Knight Has Fallen: Batman’s Six Biggest Defeats

Any disciple of the martial arts will let you know that whereas nice warriors can win many battles, they don’t grow to be nice till they know how one can lose. Figuring out the value of failure, and how one can recuperate when failure comes for you, is as elementary to victory as successful itself, particularly in an extended marketing campaign. And no marketing campaign is longer, none extra bold, than the objectives of the Darkish Knight, who battles each evening to eradicate injustice.

Some contemplate Batman essentially the most expert fighter within the DC Universe. They’re nearly appropriate, give or take just a few rivals. However even when he’s not, it’s his capability to recuperate from loss which ranks him among the many biggest. On the events Batman does lose a battle, it’s by such an order of magnitude that any affordable particular person would collapse underneath the burden of the loss. However Batman wears every defeat he suffers like a badge, rising stronger and extra decided every time, and changing into a higher hero from that tragedy. Final week, forward of Batman Day, we celebrated the Darkish Knight’s biggest victories. This week, we acknowledge the true measure of his heroism, by celebrating his biggest defeats.

Batman vs. Bane

The web page everybody remembers from Batman: Knightfall is Bane “breaking the Bat” over his knee. However Bane beat Batman by working smarter, not more durable. Bane was in a position to defeat the Darkish Knight bodily by first exhausting him spiritually (and, nicely, additionally bodily). He did this by creating the circumstances that pressured Batman to first spend all evening rounding up his biggest foes after a mass Arkham breakout, solely to then need to face this new masked enemy ready for him on the finish of the evening. Via his defeat at Bane’s palms, Batman discovered that victory doesn’t all the time come by martial talent, however cautious endurance and planning to strike when your foe is weakest.

Batman vs. Prometheus

The parable of the “Bat-God”—a nickname usually utilized to the archetype of the all-knowing, always-prepared Batman able to beating any foe—started in earnest with Grant Morrison’s tenure on JLA. To create their new Olympus of Tremendous-Gods, Morrison bestowed Batman with deific ranges of crafty and technique for a worthy place among the many likes of Superman and the Flash. However simply as Morrison introduced Batman to higher heights of superhuman capability than ever earlier than, the enemies that this mythic JLA confronted grew simply as giant in proportion. The arrival of Prometheus, a person who sought to rid the world of heroes, meant that Batman needed to cope with a foe simply as ready to take out every member of the Justice League as Batman himself was in his personal worst-case situations. For as soon as in his life, Batman was fully unprepared the primary time Prometheus beamed himself as much as the Justice League satellite tv for pc. In his defeat, Batman discovered the lesson that as you develop in energy, so do the obstacles you face.

Batman vs. Deacon Blackfire

The audacity of Batman’s defeat in opposition to Deacon Blackfire, a person who ran a cult within the sewers beneath Gotham Metropolis, is that it doesn’t really feel like a battle that Batman ought to have misplaced. Bringing down a vainglorious, deluded and self-styled messiah in Gotham’s underbelly is the kind of factor Batman does on a typical evening earlier than he will get to no matter the true menace occurs to be. However as a lot as Batman professes to be a logo, he actually can also be only a man. And on the evening poor Jason Todd, nonetheless new to his function as Robin, discovered Batman trapped by Blackfire’s machinations in a private hell of his personal making, the perfect imaginative and prescient he as soon as had of his mentor was tainted without end. Batman’s loss to Deacon Blackfire in Batman: The Cult is a lesson to all of us that regardless of how sure the percentages could appear, failure is all the time a risk.

Batman vs. Surprise Girl

The Hiketeia, Batman’s first true conflict with Surprise Girl, was a battle of beliefs as a lot as a battle of energy and talent—the distinction between justice, as represented by Batman, and morality, as represented by that boot mounted on Batman’s face. You’ll be able to take a guess which aspect received. Batman misplaced to Diana that evening, in his pursuit of a younger legal underneath Surprise Girl’s sworn safety, and it wound up being exactly what a hard-headed Darkish Knight wanted to take heed to a perspective exterior his personal. Batman’s defeat at Surprise Girl’s heel proved to him that even whenever you stand for proper, you might not all the time be in the fitting.

Batman vs. Batman

Batman: Final Knight on Earth, the epic Black Label finale to the Batman story instructed by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo all through the New 52 period, noticed the Darkish Knight trudging by a post-apocalyptic wasteland to topple its tyrant warlord, the mysterious Omega. What Batman by no means suspected, although, was that he was really a clone implanted with Bruce Wayne’s reminiscences—and the true, authentic Batman had been Omega himself, warped right into a fascist management freak by the darkest of circumstances. However one factor we all know for certain about Batman is that he’s all the time ready to defeat anybody…even himself. The truth is, this was the very purpose why the cloned Batman program was arrange—in case the true Batman ever misplaced his manner. Within the Darkish Knight’s thoughts, the one drive able to defeating a damaged Batman is an unbroken one.

Batman vs. Girl Shiva

That brings us, lastly, to Girl Shiva. Batman’s fast and easy defeat at Girl Shiva’s lethal palms in Detective Comics #952 was no mere trick. Batman suffered no exhaustion, no shock. The one time Batman has ever fought Shiva pretty, he was on the very high of his recreation. No excuses, no handicaps. And but, he misplaced. How? How may the Darkish Knight, the image of victory in opposition to unattainable odds, lose in a battle in opposition to a mere mortal lady with no supernatural, metaphysical, or technological benefits?

The reply is barely this: Girl Shiva is healthier. As a result of the lesson of Girl Shiva is that even when you’re Batman, there’s all the time somebody higher on the market. There’s all the time a much bigger, increased mountain to climb, one other objective to try for. And one other benchmark to acknowledge your personal limitations. Girl Shiva exists to show that even males like Batman are nonetheless solely simply males. And regardless of how far you’ve come in your journey to changing into the best you could be, you all the time have miles additional to go.

However don’t fear, Batman followers. If Batman ever actually needed to defeat Girl Shiva, he can nonetheless be the right strategist and love so nicely. He has a plan for that too.

That plan’s title simply occurs to be Cassandra Cain.
 

Alex Jaffe is the creator of our month-to-month “Ask the Query” column and writes about TV, films, comics and superhero historical past for DCComics.com. Observe him on Twitter at @AlexJaffe and discover him within the DC Neighborhood as HubCityQuestion.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this characteristic are solely these of Alex Jaffe and don’t essentially mirror these of DC Leisure or Warner Bros.