I am the night

As a child I was an avid comic reader. I had quite an extensive collection of Mickey Maus magazines, Fix und Foxi, Yps, Tim und Struppi (Tin Tin), Asterix und Obelix and the likes. However, I never got into any sort of superhero comics, other than the occasional one offs I purchased here and there. Quite frankly to me they had too much of an ‘American’ feel to them – over the top, aggressive, often outright violent, bloody, gory. When it came to superheros I stuck with the more kid friendly TV shows such as Adam West‘s type of Batman (a show I quite enjoyed, mostly due to the comic slapstick). But pop culture has a way of taking hold in one’s mind and certain characters started to stick for one reason or another even though I can’t point to a specific cause. And these days I find I do have three somewhat favorite superhero characters: Superman, Batman and Wolverine – admittedly more out of curiosity than admiration. From a psychological perspective I would categorize them as different aspects of human nature, certain virtues and strengths as well as weaknesses and negative aspects that are part of human nature. Ideology wise I divide them into The Light of Day, Superman, The Mysterious Night, Batman, and The Twilight, Wolverine. Asked to pick one particular character I can relate to I’d chose Batman, and certainly not the Adam West version.

The most unique thing about using our imagination is that we can put anything around us into a new context. We can imagine things we’ve never seen and just barely heard of, things that made it into our subconsciousness and stuck there for ages surfacing suddenly triggered by external experiences or emotions. Coming back to the aforementioned characters and specifically Batman I personally always imagined him as a Sherlock Holmes type of character though with a darker personality and a better sense for the dramatic. Beyond that Batman to me also had a certain Zorro flair to him, a similar sense of justice and righteousness – never mind the mask and cape (I used to watch an old b/w Zorro show as a kid, enjoyed it tremendously as well). Without ever really picking up any comics I ultimately began to imagine him more of a, well, Dark Knight, a beacon of justice shimmering rather than shining in the night. It is that which bothers us, that which frightens and often makes us feel hopeless inside that also drives us, motivates us to go beyond, grow stronger, be more determined and in the end feel less out of control. If we can deflect fear and throw it right back at the source we can gain control of our own flawed emotions, get a grip on our body and mental state and use it to benefit us and others. The darkness is part of each of us no matter how good and nice we are. It is just a question of do we control it or do we allow it to control us? And if we control it, what are we using it for? And that is where I see my own personal fascination with the Batman character coming from, his ability to move right along the shadows without being consumed by them but rather using them to strike at darkness itself, ridding night of its demons.

I still don’t read a lot of ‘American’ comics, for the same reasons mentioned at the beginning. But I am acquiring a carefully selected collection of Batman and similar graphic novels. There are some interesting lessons that can be derived from the quality ones.

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