Friday, December 31, 2010

Conspiratorial

[Note: This interview was taped before the Christmas interview, but my transcription time being limited, I posted the time-sensitive one first- so pardon any detriment to timeliness]

B: I’ve been thinking about what you’ve said, both on our record and off, and I think you’re right. I’ve been focusing too much on policy and politics, and not being a politician, neither is my forte- or very insightful.

But I do have a unique place in at least two worlds our readers may not have a full grasp on, the spandex set and as a highly placed member of the business community. So what I’d like to do, then, is share my unique experiences, and how I feel they bear on what we’re talking about. In the spirit of that, you’ve at least given me the broad strokes of the conversation topics, so I can be somewhat prepared.

DI: Yep. Nice sum up and disclosure- though I can’t help but feel, since we’re talking about disclosure today, that you might have been inspired. But I want to discuss with you Wikileaks, though given that you’ve spent about a third of your life behind a mask, I have an inkling of where you fall on the issue of secrecy.

B: I think a few years ago, you might have been right. There was a time in my life when secrecy was everything to me. I kept my life compartmentalized; even the people who knew I was Batman didn’t know everything.

But I also don’t knee-jerk. I wouldn’t have lived long if I simply categorized the Joker as another sociopath and tried to walk up and punch him in the face. I’ve seen supposed journalists, your peers, refer to Julian Assange as an anarchist, and its possible somewhere in the breadth of his writings that he’s asserted such, but he doesn’t to my admittedly limited reading strike me as a let it burn kind of person. He’s not against government, he’s against the conspiratorial nature of current governments.

DI: And you agree with his assessment?

B: In the broad strokes it’s virtually impossible not to. I’ll get you a link for my references, but a full fifth of the defense budget is classified. That means if these black operations were all done concurrently, we wouldn’t know what the military was doing for ten weeks out of the year. And that’s expenditures. I don’t think it harms our military readiness for anyone to know what we spent on a bomber, or even the rough estimates of what we spend on infrastructure. Given that our military is conducting policy in our names, and on our dimes, I’d balk at the idea of not knowing about a fifth of their operations- at least after the fact- and this is just budgets we’re talking about.

At the very least, I think earlier declassification dates should exist; sensitive information like details of spending on sensitive research and development can have its classification renewed, but say, the procurement budget from 2006 wouldn’t be. That would let the American people know what that 16.6 billion dollars in the budget bought them, and whether or not they thought the money was well spent.

During the mid-nineties, the US classified about 150,000 documents annually. We’ve been cutting back from a high in 2004 of 350,000 documents, but we’re still well above the 90s level, and even that I would say is probably too high.

And in the broad strokes, that’s where I agree with Assange: that the people have a right, and even a necessity to know what’s going on. And that’s why the comparison to my time as Batman isn’t apt, either; I wasn’t spending anyone else’s money, I wasn’t risking anyone else’s lives or interests. I was making decisions, backed by people who agreed enough with me to put their eggs in my basket, so to speak.

Or if you prefer, I think Assange is worried about the same interests that Eisenhower warned against in his famous speech when he said: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

And I think it was because Eisenhower was a man of war, as well as being a sign of his times, that he saw the military aspect of business as the main threat to liberty, but I don’t think he was unmindful of the creep of other economic interests in the corridors of power. I think Assange, again, at least in the broad strokes, just wants to create the right atmosphere for that “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to exist.

And I think on the opposite side the reaction by some politicians has been downright scary: speaking publicly about assassination and execution. The man could pretty fairly be described as a journalist- and that’s the first time I can remember US public figures calling for the death of journalists. But if you’re looking for a comparable experience I’ve had, and not just my opinions on it, I’d point to Luthor and his political ambitions.

DI: You did ideological battle with Lex Luthor during his term as President.

B: Not just ideological. No.

He unleashed a 7.6 earthquake on Gotham City. He lobbied the government, specifically FEMA, to declare the city a “no man’s land,” cut off from federal authority and assistance. The city descended into violent chaos, and apparently, it was all part of some long-con he had planned, to buy up real estate and corporations based in the city at pennies on the dollar. He perpetrated mass murder through technology to make a quick buck.

He tried to destroy me- not Batman, but Bruce Wayne- and very nearly succeeded. After he became President, he killed someone I cared about, and framed me for it. I briefly considered ‘killing’ Bruce Wayne and just becoming Batman full time.

And we waged economic war, pitting his vast empire against mine, at the conclusion of which I took control of all of his companies.

DI: It’s funny. Superman being from Metropolis, having a long, personal history with Luthor, you’d expect him to hate the man, but he didn’t. He was saddened, by what I think he saw as the loss of all the good Luthor could have potentially done. You, on the other hand, are a few seconds away from popping that throbbing vein in your forehead.

B: If Luthor shot Lois, and Maggie Sawyer, Clark might have the reasons I do.

DI: Uh…

B: Luthor hired David Cain to kill Vesper Fairchild, a reporter I’d been seeing- a woman I think I loved. And while he might not have shot Commissioner [James] Gordon’s wife himself, he all but put [Sarah] Essen in that room with the Joker.

DI: But then shouldn’t the blame for her murder fall to the Joker?

B: It does, and it doesn’t. If you put a rattlesnake in bed with an infant, do you blame the snake?

DI: I suppose not- or at least, there’s more to it than just the snake.

B: Exactly. But my overarching point isn’t just that Luthor’s corporation functioned easily as a criminal organization, but that it fit seamlessly in with the government of the United States. There wasn’t even a learning curve for him. Corporate interests are so embedded in the mindset of Washington that what’s good for business is often seen as what’s good for the country.

There is a little truth to that idea. Business creates jobs, which create prosperity for individuals. But when businesses, as they have been doing at least on the macroeconomic level for thirty years now, continue to siphon wealth from the lower classes, without sharing any of the increased productivity of the American people with those on whose back that productivity was gained- that’s when the idea that what’s good for business is good for the country becomes hollow.

DI: It sounds like Luthor shook your trust in government.

B: Trust, yes.

Most people assume their political leaders are criminals, morally if not technically. But I knew it. I could all but prove Luthor murdered Vesper… David Cain admitted as much to me. And all the while his poll numbers remained high.

I don’t expect the government to do what’s right just because it’s right- I don’t think I was ever that naïve. But I still think there’s a place for government. After all, Luthor didn’t become corrupt the day he was sworn in- he was corrupt long before. The only thing that changed was the scale of his corruption.

Government is like any organization. It has to be held accountable. If we want our government to do what’s right, if we want them to pursue our best interests, as a nation, rather than the best interests only of those with money and influence, we have to pay attention, and make noise when people do wrong.

DI: But you were a vigilante- the least kind of accountable.

B: I was. And maybe in that I was wrong. But I also don’t think I’d have been able to have the same impact working within the system, either. There are limits to what the system can do. So if you’re asking do I advocate non-governmental organizations, including businesses, to work towards the common good? Absolutely. That’s why I run a philanthropic organization that’s bigger than most companies. But I also believe the everyone has to work together. I worked with the police, and as far as possible I obeyed the rules of law.

The government, at least at the conceptual level, is we the people. We guide and shape our collective destiny. At its best, it gives us all an environment in which to thrive and prosper. The dangers of government are that it stops listening to us, that it begins to serve other masters, or worst of all, itself. The purpose of Wikileaks, then, is to make it harder to serve secretive agendas, and increases the cost of doing clandestine business. The more difficult it is to use government as a weapon, the less frequently it can happen.

I’m still not entirely sure Assange’s is the right approach. It’s a risky strategy, and I can see how it could have negative consequences. But ultimately he seems to want a government that can’t have its own priorities- that has to do the people’s work. And that at least is an idea I can get behind.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

For The Man Who Has Everything

DI: Okay, you brood too much.

B: So I’ve been told.

B: Well, to hopefully get you to stop brooding, I want you to tell me about your best Christmas.

B: No. Because there’s three that are important to me, for varying reasons, and at different times. So depending on what I’m missing in my life at that moment, each is special.

DI: Okay- I will not look in the mouth of this gifted horse.

B: The first Christmas I’d like to talk about happened when I was very young, before I’d even started school. My father said it had been a rough year at his practice, and an even rougher year for the family’s companies, that we’d have no money for Christmas presents. And at first I was devastated. A child that age, on Christmas, with no gifts. But my dad said he had something that was almost as good. “Cookies?” I asked. He shook his head. “Candy?”

“We’re going to help people,” he said. And I thought he’d lost his mind. But we took the family car down to a homeless shelter. Well, technically my father dropped my mother and I off, then walked across the street to a free clinic operated by dad’s colleague, Leslie Thompkins, that dad funded. And at first I was really pouty, and bratty, and I didn’t want to cut carrots or stir the stew, but my mother was a gentle woman, and she had a way about her, that even when I didn’t want to behave, I couldn’t cause her too much trouble, either.

And what I started to see, and realize, as I dished out the kind of questionable looking food, was just how grateful people were. They thanked me for every ladleful I spooned out, and wished me a merry Christmas. And when children ate their fill, and wanted seconds, their parents stopped them, so there would be enough for everyone, and instead fed their children from their own plates.

Spending time with people who had so little, but were so willing to share what they had, and to sacrifice, even as a small child I felt foolish for my selfishness. And I remember when it looked like we might run out of food demanding, rather self-righteously, that my mother buy more. I insisted she must have some money, as, “I’m owed an allowance.” Sure enough, she produced some bills, and sent Alfred and I to the store.

A little while later, I recognized my father beneath a fake white beard in a red suit handing out gifts to children at the shelter. I was still kid enough that everything in me wanted to ask him for one of the presents, but I’d learned a lot of humility that day, and I could see that Santa’s sack couldn’t have enough presents for everyone.

But, at the end of the day, presents were waiting for us back at our home. “It must have been Santa,” my father said, smiling beneath his moustache. I think I knew the truth, even then. But it started a tradition for us. Every year, on Christmas day, we worked with the poor, cooking meals, handing out presents. My father was a philanthropist, spending money all year long to help people, but giving, really giving back in person, it was different.

And it continued until the year my parents died. It was winter, snowing, I remember that. A lot of time had passed without me even knowing it. I didn’t even realize it was near Christmas, even though Alfred had put up a tree, until he shook me one morning and said, “Master Bruce, it’s Christmas, and they’re expecting us at the shelter.” I might have spent the rest of my life in that haze if it weren’t for Alfred. But getting back out into the world like that, seeing people, all the people who still needed help, whose lives hadn’t stopped with my parents’. That’s when I decided I needed to continue on my father’s work, and try and make sure no one ever lost their parents the way I lost mine.

DI: … You were a brat.

B: I was spoiled, but I like to think I learned. Maybe.

But I remember one Christmas, Clark, Diana and I decided to exchange gifts. I suspect it was Clark’s idea, believing as he did that I lacked companionship, and that Diana, being newly away from her sisters, so we could all use the company.

I brought Clark a new species of rose called the Krypton. Diana brought a crystal replica of a Kryptonian city fashioned by Themiscyra’s finest gem smiths. We met at his Fortress of Solitude. Diana was flying that invisible jet of hers, and Robin and I raced her in one of my batplanes. And won.

But inside the Fortress, Clark was catatonic. Attached to his chest was a writhing purple-hued thing, like a sea anemone. Are you at all familiar with Mongul?

DI: Er… big dude? Coast City…

B: Yeah. Large alien. Tough as hell. He was responsible for the destruction of Coast City, killing seven million people. On his worst day he was as powerful as Clark. And he was there.

I’ve never enjoyed feeling helpless, but against him, I was. And I was too much a fool to admit it. I reached for my utility belt, for the strongest explosives I carried. I would have thrown it at him, and probably been crushed into a paste by the first retaliatory punch he threw, but Robin grabbed my arm, and Diana launched herself at him.

She knew she was no match for Mongul, but with a single glance she told me that I had to get that thing off Clark or were all dead.

At first I tried everything I had with me, plastique, acids, even a flesh-eating bacterium, but the Black Mercy, as we came to learn it was called, healed too rapidly. Diana was losing her fight with Mongul. The sounds of bone on flesh are disturbing, but the two of them were so strong, so powerful, that while they’re the same sounds, they’re so much louder. I think Clark could hear them, even in the dream world he was in. And his eyes flicked open.

The Black Mercy gives a person their heart’s desire. Just that year Clark had found out about his Kryptonian parents, so more than anything he wanted to be back with them, to live out his life on Krypton. He was married in this dream, had a son. But the sounds of Diana’s pain, of violence, polluted his fantasy world. The planetary cataclysm that hadn’t destroyed Krypton began anew, he started fighting with his wife, and father. Even his people became embroiled in a war.

I don’t know how successful I was, but I talked to him, tried to reason him towards understanding where and how he was trapped, and how to break free. But I know, somehow, he did, and I’ll never forget the cry he let out as he tore the Black Mercy off his chest. Then he was gone.

When he wanted to be, when he needed to be, Clark could move faster than the human eye could perceive. In an instant he set upon Mongul. The violence of that first blow sent a shockwave through the Fortress that knocked me off my feet.

Unfortunately, I fell into the grip of the Black Mercy. And suddenly, I was there, the night my parents died. Every hair on my body stood up; I knew the moment so well, knew that it was seconds before my parents would die. Joe Chill was holding a gun, pointed at my parents, and then- my father slugged him, right across the jaw. Chill dropped the gun, but he gave him another anyway. He hit him, again and again, until Chill collapsed. It was the kind of savage, bloodless victory that happens in adventure movies and I thrilled at it.

And a whole, happy life flashed before my eyes, watching my parents grow old, have another son. They attended my graduation, and eventually, my wedding… and the birth of my son.

DI: Wait, who was the wife and mother?

B: Batwoman.

DI: But isn’t Batwoman a lesbian?

B: I didn’t know that at the time. And, you didn’t just out her, did you?

DI: I think she was pretty well outed when Us Weekly snapped pictures of her making out with the Question in the back of her car while they were on a stakeout.

B: My slightly convoluted fantasy of the moment aside, Robin talked me out of it, just as I’d done with Clark. As I emerged from the dream, I found myself back in that moment, before my parents’ murder, and as I pulled the Mercy loose, I had to watch, in slow motion, as the bullets tore through them.

And I watched as my dad, riddled with holes, rolled mom over and started to perform CPR, watched helplessly as Chill slunk up behind him, put the revolver to my dad’s head. He felt it there, I knew it, I saw it in his eyes, but he couldn’t stop trying to keep mom alive- until another bullet killed him. I don’t know if that ever happened, or if the Mercy elaborated it into the memory, but I froze there a moment, unable to look away, unable to think of anything but their death as it happened again before my eyes.

And by the time I’d come to, Clark and Diana were fighting Mongul in the armory. I ran there as fast as I could. I understood Clark’s rage, and I took up a pair of gauntlets. I hopped onto Mongul’s back and just started pummeling him. I nearly broke both my hands on his face. I was crying-

DI: Ooh, like that scene in A Christmas Story when Ralphie beats the crap out of Scott Farkus.

B: Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I’ve never been more conflicted in my entire life. I saw my life as it could have been, and got to be with my parents again. But removing the Mercy from my chest killed them again- in my mind, if only for a moment, I murdered my own parents to be free. The Black Mercy’s vision was a gift, both horrible and beautiful.

Of course, this was Mongul, so no matter how hard I hit him, even in those Kryptonian gloves, he laughed it off. Mongul may have killed us all, except Robin managed to fling the Mercy onto him. He stopped moving, and a smile crept over his face as he dreamed of interplanetary genocide.

DI: That’s… creepy.

B: After that we sat down to dinner, and exchanged gifts.

DI: Just out of curiosity, what did you get for Wonder Woman?

B: I donated a substantial amount of money to a charity fund for her. She’s proven to be an excellent philanthropist.

DI: So you gave her money to give to other people? That’s…

B: The only thing Diana could ever want. Her stipend, as ambassador from the Amazons, more than covers her needs. But the one thing she can never have enough of us helping people. It’s the reason we were easy friends, and I think the most important point of mutual attraction.

DI: That is a story you will one day have to tell.

B: But not today. Today we’re talking about Christmas, and the last is actually last Christmas. This was after I’d finally decided to stop being Batman. I sat down to dinner with Alfred, and my two adopted sons, Dick and Tim. Try as I might, I couldn’t convince Alfred to hire a caterer or even go out to dinner, so he cooked, and when he wasn’t looking we’d try to help, which he said meant dinner took twice as long because he had to redo many, many things.

But sitting down to dinner, with the three of them, it was the first time, I think that we all celebrated Christmas together, though maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, it was the first time I really felt that, since my parents died, my family was complete.

And I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a broken home

DI: Don’t patronize me; you know everything from my instep to my credit score.

B: Okay, your parents divorced, I know that. But not all divorced homes are broken. I didn’t want to presume. But you know the old adage, that you can’t go home again? It’s largely true. But that doesn’t mean you have to be alone, and I wasn’t anymore.

DI: Okay, by my count that’s three and a half Christmases, or maybe two whole ones and then some chunks of other Christmases, but I appreciate you sharing.

B: It’s a time of the year I genuinely enjoy. A chance to spend time with people you care for, and an excuse to make the world a little better. We could use more of those.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Death and Taxes

DI: I’m still trying to find a good balance for these interviews, so I’d like to talk to you about two things, one personal, one political, both inevitable: death and taxes. What do you think of the new compromise reached by the President and the Republican leadership?

B: It’s… not as bad as I expected.

DI: Damnit. I was hoping for a “No, sir, I don’t like it” Ren and Stimpy quote. You know, the horse who tests out cat litter? Don’t stare at me like I’ve just escaped Arkham Asylum. Explain your response a little more fully.

B: Well, I think they do some things right. A temporary extension of the tax cuts, to help stimulate the economy is not a terrible idea- though as Krugman notes the multiplier isn’t great there. The unemployment benefit extension is good- though how they could trade two years of tax cuts for a thirteen week extension is beyond me- someone isn’t very good at math. And they managed a payroll tax holiday, which I had pretty much given up on. Practically speaking, it’s a stealth stimulus, put on the nation’s tab- only this time you won’t hear Republicans screaming about it because it gets them their precious upper-income tax cuts.

DI: You don’t sound particularly enthusiastic- particularly for someone who’s just been told they’re getting millions of extra dollars next year.

B: I’m not. It’s a stimulus, sort of, but it’s not a particularly well designed or implemented one. The unemployment benefits, easily the best part of the package, won’t last long enough to get the job done, and the rest of it is largely money spent that shouldn’t have been. Even the payroll tax holiday isn’t big enough at 2 percent. It could have been 3. It should have been 5, or even the whole 6.2 percent. That’s money the American people would notice- and spend. Median household income is $50,000, so ballpark a week’s wages at $1,000. A 2 percent payroll tax holiday is $20 bucks more a week; 5 percent would have been $50.

DI: Okay, cool, now shut up about politics. We’re on to death: you have AIDS. We’ve mostly been sidetracked for a long time, but I wanted to get that back into the fore. You’re dying. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But sooner than maybe otherwise. Have you read White Noise?

B: Yes. Have you?

DI: I… perused the SparkNotes.

B: It’s not particularly applicable. I don’t really fear death- at least um, I’m not preoccupied with it the way that that novel is, or DeLilo, or Becker, whom the author relies upon heavily.

DI: Because not all of us went to Harvard, or wherever-

B: You ooze journalistic integrity-

DI: could you sum up for us Becker.

B: He’s most famous for The Denial of Death. It was a book theorizing that society is largely based around an attempt to refute our mortality. It’s sort of the polar opposite of the Freudian obsession with procreation, and by extension, the creation of life. Both have some points that they make, and I think both are a useful study in fixations- because I don’t think being too focused on life or death is helpful when there’s work to be done.

DI: But your work, and I’ll include your time in the underpants brigade as well as your philanthropy, isn’t that a way of combating death? I mean, you’ve discussed how your parents died pointlessly in an alley. That’s got to be one of the more brutal confrontations with mortality that exists.

B: That’s true. When I was young, my parents’ death weighed heavily on me. Life was fleeting- and the fragility of it made life at the same time more and less valuable to me. That’s why I was willing to put my own life in danger to protect other people. And at the same time, I think having that purpose gave my own life more value.

DI: And most importantly, you were cheating death.

B: Only slightly. There’s only a handful of times where I’d say I cheated death. Mostly, I studied death, came to know it intimately, and learned how to skirt the edges of its territory without trespassing.

DI: That sounds awfully purple.

B: Maybe. But what I’m getting at is that it isn’t cheating death knowing that an untrained criminal with a gun will panic and fire wildly, that the slightest distractions and misdirection can turn a decent threat into a quivering puddle. I played the percentages, that’s all. There were a few times where, say, a ricochet took an ear off my cowl, instances like that, where the devil may have been due, but cheating, no.

DI: But philosophically. Every life you saved, was a life snatched away from death, added to your tally, added to your mythos. You could be hit by a truck tomorrow- probably the least climactic death possible- and the world would remember you for years.

B: I hope not. I’m leaving my fortune to my sons, Tim and Dick. I’m leaving my costumed legacy in the hands of others, who I think in time are capable of so fully eclipsing my accomplishments that I’ll be lost to time. At least, that’s what I hope.

I’ve fought death, I think you can say that. But I’ve also always known you can’t win. Just this last year, losing Clark, that became that much truer in my eyes. If even Superman can’t escape death, what chance would I have?

But like you said. I’m not dying today. I’m not dying tomorrow. I may not even die from this- there’s a very real possibility that I’ll live long enough for a substantive medical breakthrough, or at least to be killed by something more conventional. Like a clot from any number of old bone breaks dislodging and catching in my brain or heart. Or a plane crash.

I think for me death was always an adversary, from the day my parents died, always on the opposite side of a chess board. And I relished every time I could take away one of his pawns, and I mourned my every failure. But I think I’ve always known that at the end of the game, no matter how well I did, death and I were walking away together.

DI: Do you think in death you’ll be reunited with your parents?

B: I don’t know; I don’t think I think so. But I hope so.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Movies

DI: First off, I want to say holy crap, we've actually been keeping this up regularly. I was beginning to think we didn't have it in us- and by we I mostly mean you, since I did this last year without issue.

But you and I have had this bad habit of focusing, almost myopically, on political stuff. It’s Lex Luthor, really impacting the world kind of stuff, I know, but man, sometimes it’s just the worst combination of depressive and boring. I was talking to Lois the other day- don’t give me that look, I know it’s weird that we keep in touch, but it’s entirely journalistic courtesy, I’m not looking to poach widows- though I suppose I should be flattered you think I could even attempt to compete.

B: Don’t be. You couldn’t.

DI: Harsh. But expected.

Anyway, I was speaking with Lois the other day, deep background kind of thing

B: Doesn’t that mean you’re not supposed to tell me your information is from her?

DI: Well… your bat ears are stupid.

B: Touché.

DI: But she mentioned that you used to tease Clark because, well, your movies did better than his.

B: Yeah, though only because, for whatever reason, it seemed to matter to him. I think it had to do with the odd messiah complex people try to build around him. Clark just wanted to help people, simple as that. He could, so he did. Nothing complex or psychological about it.

DI: So the fact that his planet was destroyed and there was nothing he could do about it, and the fact that as an adult on Earth he had the ability to save his adopted homeworld- nothing Freudian there at all?

B: Perhaps it influenced him, but that was in the background. Losing his planet, losing his parents, when he did, it barely affected him; he was a baby. His parents for most of his life were just the ones living in Kansas. By the time he found out about his birth parents, it was comparable to finding out he’d had grandparents he didn’t remember, who he used to stay with, who held him. I don’t mean to minimize the tragedy- just it’s place in his… psychology isn’t as grand as your framing would have it.

DI: Or, in other words, the death of his parents didn’t have the same kind of impact as yours.

B: Maybe; I know it didn’t have the same impact as losing his adopted father did. Clark absolutely missed and loved his birth parents. But it was an old, healed loss by the time he recognized it was there.

DI: But wasn’t that one of the things you and he bonded over through the years?

B: Not really, for the same reasons I’ve just mentioned. For Clark, his parents were in Kansas. For me, my parents are in the ground. His having a set of dead back-up parents didn’t really square that circle.

Some of it comes from the way he was raised, but honestly, having spent some time with his parents, having seen where their philosophies and his clashed, I can say pretty certainly that it’s just who Clark was. In a better world, he would have spent all that extra energy just helping little old ladies cross the street; in the damaged world we have, populated by the damaged people we have, being Superman was the equivalent.

DI: Damnit, I’m the journalist, I’m supposed to be keeping us on track. We were talking about your movies. So, batarang to your head, who’s the better director, Chris Nolan or Bryan Singer?

B: You know, they’ve both got their talents, their wheelhouses. I think Nolan’s a very solid filmmaker, and that in and of itself is a rare thing. But Singer’s no slouch, either. I think, really, their varied success came from divergent ideas, or maybe converging ideas from different perspectives.

Nolan took me, a normal man without powers, and pretends I’m more powerful than I am to emphasize my humanity. Singer took Clark, a normal man whose powers are godly, and tried to make him more human. I think the problem was in Singer’s initial assessment: that Clark’s abilities somehow made him more “other” than human. I’ve said it before, but Clark was, bar no one I’ve ever met, the most human person I’ve ever known.

I think if Clark had ever met him, he’d probably have recognized that right away. So I guess, the main point of distinction that I’d make is that while both men judged us oddly, Nolan was closer enough to the mark that his version of me was at least a little less disjointed. Singer’s construction of Clark as a messianic deadbeat dad, which I think is mixing your Christ and deic metaphors, was just odd.

DI: Have you had any input into Nolan’s movies?

B: Honestly, I stay the hell away from Chris Nolan. I don’t want a thing to do with his movies.

DI: So you’re not flattered, or whatever.

B: I just don’t want to have a part in them. On the one hand, playing an advisory role, say, would give them greater weight than they deserve. Because I’m not, contrary occasionally to my own musings, that important. There are literally hundreds of people who do what I do. And I might be a little older than most, I may have beaten most of them to the punch, but I don’t feel like I’m any more extraordinary or deserving than they are.

DI: But don’t you think telling a good story could help humanize them? Maybe get people to recognize and better appreciate the sacrifices that people have given for the greater good?

B: If I thought, for an instant, that a movie about me was going to do that, sure. But I think that idea is a contradiction in terms. A movie about me, or about Batman, misses the point. A movie about the League, I think, would be closer to telling a story, true or otherwise, about the people who really keep the world safe, and how collectively they’re able to accomplish far more than a man in black skulking in an alley alone.

DI: I get, from you and from Clark, the same kind of reverence for your fellow Leaguers as most people have for military service people.

B: They’re absolutely comparable. We come to these lifestyles from a lot of divergent paths, but the bottom line is that each and every one of us is willing to put ourselves between harm and innocent people. I can’t begin to describe how noble I consider those who have served with the League to be.

And not to speak ill of the dead, but the less like Superman they were, the more I respect them. Clark could stand in front of a bullet train without fear, but a good portion of our members are as human as you or I. They’re exceptionally well trained, skilled, and smart- but mortal. They accept mortal peril on a daily basis. They absolutely deserve the same kind of respect soldiers deserve.