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The origin of Batman might just be the most famous story in comics. After a mugger pulls a gun on Thomas and Martha Wayne and kills them both in Gotham City’s Crime Alley, young Bruce Wayne is filled with a fiery desire for vengeance that would fuel him to become Batman. And now, Batman operates both as a world-class savior with the Justice League and also as a violent vigilante who draws ire from the Gotham City Police Department and the fearful respect of Gotham’s criminals.
The origins of Batman have been explored and retconned ad nauseam over the past 70 years. But for all the countless angles that have been taken and Elseworlds tales told of Bruce Wayne’s origin, few have asked what Batman might be to Gotham City if he was not the son of an endlessly privileged rich, white family. Although DC has flirted with the idea of a Black Batman on a few occasions, the idea of a Black Bruce Wayne is something that still remains largely unexplored.
In recent months, DC has revitalized the little-known character Tim Fox, the son of Batman ally Lucius Fox, as Jace Fox, the Batman of John Ridley, Nick Derington and Tamra Bonvillain.’s Future State: The Next Batman #1. And now, Fox is taking steps to assert himself as a Batman of the present DC Universe. The concept of someone other than Bruce Wayne taking up the mantle of Batman is nothing new, but replacement Batmen like Dick Grayson and Jim Gordon have never interrogated Bruce Wayne by their mere presence. Even a character like Batwing, Lucius’ other son Luke, was never an analog for Bruce himself, even if he shared several qualities with his fellow heir. Still, none of these characters really address what a Black Bruce Wayne could mean to Gotham.
Regardless of race, Bruce would still be the son of Thomas and Martha Wayne. He would still come from a family of immense wealth, and his parents would still be gunned down before him in Crime Alley thus transforming Bruce Wayne into Batman. Batman as a hero would still operate from the shadows, meting out justice on the criminal scum of Gotham City using a vast arsenal of tools and weapons. As both hero and vigilante, Batman would still be applauded and hated in equal measure for his methodologies.
While Batman’s more Justice League-centric superhero activities likely wouldn’t be affected much by his race, the same likely couldn’t be said for his activities as Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s billionaire playboy socialite. While Bruce normally maintains the persona of an aloof rich boy to distract from his nocturnal activities, that persona wouldn’t be seen the same if he was Black. Where the white Burce Wayne has the luxury of a free pass from the press for his various peculiarities, every single facet of a Black Bruce Wayne’s personal life — including his lavish spending — would likely be judged and weighed against him in a public sphere that is only beginning to grapple with long-standing systemic racism.
Within high society, Bruce Wayne has always shrugged and laughed off his combat injuries as skiing accidents and the like, but a Black Bruce Wayne would likely have to endure far more scrutiny over that, due to a press hungry for him to slip up. This kind of scrutiny could even drive him to hide his face completely, as Jace Fox’s Batman does.
Even with a white Bruce Wayne, Batman’s relationship with the Gotham City Police Department has historically been a volatile one that largely depends on Batman’s relationship with its current leadership, and that would likely be the case with a Batman who is a person of color, although in a far more pronounced fashion. Under Commissioner James Gordon, Batman’s relationship would likely be the same, since Gordon has always been the ideal of what a police officer should be. In almost any circumstance, it’s difficult to imagine a version of Gordon who does not support Batman and his mission.
For the rest of the GCPD, however, things could play out differently. While a Batman who is a person of color could make him more trustworthy to some Gotham police, many of the same Gotham police who view Batman with distrust and volatility could be prejudiced enough to have those feelings amplified because of a Black Batman’s race. Although there were other factors at play in the story, Jace Fox’s Batman found himself consistently targeted by the fascistic police of Gotham’s Future State, and the metaphor of a highly militarized police targeting a Black Batman was not subtle.
In a nation where Black men are disproportionally targeted by police, the image of the GCPD hunting Batman with military-grade weapons would be inherently laden with meaning and subtext for a Black Bruce Wayne.
To be sure, the DC Universe already has Black heroes in the forms of characters like John Stewart, Steel and Michael Holt’s Mister Terrific. Holt, especially, offers an idea of what a Black Bruce Wayne might face in the DC Universe. He’s a self-made billionaire who is an Olympic-level athlete and is ranked as the third smartest man in the world. While he’s certainly a respected hero, Holt doesn’t have the same kind of prominent place that a Bruce Wayne of any race would have, simply due to his relative real-world obscurity. John Ridley and Giuseppe Camuncoli’s The Other History of the DC Universe has shown the struggles of Black heroes within the DC Universe, and those issues would likely be even more intertwined with the urban decay of inner-city Gotham for a Black Batman.
At the end of the day, Batman and the other heroes in the DC Universe stand for fighting evil where ever it may be and protecting those that cannot protect themselves. As aspirational champions of justice and truth, they help guide people to be better every day. While not everyone will experience the same tragedy that gave birth to him, Batman exists as a symbol of unwavering courage and bravery in the face of despair. If Bruce Wayne was born a Black man, he would have had to face the same challenges that the hero traditionally faces, although he would so so with far more public scrutiny and the more prejudiced aspects of the civilian population and the GCPD actively rooting against him. While his parents’ wealth and social status would have given him some privilege, even they would not be enough to protect a Black Bruce Wayne from systemic racism.
To have Bruce Wayne himself be born Black is fundamentally different than having David Zavimbe or Tim Fox take up the mantle as Batwing, characters who are, by their derivative nature, side characters in a white man’s story. A Black Bruce Wayne negates the problems that arise with those characters by making one of the cornerstones of the DC Universe a person of color. In terms of representation, that would be huge win, making Batman an even more aspirational figure.
While the image of a Black Batman saving Gotham from the Joker or jumping down from the shadows to save citizens would be strong in their own right, Batman’s commitment to his cause and sense of justice would be the same, and that selfless commitment to protecting others is what defines Batman far more than his race, privilege, or anything else.
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