Face Eating In Context or Why Gotham Using Flamingo Is Idiotic
SPOILERS for Grant Morrison's Batman
Flamingo is a relatively simple character, a psychotic madman who is also one of the greatest assassins in the world who just so happens to eat people's faces. He has a striking look, a pink matador meets Purple Rain, bull-whip in hand and a domino mask for flair. He has no convoluted history or impossible powers that would make adapting him questionable. So why is Gotham's upcoming use of Flamingo so mind-numbingly idiotic? Context, of course.
We'll set the stage a bit here: Bruce Wayne is "dead" and Dick Grayson is now Batman(with Bruce's son, Damian, as his Robin) and with this new Batman comes new villains, most notably Professor Pyg. Meanwhile Jason Todd has returned and has assumed the identity of The Red Hood who, along with his new sidekick, Scarlet, has proclaimed that "The Fight Against Crime Has Grown Up", choosing to just kill the criminals they come across. On the periphery of all this you have mysterious characters like El Penitente and Oberon Sexton.
So into this comes Flamingo, the cackling(he doesn't speak), absurdly violent, and completely ridiculous eater of faces. The eating faces bit might just seem like a grisly touch that serves no purpose but it is actually the whole point of him. The storyline he is in is one of faces/masks, everyone is wearing someone else. Dick Grayson is wearing Batman's mask, Professor Pyg wears a pig mask and his main enterprise is in kidnapping people, psychotropicly brainwashing them and grafting onto their faces a hideous doll's visage, El Penitente's and Oberon Sexton's identities are shrouded, Jason Todd is wearing the Red Hood's mask(well, dome), and Scarlet is one of Pyg's victims and has her face disfigured.
The story has Batman and Robin coming into conflict with The Red Hood and Scarlet, naturally, and here is where Flamingo comes in: When "The Fight Against Crime Grows Up", as The Red Hood proclaims, crime follows suit with Flamingo.
Flamingo is the type of outlandish character that would have to exist to battle a character like The Red Hood, and like The Red Hood himself his appearance and moniker don't really convey anything about the character. If The Red Hood is "Batman but he dual wields pistols" then Flamingo is the Joker taken to the appropriate extreme, a flamboyant, perpetually laughing, super assassin cannibal.
Flamingo, above all else, is a criticism. And Gotham, whatever merits it may or may not have, has no way of using this character in any way even approaching accurately.
Gotham is a show that is in love with everything that Flamingo is a criticism of.
p.s. It should be mentioned that Flamingo first appeared years earlier in Batman #666 which saw a dystopian future where Damian was a super-lethal Batman who takes out Flamingo with a single Batarang. In his first appearance he was already played out.
p.p.s. And since we won't get anything resembling this:
