matter of time until the place is launched into space or sunk or blowed up; do they put up original displays? Like, they used to have the late Porcupine’s armor on display: do they display the original, or go to Factory X and get a replica made?
This becomes a problem in that you may think you don’t want a live-firing version of the Melter’s weapon on the wall, until it comes up that you need it…
By the way, I know Dr. Doom’s never launched Avengers Mansion into space, but he really, really should.
Two obvious points: In the DC universe being a hero is a lot about legacy. The most obvious example is the Flash, but there are a lot of other legacy heroes. The past is a lot more important generally in the DC universe than the Marvel Universe. I think it’s pretty well understood that becuase of Hypertime Spider-Man’s been around for 10 years or so, but a lot of the DC heroes go back past several generations. It’s the passage of time that gets memorilized as much as anything.
Also, already mentioned, the NYC locus of most of the Marvel Heroes makes Museums a little more problematic. The Flash is Keystone’s hero. It makes sense they would honor him. Fictional city pride is a driving force here. I seem to remember that there was a Captain America room in the 616 Smithsonian, but that’s more of a WWII memorial than anything else, and I don’t think Cap has much of a tie to Washington DC as he does to New York.
Justin, you now have me wondering if Iron-Man 2 will use Metric’s “Help I’m Alive” at some point.
@BSD:
“Half the Baxter Building is probably poorly-lit rooms full of alien artifacts and earth-shaking inventions shoved into boxes marked “Shoes (Ben)”.”
I have nothing to add to the discussion other to say that i love this imagery here.
Don’t all those DC museums pre-date Fantastic Four #1? I think it’s just an old holdover of that era. Plus it took Marvel a while to have had enough adventures to even justify a collection…
“dc audience is brainier than marvel”
please sir, allow me to say the following; reed fucking richards. .
The Avenger’s mansion was thrashed by Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil. Avenger’s Island was sunk by Doombots. The X-Mansion was eaten by aliens and blown up by Mr Sinister. Spider-Man’s first apartment caught on fire. The FF has gone through about a dozen Baxter Buildings.
The only Marvel superheros who got any respect from the public are the Avengers, the FF, and the Thunderbolts.
They have tours of the Avenger’s mansion periodically for tourists, so that place is much like a museum. I remember seeing that in an issue of American Dream I had picked up for whatever reason at some point.
Generally, street-level heroes that aren’t ridiculously wealthy don’t have the availability of a museum type thing. When you’re trying to make rent each month, it’s really hard to own and maintain a Batcave.
These aspects are downplayed by the heroes and writers though. Strange has his collection of mystical knick-knacks (remember his Zom-in-a-bottle from WWH?), Iron Man has his armor gallery, Norman Osborn had his hidey hole with the various goblin armors and gliders, the aforementioned Avenger’s Mansion with periodic tours for the public… it generally seems to be rich people who can afford the space have some sort of memorobilia stash.
I think that it’s a lot like John said a few posts up – the emphasis on a lot of DC heroes is the legacy, while the emphasis on the Marvel characters is the character.
–Rawr
The idea of, say, a anti-molecular inverter being shoved in a mislabeled box in the Baxter Building? That sounds like a Franklin Richards story WAITING TO HAPPEN.
Klytus: I did actually ask the “brainier” bit as a question, and then refute it in the very next paragraph.
Isn’t this a difference of philosophies of continuity? When you treat all events (more or less) as canon, you have a history, therefore you have a museum to gather, reference, and generally make use of the past. How many DC stories have started in the Cave, the Fortress, the Satellite? When you decide not to get hung up too much on continuity and focus more on the present and the recent past, any commemoration comes about from convenience or occasional nods to the longtime fanbase (“It happened waaaaay back in ASM #159, True Believers!–Stan.”)
I keep flashing to Claremont penned forced reminiscences, with characters walking beside a wall of photos with the happy faces of former X-Men….but he was arguing in favour of the book being a collection of stories about a family of characters.
Whereas you may be right that the company overall tends to depict its storylines are existing in some timeless ‘present’.
Count me in on wanting to hear your thoughts on the Superman/Clark Bruce/Batman duality.
There’s another point to consider when comparing the Marvel and DC universes. Generally, in DC, the headquarters is sacrosanct–if villains can even get there, they won’t do much damage, or only manage to grab their old gear.
Over in Marvel? The X-Mansion gets torched on a regular basis. Avengers mansion has been blown up a few times, too, and I think when Four Freedoms Plaza isn’t being wrecked, it’s being repossessed. For all we know, the Marvel teams with established headquarters do have trophy rooms, they just keep getting lost in the debris.
I, too, want to hear the take on the main DC characters’ identities. I merely got distracted above.
Rawrasaur- American Dream was set in MC2 a continuity that takes place about 15 years after the main MU
I would agree with the comments that say it’s a legacy thing.
For all the DC keeps on trying it’s best to destroy it’s long history, it still has generations of heroes (at least I think it still does, I’m a few crises behind) stretching back decades.
Marvel, on the other hand, seems to drag it’s history along with it like a snail. My understanding it that everything is supposed to still be first generation, right? Except things that take place in the future. Or something. I’m not up on their history so I could be wrong I guess.
But I remember Peter David making light of it on the last issue of his epic Hulk run.
When the Masters of Evil took over Avengers Mansion, they found the Porcupine’s armour on display, and they complained about how sick it was to display something like that as a trophy.
There didn’t seem to be any other trophies around, though.
All this does is remind me of the 1990’s era run of Starman. Which was entirely about being a legacy superhero.
Jack Knight was the 1990’s Starman. His father was the golden age Starman. His older brother was the ill fated 1970’s Starman, dying in costume.
Jack Knight ran an antique shop, selling the cool mid century modern stuff that was his fathers era (1). He had a baby with a supervillian, leading to the kind of custody battle.
The entire comic was a long rumination on fathers, sons, history and legacy.
Needless to say it was DC.
Had this been a Marvel comic?
Actually, the bit with the supervillian custody fight might have been the same. But the rest?
(1) In the mid 1990’s mid century modern furniture and fashion was still cool and exotic. Honest.
In the late 2009? Jack Knight would be a hipster with his own show on TLC. Rachel Zoe would be the supervillian baby mamma.
Actually, there was one scene in Waid/Weiringo’s first issue on FF that shows Reed and Sue in a museum that’s displaying some large-scale supervillain memorabilia. Of course, the fact that Waid worked so famously with the Flash might have influenced that decision…
@norabombay
I’d be amazed if buried somewhere in Starman there wasn’t a reference to them making a Starman museum.
Part of it might also be the larger impact and recognition the DC heroes enjoy in their universe, whereas very few heroes in Marvel are liked by the average taxpayer. Others have mentioned it, but you’re more likely to shell out money for Superman when he saves the world than if Spiderman stopped that guy with the mechanical legs or something that one time or so I heard.
It’s like I always say: DC is top down, Marvel is bottom up. It’s Superman and the world or the world vs. Spider-man.
I really, really want to try and fit this into the theories from Generations now.
[…] Last week, I mentioned something about Batman and Superman’s secret identities, and that I would talk about them if anyone was interested. Well, I recall at least two “yes” votes. That is really all it takes. To be frank, I wanted to do it anyway as long as no one actively said BOO THIS IS A SUBJECT ABOUT WHICH I DO NOT WISH TO READ. But let me preface this with two things. -I can’t claim the ideas I’m going to talk about are totally new or innovative, especially because I’ll cite existing sources of the characterizations in action. -I also can’t claim my take is the “right” way to handle Superman and Batman’s secret identities. There is no right way; these characters are 70 years old, so diverse and contradictory interpretations are valid and inevitable. I’m just saying this is the way I prefer to think about it, and you might dig it as well. So here goes: Superman and Batman do not have dual identities. They have triple identities. See, during Batman Begins I always think Rachel’s being unfair in that bit at the end where she touches Bruce’s face and says, “This is your mask,” the idea being that Batman has become the “real” personality, and the Bruce Wayne persona is an act. This is a popular characterization of the Bruce/Batman split, and I used to buy into it as well. But then who is that sharing jokes with Alfred, and who is that talking to Rachel at that very moment? It’s not the public “drunken playboy” persona that Bruce has cultivated, but it’s not Batman, either. Bruce doesn’t talk in his gravelly “intimidation voice” to Alfred or Rachel or Ra’s al Ghul (and thank goodness for that). Heck, this is a guy who talks about Batman in the third person (”Batman has no limits,” not “I have no limits”). The Dark Knight is as much a role, then, as the drunken playboy. The real guy isn’t Public Bruce or Batman, it’s Secret Bruce. In the JLA trade paperback of “Rock of Ages,” there’s bios of all the Justice Leaguers, and I absolutely adore this fragment of the one Morrison wrote for Batman (or at least I assume he wrote it, because it sounds like him, and it’s somewhat in opposition to DC’s official treatment of Batman at the time): […]