DKR across the blogs

Matt Yglesias, as noted in the comments to the last post, posits that DKR is really about "transcending superheroism".   Conversation ensues. 

Bradford Plumer jumps in with an interesting speculation on "the crime economics of superheroes":

Realistically speaking, how much could any one superhero reduce crime in a city? In the Spiderman movie, I believe crime fell something like 57 percent under Spiderman's watch. (Or maybe it rose drastically after he hung up his costume, I don't remember.) Is that plausible?

All this probably depends on what kind of superhero we're talking about, but I don't imagine there's that much fluctuation (could Superman really reduce crime by that much more than Batman?) Anyways, it seems that superheroes are mostly good for stopping big, dastardly, conspiracy-type criminals that ordinary police officers can't stop or won't. So here you have the possibility of an arms race, where villains start coming up with bigger, more elaborate schemes and organizations to wreak havoc. But in actuality, the masterminds would either move to another city or de-centralize their crime syndicate, in the grand tradition Al Qaeda. A relentless superhero might get very far cracking down on gangs and gang violence—though he or she would probably have to couple those efforts with a liberal prevention program (better schools, etc).

What about ordinary crime? A superhero can't be everywhere at once, so he doesn't really change the expected value of committing a crime for most people. And for irrational or spur-of-the-moment crimes, a superhero obviously has no effect. Now if the superhero were particularly brutal, there might be some deterrent value, but then that raises ethical questions. On the other hand, the New York Times the other day noted that, while the city could reduce murders to a relative handful, that left the hardcore cases, the recalcitrants. An adept superhero might prove useful in cracking down on these last few, particularly difficult cases. Who knows.

Interesting question.   The gist of the "Authority"-style answer ot the second question is that superheroes can't, in fact, do much about ordinary crime (except for the Flash, I suppose), and that their efforts to do so are precisely what keep them from addressing the real roots of the problem.   As Warren Ellis's Superman stand-in puts it in Change or Die,

"Their job, as they see it, is to fight the menaces that come to them: the supervillians, the weird things in the dark.  Their job is to return everything to the status quo.  They spend so much time fighting crime that they have little choice…  They try to save the world, but they make no effort to change it.”

Whether that means that superheroes would have to radically transform society to fight ordinary crime is then the question which logically follows.   Which then leads to all the big questions about who watches the Watchmen, and all that.

UPDATE:  Ezra at Pandagon jumps in to the fray:

I think Brad's missing the point of the vigilante, crime-fighting superhero (who I'm separating from the super-powered, spit-at-the-laws-of-physics superhero). While they may not be everywhere at once and may be totally unable to prevent most crimes, the very thought that, somewhere in the city, some guy with powers unknown and a really unpleasant attitude towards lawbreakers was waiting to tie you up in a web or swoop down and kick the crap out of you offers a real deterrent capability. It's the same concept employed by the cops, whose menacing cars and unexpected hiding places make most drivers more conscientious of road laws, despite knowing that the vast majority of those speeding down the freeway and running the lights get away with it just fine. There's just a threatening aura around cops that, when combined with the knowledge that they could be hiding behind the next overpass pillar, makes them a pretty effective deterrent. Now replace the cops with a seemingly invincible freak in a costume who, by dint of obsessive media coverage, becomes omnipresent on newstands and thus in your mindspace, and you've got a deterrent far beyond what a pedestrian, obviously mortal police force could hope to effect.

Which fits in well with Frank Miller's fixation on the media in DKR.   When Batman returns to action, TV is all over it - and this has the secondary effects of triggering the Joker's re-emergence and of inspiring the ex-mutants to imitate his vigilantism as the Sons of Batman.   Superman's deal with the government keeps him out of the media, which means that he can "do good" but can't have a deterrent effect, for better or worse. 

Comments

[Michael]

If we allow for the fact that no amount of deterence will completely eliminate crime as it will occur to some level regardless, then it becomes apparent that in order to fight crime it is necessary to transform society either by altering human nature (not easily possible) or by establishing some sort of big brother police state (Two different examples would be Batman's Gotham and Flash's Keystone in Kingdom Come).

DKR is a story in favor of the police state outcome.

The origin and motivations of the DKR Batman stem from a traumatic event in his past. The death of his parents shows Bruce Wayne that the world is an unjust place (emphasized by his obsession with newspaper articles about deaths/murders that often are a characterstic of his in between years) - in response to this Bruce attempts to right all that is wrong with the world (read: everything) by becoming the Batman. He is an inverse of how Dr. Wolper describes Two Face and the Joker. (Wolper and the talking heads in DKR assume that Batman is the one in charge of his actions while the "villans" are responsive - basically I argue that Batman is responsive to society and society is responsive to the Batman in the form of the villans)

The problem with Batman, however, is how does he go about creating justice in an unjust world.

Superman says at one point, "When the noise started from the parents’ groups and the sub-committee called us in for questioning—you were the one who laughed… that scary laugh of yours… 'Sure we’re criminals,' you said. 'We’ve always been criminals. We have to be criminals.'"

Batman believes himself to be beyond the juristiction of politics. Batman is justice/ethics while Supes represents politics. Superman's irrelevancy in society is demonstrated by Russia's launch of the nuclear warhead (nuclear war - the ultimate symbol of the political process breaking down). What is needed is the primacy of justice/ethics.

Primacy of ethics... Batman/Miller is starting to sound a bit like Ayn Rand.

Batman doesn't start out quite like an Objectivist though. Batman begins basically as an anarcho-capitalist libertarian essentially believing that acting as a vigilante is superior to utilizing governmental force.

However, Batman quickly learns that this is not quite the case. As we see in his battle with the Mutant leader, Batman begins to recognize the importance of leadership, armies and teams - changing from an anarcho-capitalist to a minarchist or even a Randian Objectivist. Batman sees that it is foolish to believe that the government can be done without - a police state is necessary to guarantee justice.

Batman takes the Mutants and shapes them into his own army - his own governing force.

One of the most important aspects of Batman's method of fighting crime has always been fear. Batman alternately "rules Gotham" and "rules the night" striking fear into the hearts of evildoers and all the jazz. This fear of the Batman is utilized as a deterrent. The next logical step from fear is actually the ability to strike anywhere at anytime - essentially the police state Batman creates in Mark Waid's Kingdom Come.

(Yes, I know I'm stretching things here saying that The Sons of Batman will evolve into the army of automatons in Kingdom Come, but esentially the serve the same purpose)

The Sons of Batman are Miller's (and any Libertarian's) ideal form of government. They guarantee things like property rights and civil liberties but have basically no influence over other things - they are limited to seeing that justice is served.

"It begins here - an army - to bring sense to a world plagued by worse than thieves and murderes... This will be a good life... Good enough." Miller leaves Batman with his army, preparing to pursue justice for the sake of justice.