My love for everything Batman started when I was fairly young. Since I was the first child in my family, my parents spoiled me with loads of action figures and toys to play with. My toy bin was generously stuffed with power rangers, star wars action figures, and transformers. But among all of them, I played with my Batman and Robin toys the most. I remember sitting in my parent's room watching the early morning spider-man and batman cartoon shows as my mom got ready for work. Every morning I sat there, playing along with the plot and running around my house with the Bat Mobile, smashing into the walls as I ran up and down the stairs. Sometimes my parent's t.v needed to be hit on the side to stop the color from fading, and I would be the first to volunteer to hit the side with my Batman action figure as though he was kicking it into shape.
To me, Batman is the symbol of what a true superhero is. He resembles a normal human being without extraordinary powers, but used his wealth, intellect, and his dark past to help him be the "superhero" fighting for justice in the crime ridden streets of Gotham. I could look at Batman and see a sense of reality. He was a flawed character, like any human being on this planet. He had a dark past, where he relived his parents death over and over again in his head. This dark past gave him the ability to fight for justice and to deliver peace to the people of Gotham. Of course, some times he would let his emotions and hatred get the best of him which would then lead to complications in his abilities or committing a poor act of judgment. But that is human! This is why I can look at Batman and say "What would Batman do?"
But in all seriousness, what would Batman do? I do not ask this question often anymore, but when I was a kid it certainly came up a few times. Especially when I found myself in preschool drama. I can recall once when I was in preschool, there was a boy who liked to beat people up because he thought it was cool. Of course, I did not want to be beaten up so I usually stayed out of the fights. But one day this boy decided to push one of my friends down and she hit her head pretty hard against the wall. My immediate reaction was to make sure she was okay and to call for our preschool teacher, but I decided to do what "Batman would do" and stand up for the girl. I told him to apologize and we were to tell our preschool teacher what had happened. I remember feeling an adrenaline rush, for I was conquering the fear of standing up to a bully, but the feeling was short lived as a play block was thrown at my face by the boy. Granted, it is not a pretty story, but the kid got in trouble and I knew I had done the right thing and stood up for justice.
Today, I wish I had the imagination I had when I was little and to use superheros to guide me through my challenges. Unfortunately, I feel like it is no longer socially acceptable to go about life asking myself "What would Batman do?" What I can do is use the underlying messages found in these comics to help better myself and my decisions in life.
