1. Bruce Wayne Is The Mask, Batman Is His True Self
Oh good, this old chestnut. How long did you spend thinking about this one, genius? A whole five seconds? Seriously, that last one was pretty silly, but this argument about Batman is so old, tired and full of holes it may as well be a pair of Harvey Bullock's socks, which are presumably very old and very gross. That's sort of the guy he is. That's why nobody likes him. So the argument goes that, whilst generally Batman is generally considered as Bruce Wayne's secret identity, it's actually the other way around. Bruce Wayne is a mask he wears, and Batman is in fact his true self, the thing he wants to do, the most sincere iteration of his personality. Absolute hogwash. Both of them are complete fictions. Batman is, obviously, a construct he wasn't born to Mr and Mrs Man, after all but Bruce Wayne is equally as calculated. In fact, nobody knows who the real Bruce Wayne is. Even he probably doesn't know. Batman is a mask, the public Bruce Wayne is a mask, and there's never been any room or time to develop who he truly is as a human being. Woah, all existential. Given a lot of the tripe people speak about the Dark Knight, it probably would do you well to consider something new about old Bats, eh? Like maybe he is super sad.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
