Metafiction and Batman: May Knightfall Rest In Peace

Most folks know that Grant Morrison loves him so metafiction, and he carried that love into his current run on the Batman titles. Morrison's first arc, Batman and Son, was written in an off-beat, anything goes Silver Age style, the 666 issue was an homage to The Dark Knight Returns, and The Clown At Midnight was a reminder of the non-comic mediums that Batman's passed through (Prose for the various original, well, prose stories Bats has starred in, and the CGI artwork looks like it was taken right out of a video game.)

And then we get to the first of the Three Ghosts stories. Readers didn't know it, but we'd already met the first Ghost, Bat-Cop, in the first pages of the run. In the alternate future of 666, we saw a future version of the Bat-Devil, later called the Third Man, now called Azrael. And here, in a very 90's-style story, we meet Bat-Bane, a parody of 90's over-muscled anti-heroes with almost no defining characteristics beyond a permanent case of 'roid rage.

But why Bat-Bane at all? Bat-Cop is a logical perversion of Batman because he uses a gun. Bat-Devil is logical in the hindsight of whom he works for. Bat-Bane seems a bit random, doesn't he? Yeah, Batman had problems with steroids in the obscure "Venom" graphic novel, but while Morrison may like referencing obscure stories, he makes a lot more use of them than this; Batman doesn't even mention the events of "Venom."

So, what other story could Bat-Bane be a call back to? Obviously, Knightfall. This isn't the only call back to Knightfall in Morrison's run; in the Final Crisis tie-in issues, the mental parasite the Lump uses the memory of Bane breaking Batman's back as a a powerful weapon against Batman when he tries to resist the mental tampering. Batman then relives his recovery from that injury, and his battle with the first Azrael to reclaim his mantle.

Now, these two issues are retrospectives, so Knightfall is just one of many classic moments Batman relives. He recalls other tragedies like the death of Jason Todd, Barbra Gorden's maiming, and the events of No Man's Land, as well as the incredibly-recent (a day at most) battle with the Black Glove. But Knightfall was the only memory that the Lump specifically used as a weapon to whip Bruce into submission. When that fails, he tries a carrot instead of a stick, creating a fantasy world where Bruce's parents had survived. The Lump doesn't use another memory as a weapon once he sees Bruce recover from reliving Knightfall.

It'd be fair to say that having his back broken was probably the most physically traumatic thing to even happen to Batman, but a psychic entity like the Lump would have to recognize that the best way to hurt Batman would be to attack him mentally or emotionally. Morrison's own evil mastermind, Dr. Hurt, obviously recognized this. 90% of his plan was dedicated to attacking Bruce psychologically and emotionally; the Club of Villains and the Joker attacking him physically was almost an afterthought.

If the Lump was really trying to strike at Batman, he'd have used any number of guilt-inducing moments to attack, like the death of [Insert Name Here] or the betrayal of [Insert Name Here] or that time [Insert General Tragedy Here]. Hell, just let him see his parents' death over and over. That'll learn him.

But the Lump uses Knightfall. Combined with the obvious love Knightfall gets in the Three Ghosts story, and it's obvious that Knightfall is a story Morrison considers important. Why?

I think Morrison is paying homage to the spiritual predecessor of his own metatextual work; this is speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if Morrison has a soft spot for Knightfall. It's clearly his type of story.

Unlike a lot of the more shallow event comics of the 90's, (Death of Superman and the Clone Saga come to mind....), Knightfall had a rather brilliant premise behind it. Dennis O'Neil, master of the Bat-mythos that he was, was worried about the wave of Watchmen-inspired vigilantes coming onto the comic stands, and worried that people would start to clamor for a grimmer, gritter, 90's Batman, as well. So, he decided to give us one, and then explore why such a character would be unlikable, unworkable, and generally undesirable.

It's easy to lose sight of this core idea given the crossover nature of the story, but Bane and the Arkham break-out are really just stepping stones to get the original Azreal into the cape and cowl. (It's unfortunate that this is probably going to be the only thing Jean Paul is remembered for in the long run, considering he had a fairly respectable solo series for several years. But I can't claim to have read it, or really claim to care about his character one way or the other. Oh well.)

(And, of course, Denny O'Neil's Question also, in a brief and more humorous fashion, showed why Watchmen paradigms don't mesh with the normal DCU. "Rorschach sucks", indeed.)

At the end of the day, what Knightfall demonstrates is that there's only one Batman, and anything else is a pale imitation. But the story is very aware of itself as a story, demonstrating by example why a certain storytelling route is bad form. (It's unfortunate that many lesser writers didn't get the message.) And there are more than a few structural similarities with Knightfall and Morrison's run. In both instances, a mastermind (Bane/Hurt) wears Batman down via proxies (Arkham inmates/Club of Villains) before trying to disable him permanently (Breaking his back/Burying him alive). Also, AzBats and the Third Man are similarly inspired in their use of religious imagery and motivations. (Albeit from opposite sides of the fence, as it were.) It's ironic but appropriate that the Third Man is the new Azrael.

Of course, in the fallout from Battle for the Cowl, it's Dick Grayson who bears the mantle, not a borderline psychotic. (The borderline psychotic is Robin this time around.) And while Dick is clearly the most qualified, (although I agree with those who think Morrison's own stories paint Tim Drake as the better detective), he's still a stand-in for the real thing. Batman is Bruce Wayne, and when he inevitably returns, I have no doubt this will be reaffirmed.

So, while it's easy to write off Knightfall as a trashy gimmick from the 90's, (and the execution on the story is certainly lacking in enough places to reinforce this impressions), we shouldn't lose sight of the ambitious idea at the core of it all. It was RIP before RIP was cool.