A brief overview of Batman and capital-R Religion, or, the post you guys made me write because you kept saying things were canon that weren’t
I’m writing with capital letters in this post, because this is an Issue, and this is a write-up of an Issue. The first rule of this post is, there’s not to be any fucking around on this post; discussion will be conducted respectfully, or it will not be conducted. The second rule of this post is, ordinarily, I am a proponent of ignoring the canon, and doing whatever you want - I think everyone has full license to play with these characters however they want. But because there’s so many people citing specific ideas as canon, that are not canon, or are only canon in specific continuities, that we’re going to play around in the big well of canon. We’re also going to take Word of God input from creators as something of note. Third rule of this post is, I’m talking about Batman. I am talking about Bruce Wayne, and Bruce Wayne only, because this is already a long enough discussion. Fourth rule, you might notice that there are creators in this write-up that you might realize I personally do not like and do not support - unfortunately, they’re here because they’re creators whose viewpoints have had a massive effect on Batman as a character. Whenever performing any kind of serious analysis of Batman, I cannot ignore Frank Miller because of the significant effect his work has had, as much as I would like to never speak of Frank Miller again. Let’s get to it.
Historically, the debate has been whether Batman was a lapsed Catholic or lapsed Episcopalian, and has recently extended to include Judaism as a possibility. The reason the debate has extended to Batman possibly being Jewish is because DC Rebirth retconned Kate Kane, Batwoman, a Jewish lesbian, as being Bruce’s cousin and Martha Wayne’s niece. This is a retcon, and was not canon until DC Rebirth. When Batwoman was reinvented in 2006, the Kane family was separate from the Waynes, and the two were not related. This opens up the potential for Batman to be Jewish because of the matrilineal tradition of Judaism, which states that a person born to a Jewish mother has irrevocable status as a Jew. As the Kanes are a Jewish family, this opens the possibility that Batman is also, through his mother, is Jewish. There is a depiction of Batman as a Jewish freedom fighter in Nazi Germany in Berlin Batman, which is really fucking good by-the-by, but it’s an Elseworlds, and out of continuity. This is all pretty fucking cool, but a really recent development, and one that DC has not capitalized on, depicted, or encouraged in any way through their comics. In fact, in Tom King’s Batman #53, solidly in the Rebirth continuity, a significant portion of fans read Bruce as being an atheist, and Bruce’s father is depicted as a Christian.
(Batman #53, and it’s important to note that later King said he didn’t intend to write Bruce as an atheist, despite the fans’ popular reading of it.)
Bruce being an atheist specifically is not new:
(JLA #66. Joe Kelly is pretty fond of Bruce being an atheist.)
(Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader by Neil Gaiman)
I find this a little bit bonkers, considering it’s canon in the DC Universe that there’s a God, a bunch of other Gods, a heaven, a bunch of other heavens, and Bruce was on the Justice League with a literal angel of Heaven at one point in time. I find it weird when they do this with Mr. Terrific, too.
Another connection Batman has to Judaism is through his creators, Bob Kane and Bill Finger, who were both Jewish men. However, there are no early depictions of Batman as Jewish; the depictions of him engaging with religion are scant, except for his engagements with Christmas - which there are plenty. There have been a number of Christmas stories written with Batman over the years, and, in fact, the very first one was in Batman #9, penned by Bob Kane and Bill Finger themselves. (Well, I don’t know if Bob Kane penned it, because Bob Kane had a veritable army of ghostartists. But his name sure is on it.) This wasn’t the only Bat-Christmas story published under their watch - Bill Finger went on to work on Batman #45, another classic Bat-Christmas story.
In the vast, vast majority of Batman comics, Bruce is separated from religion entirely - which benefits DC, because it makes him more marketable. But this isn’t the case with every comic, as he’s depicted praying:
And there’s another notable instance where Bruce engages with religion, and it’s in Batman: The Chalice, written by Chuck Dixon; Bruce is the descendant of a line of knights tasked with protecting the Holy Grail. Chuck Dixon has a few opinions on Bruce’s religion: “Graham Nolan and I had an ongoing argument about whether Bruce was raised Catholic or Protestant. I recently conceded to Graham that he must be Catholic. No Protestant ever suffered guilt the way Bruce does.”
Which, holy shit, I could talk about that all day, because that’s fucking WILD, Chuck. Through this we can presume that Bruce is depicted as Catholic in Batman: The Chalice, even though the book never specifies a denomination, and that book was canonical for its continuity. Unfortunately that was a couple continuities ago, and we can no longer be sure! How fun comics are. Another notable creator that argues Bruce is Catholic is the one, the only, fucking goddamn Frank Miller, who argues strongly for the case and wrote some pretty religious lines into The Dark Knight Returns.
The Dark Knight Returns is non-canonical, which also happens to be the one example that exists of God’s love for me, because if it was actually canon I would’ve given up on this whole charade a long time ago. But The Dark Knight Returns has had a massive, incredible impact on how Batman is conceived of as a character, which means people take Frank Miller’s opinion seriously, and a lot of people therefore are very solid in the belief that Bruce Wayne is a Catholic. The argument rests in the idea that Bruce behaves psychologically like someone raised Catholic, which, like, fucking - holy shit. You guys. It might be the childhood trauma that led to Bruce’s guilt complex, not the Catholicism, and Batman comics’ over-usage of Catholic imagery might just be because Catholic imagery kind of fucking rocks, but you know, who am I to judge.
Other arguments rest with Bruce being Episcopalian, and these arguments are more related to Bruce’s socioeconomic status, because he’s honestly as WASPy as they come, and in One Time Lost To Comics History, one of Bruce’s ancestors was buried at an Episcopal church. Elliot S. Maggin, a Jewish man most well-known for his work with Superman, has a few things to say on this subject: “I give all my characters religions. I think I always have. It’s part of the backstory. It’s part of the process of getting to know a character well enough to write about him or her. Jimmy Olson is Lutheran. Lois is Catholic. Perry is Baptist. Luthor is Jewish (though non-observant, thank heaven). Bruce and Batman are both Episcopalian and I said so in the text though it was edited out erroneously.”
A lot of people try to reverse-engineer Bruce’s religion with are the gravestones, which is like, a buckwild way to do it. The Waynes (and our dear Jason Todd) have been depicted with everything from heaving monuments to plain headstones to simple Christian crosses to the angel-bearing gravestones Bruce sobs over in Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween. The most extravagant is probably from Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Todd McFarlane’s Batman: Year Two -
There is a lot of imagery of Bruce hugging his parents’ gravestones, because he is kind of a fucked up man. Don’t judge him. Leave him alone. He wants to be gothic and weird and cry alone in the dark in a cemetery and dammit, goths have rights. Point being, the gravestones in Bruce’s family change with every artist that depicts them, and it’s impossible to pin anything definitive down because everything is done for aesthetic. Kind of goes back to the extensive usage of Catholic imagery, like how Bruce and Selina [checks watch] seven continuities ago were married in a Catholic church - I honestly think that a lot of these artistic decisions are made purely for the aesthetic instead of trying to subtly communicate any particular religious belief on Bruce’s part.
What was the point of writing this post? Mostly to tell you guys that Chuck Dixon said something ridiculously hilarious about Catholicism. I could unpack Dixon’s implication of Bruce’s Catholic guilt for days, because it’s fucking funny. But the secondary point is - no one has agreed on anything. Industry professionals can’t agree on this! There is no one thing that is specifically canon across all continuities in every instance, even the idea that Bruce is a lapsed whatever-it-is-that-he-is, which is something that the majority of people agree on anyway. You may headcanon away! In fact I would be pretty interested in hearing your headcanons, so hit me up, and please follow Chuck Dixon’s example and give me really hilarious reasons for Bruce to be Catholic. Remember, guys. Childhood trauma doesn’t give you guilt complexes, but Catholicism does. God. Fucking Chuck Dixon.
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