Warning: The next accommodates spoilers from Nightwing #98, on sale now from DC Comics.
Nightwing has not too long ago taken many turns that are particularly referential to his relationship with the Bat-Household, from displaying his tactical abilities to calling on the opposite members of his adoptive household for assist in his closing battle in opposition to Blockbuster. As he continues to develop into extra of a hero in his personal proper and turn out to be much less of a Batman offshoot, Nightwing has gone by means of lots of the similar trials and tribulations as his extra dour father determine. In Nightwing #98 (by Tom Taylor, Daniele Di Nicuolo, Adriano Lucas, and Wes Abbott), the hero comes up in opposition to yet one more problem previously confronted by Bruce Wayne, a fifth-dimensional imp who calls himself Nite-Mite in a lot the identical method as Batman’s personal Bat-Mite.
Although the difficulty is primarily a lighthearted one, Nite-Mite briefly summons a big portion of the DC Universe to witness a marriage he makes an attempt to placed on, with Batman receiving particular consideration. The imp states that Nightwing is much extra enjoyable than Batman, who’s in a relentless state of self-denial, not permitting himself “love, happiness [or] carbs.” Although largely a joke like the remainder of the difficulty, it does shine an essential mild onto Batman and his overwhelming self-denial, taking the Dark Knight’s self-denial to yet one more new stage of darkness. This paints the character’s previous actions even additional as ones of self-denial and self-hatred, spanning a long time and serving to to make a few of his characterizations prior to now clearer.
Batman is in a Perpetual State of Self-Denial
Plenty of Batman’s latest outings have targeted much less on the character as a darkish bringer of justice and extra on the previous billionaire who’s attempting to grapple together with his actuality by means of his violent model of heroism. This has been taken to activity in a lot media, together with Harley Quinn’s third season. On this, Harley determines that Batman wants a therapist and volunteers to behave as one. This consists of her realizing that her universe’s Batman has a reverse-repressed reminiscence of his guardian’s dying, which means that almost each second of his life is spent with him reliving their taking pictures. This handled a deep-seated trauma, however there are a lot of parts of Batman that take care of different features of his psychological well being.
The Dark Knight is famously obsessed together with his mission of justice and vengeance, and this fixation is entrance and heart with a number of of his live-action diversifications, together with 2022’s The Batman and 2016’s Batman v Superman: Daybreak of Justice. The Killing Joke, a basic Batman story by Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, Richard Starkings, John Higgins, and Dennis O’Neil, went to nice lengths to ascertain that Batman and the Joker are extraordinarily related and that one unhealthy day might drive the Dark Knight to do horrible issues.
Nite-Mite Pokes Enjoyable at Batman’s Bleak Worldview
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Nite-Mite takes Batman’s Bleak worldview and obsession with self-denial and places it entrance and heart, mentioning that the Caped Crusader has denied himself love (within the type of his shared affection with Catwoman and Talia Al-Ghul), happiness (in his general demeanor) and even carbs, one thing that it is implied that even a lithe, gymnastic hero like Nightwing enjoys. Bruce’s obsession with justice is a lot in order that he was irritated on the interruption of his investigation by Nite-MIte, a massively highly effective being that was clearly obsessed together with his son.
In the end, Batman’s self-denial is well-documented and joked about inside DC’s personal properties. Nevertheless, Nite-Mite perceiving it as one of many only a few character features of Batman implies that it goes even deeper than many DC heroes acknowledge. As Batman’s psychological well being continues to be toyed with in his personal titles and referenced in others, followers are little doubt wanting to see simply what is going to come of the Dark Knight’s intrepid-yet-fragile psychological state.