I love Ghost-maker. I hate Batman: the Knight. (An analysis, cont’d)
I posted Part Two of this manifesto as a reblog to my original post, and was advised to separate each segment out for higher visibility. Upon further reflection, I agree that that would make the most sense. If I keep writing essays upon essays, the least I can do is not force people to scroll through all of them at once just to read a new update.
Now…
Let’s get nuts.
Part Three: You’re Insane!
Minhkhoa “Ghost-maker” Khan was introduced as a nuanced and generally positive-leaning representation of a person who does not experience empathy. Despite killing people as he deems necessary, he is not depicted as bloodthirsty or sadistic. To the contrary, he strives to leave a positive impact on the world, and is thoroughly invested in improving human life to the definitive best of his ability. In Batman Annual 2021, this is how Bruce first confronts the idea of Khoa’s psychopathy rendering his motivations “uncaring”:
People being helped is the metric of success in stopping crime. If the Ghost-maker is “the world’s greatest crime-fighter,” it is because he is catching as many killers/predators/corrupt leaders, rescuing as many victims, and encouraging as much lasting systematic change as he possibly can.
Here is how he lays out his diagnosis and his goal to Harley in Batman #109:
Khoa wants to fix the world. And not in a warped, supervillain-y way. If that was the case, Bruce would not trust him to roam free, much less to operate alongside him in Gotham, and eventually become the leader of Batman Inc. I’m not going to delve too much into Brisson’s take on Khoa (despite me finding it entirely in-character), but this fact is repeatedly brought up in Batman Annual 2022 and Batman Incorporated, by Bruce and between members of the team:
Batman and Ghost-maker genuinely share the same values, even when they practice different methodology. From the backer of Batman #110:
In a strictly emotional sense, Khoa does not “care” about other people. But life is valuable to him. Like Bruce, he wants to minimize death— it just so happens that doing so on an exclusively logical/mathematical basis and not an ethical one requires killing perpetrators who will continue murdering innocents if left alive. Khoa does not remotely treat death as the one solution to stopping criminals. This is Barbara’s summary of his initial crime-fighting spree in Gotham, from Batman #104:
Khoa is not evil. He’s a crime-fighting vigilante - someone who works outside the law, just like Batman does - whose primary concern is efficiency. Even then, though, he shows a willingness to allow people second chances, long before he agrees to follow Bruce’s rule.
This, from the backer of Batman #108, is my absolute favorite example:
Khoa being conceived as a “psychopath” was never about sneaking a deranged murderer into Batman’s group of trusted allies. It was to provide a point of comparison to accentuate the traits that are often overshadowed/overlooked in Batman’s character. People love to call Batman unemotional; I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. With Ghost-maker, Tynion introduced a rival whose whole critique of Bruce is that he is too emotional, serving to exhibit how Batman would function if he actually didn’t “care”.
Anyway.
Batman: the Knight forgoes all of the aforementioned nuance in favor of tired stereotypes and ableist fear-mongering about the inherent danger and immorality of people who can’t feel empathy. And BtK Bruce is more often than not the uncritical mouthpiece of that very ableism.
Let’s take a moment to revisit issue #5.
In my last segment, I went over the events at the embassy and immediately afterward. But I intentionally left out one crucial piece. It begins with this sequence—
—and concludes with this dRaMaTiC rEvEaL of what Anton apparently did behind that door:
I despise it.
Similarly to the dRaMaTiC rEvEaL at the end of issue #4, the sole purpose of this inclusion is to frame Anton as deceitful and concealing of his true, evil nature: that of an apathetic psychopath.
Yes, Minhkhoa Khan lacks empathy. No, that does not make him a bloodthirsty, indiscriminate murderer! There are no circumstances under which he would do this. The people Anton killed were civilians. They weren’t even threatening him, just doing their jobs as security personnel and trying to herd any loose attendees back to the main event.
If the character in this scene was actually Minhkhoa Khan, he would have simply kept playing the role of the persistent young man who’d been about to suck off an old creep. The whole point of working under Avery was to master deception and espionage; in training, Khoa was always concerned first and foremost with skill. He would take the clear opportunity to continue practicing what he came there to learn, not go “crazy” and leave a mess of bodies that would undoubtedly be reported and linked back to him - if not by the authorities, then certainly by Avery or Bruce.
BtK #6 is when Anton’s psychopathy stops being heavy-handedly teased and finally gets properly revealed. And boy oh boy is Anton’s lack of empathy framed as the reason that he kills people. It’s an impulse that he can’t control. An innate darkness that he has and hides in order to appear normal and good, like our upstanding hero Bruce Wayne.
It would be one thing if it was just Luka who treats Anton’s psychopathy this way. But BtK Bruce takes very, very little convincing to reach the same conclusion that he and Anton are not alike.
Here, Anton goes over his reasoning - Khoa’s actual, unchanging reasoning for pursuing crime-fighting:
It’s very straightforward. It’s pretty much exactly how Khoa explains it in Ghost Stories. But BtK Bruce responds to it - not Anton having killed people, just the simple concept of fighting crime as a psychopath - with this:
You’re insane.
…Whatever, though! Tensions are high, right? There’s a corpse on the ground, Bruce is neck deep in PTSD, and they’re in the middle of combat. Not to mention we’re only halfway through the story— Bruce has plenty of time to come around and at least try to understand Anton’s perspective! He’ll need to, if Batman and Ghost-maker are eventually going to function as allies.
So does he?
Here is a page from BtK #8 that viscerally upsets me:
All of this— ALL of it, is so deeply, horribly wrong. It’s in direct conflict with everything foundational to ghostbat’s relationship, romantic or otherwise.
The persisting conflict between Batman and Ghost-maker is not and cannot be that Khoa is a ~psycho killer~, especially not one that Bruce is afraid will kill him (see my Gobi flashback breakdown). The one whose mind needed to be changed between them wasn’t even Bruce’s— and he certainly wasn’t trying to convince Khoa to magically stop being a psychopath.
The persisting conflict between Batman and Ghost-maker is “would Bruce Wayne, specifically, be better off dedicating his life to protecting Gotham City, or letting go of his past to stop crime on a wider, international and impersonal level?” That is it. That is the entire thing. When they argue about methodology, it is always just about the two of them - about whether Khoa should “let” Bruce go back home to Gotham and only make use of his training there. It isn’t about Khoa being a psychopath. It isn’t even about whether or not killing is essential to successful crime-fighting. It’s about Bruce choosing Gotham over Khoa, and Khoa being unwilling to accept that choice.
That is why Bruce breaks his heart in Argentina. Because it is the only way to force Khoa to accept it— to accept that Bruce is entirely committed to Gotham, and will never, never change his mind. Even if that means never seeing Khoa again.
I want to focus in on Bruce’s big line here, because on the surface, it might seem similar to the sentiments expressed in BtK Bruce’s tirade from issue #10:
…Before I delve into the irreconcilable differences between these two versions of Bruce, I want to say that this page doesn’t just viscerally upset me - it infuriates me. This is the page that first solidified BtK to me as being incompatible with ghostbat canon. I hate it. I loathe it. If I had physically purchased BtK #10 before I read it, I would have burned my copy rather than add it to my comic collection, if only because of this scene.
So. Why do I find it so unbearably bad? What makes it so different from what Bruce says in Batman #105?
Well, first of all, BtK Bruce actually believes the things he’s saying about Anton. It isn’t a means to an end; he’s just putting Anton down and building himself up because he honestly thinks he is the better one between them. He straight up tells us this on the very next page:
There is no room for doubt here. No room for interpretation. This is the undeniable, indisputable text: BtK Bruce thinks that Anton is beneath him, and that he has surpassed any need for him moving forward.
Holy shit.
And I’m supposed to believe that Minhkhoa Khan goes out of the way to save his sorry ass after all that?
No. Absolutely not.
Let’s go back to Argentina.
After Bruce drops his line, Khoa immediately retaliates.
It’s so crucial that Bruce doesn’t defend himself here. He doesn’t dodge or block or counter the punch; he doesn’t fight back at all, because this isn’t a duel. He’s already dealt the killing blow.
“You’re sick. There’s a part of you that’s broken and you’re angry that it’s not broken in me.”
Why is this one line enough to stop Khoa from ever trying to change Bruce’s mind again? Why does he not give any argument against it, but instead simply demand that Bruce take it back?
Because this isn’t Bruce saying Khoa is evil or disgusting for being a psychopath. It’s not him comparing their abilities, disputing Khoa’s right to criticize him based on a difference in skill.
It is, as it has always been, about the two of them being the same. Equals, in everything they do, everything they are. Bruce is not calling Khoa deranged, he is calling him damaged. Something unfixable, faulty from the start. If it were a simple matter of Bruce being the “better” crime-fighter, then Khoa could practice, improve, and come back to prove Bruce wrong. But Bruce is talking about what Khoa can’t fix. He’s saying that they will never be on even ground, because Khoa is fundamentally broken where Bruce is whole.
This is devastating to Khoa. Bruce is someone he’s spent years upon years of his life trying to understand, trying to convince, because all he wanted was for them to stay together. Work together, and change the world. But Bruce is so determined to return to Gotham that he’ll tell the only person he’s ever met who “thinks like him” that they are unequal in a way that can never be changed.
Now compare that to this:
No fun.
That’s all. That is the substanceless substitute that Chip Zdarsky gives me for the dynamic I have never seen anywhere else in Batman media. The dynamic that compels me to no end, that I could expand upon and analyze forever because it is simply that unexplored in canon.
I wish it had been explored in Batman: the Knight. If only Bruce Wayne and Minhkhoa Khan had been in that comic…
In my next segment, I will go into the significance of Ghost-maker’s mask, and the exclusive privileges of seeing his face and especially knowing/using his name.
Until then, let me know what you thought of this piece! As always, thank you for reading. Consider checking out my (and @bellandeano’s) fics if you’re interested in more of our combined take on ghostbat, from back when we were active lol. See you next time 🦇
