The myth of the Batman

Batman is consistently ranked in the list of top superheroes with him not having the one attribute that his fellow superheroes share in common – superpowers. The psychological makeup of the Dark Knight has taken a host of different shapes of guilt, shame, and alienation.

While heroes such as Spiderman and the X-Men do share these emotions, the Batman has come to embody them in the subsequent generations of the character's personality development. The character slowly evolved from a cop in a cape into an obsessed loner and at various times, a depressive schizophrenic.

Crusading into the Darkness

The iconography of the Batman is etched to all of our minds as a figure of fear who works best in the shadows – a far cry from how Batman first erupted onto the public scene. Initially, simply enough, the character was designed as a murderous, gun-wielding vigilante whose personas over the eras changed to a time-and-space-hopping gadfly to a versatile master spy and criminologist to the lone ninja overseeing a city, which fears him – a fear that he gladly takes into his stride.

The elasticity of Batman's character designs has allowed him to fit into various stereotypes enhancing limitless imaginations that range from the egregiously comical to the vengeful to the grim and knowledgeable, all with a dark twist of the reality of having to fight off foes with carrying the constant burden of losing his parents in a city they helped build.

The malleable nature of Batman, allows many comic book fans to find him the most relatable superhero there is. While many focus on his lack of superheroes, his wealth is often overlooked to be a core element of his character.

Unlike other superheroes, however, Batman still symbolizes an ideal that every comic book fan out there can aspire to be. His willingness to change and fight is what makes the character appealing to many. In being an agent of change, he defacto becomes a catalyst for change in the world around us.

The Batman Effect

Medical journals released in 2016 regarding children's mental development suggested helping children to create an alter ego – anything of their choice and relatability – helps to increase their overall ability to persevere. T

This is called "the Batman effect"-named due to Bruce Wayne's constant struggle to overcome hurdles being a mere mortal- which refers to children performing better in tasks if they pretend to be someone else, who is largely successful in that task. They could pretend to be anyone – be it a fictional or non-fictional character- they can relate with and who inspires them to rise up to the occasion. "Self-distancing" as it can be called helps to instil self-discipline in children helping them to navigate through their own will power, a concept a child psychologists have found beguiling.

Batman has served as a real-life inspiration for his many followers including the famous "Batkid".  Miles Scott, a 5-year-old child with cancer has aspired to be Batman for one day in 2013 and with the help of Make a Wish foundation in America and numerous other well-wishers, he gets a complete makeover of San Francisco into the fictional Gotham City with a special day of remembrance to him. Now 10 years old and cancer-free, this shows the moral and physical fortitude a young child derived from a creation that through its personal development has endured numerous reinventions.

Perhaps, that is the enigma of the World's Greatest serving as a Sisyphean symbol of hope that keeps on striving no matter the odds. With his famed gallery of villains, anti-heroes, and himself, the Batman franchise is perhaps the one more deeply seated with our current world.