Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight (Wiley Psychology & Pop Culture)

by Langley, Travis

  Obsession

  Obsessions, “persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress,”29 abound in the lives of Batman and his foes (e.g., how he dwells on his parents’ deaths or how his enemies obsess over him). Unlike many obsessed individuals, these characters give into their preoccupations, rarely attempting to ignore, suppress, or otherwise neutralize those recurring thoughts or resultant compulsions (clearly excessive, repetitive actions or even mental rituals like counting that the person feels compelled to perform) and experiencing discomfort whenever circumstances force them to resist. Because the preoccupations are technically obsessions only if “experienced as intrusive and inappropriate,” most of these characters are not actually obsessed. Because these time-consuming themes and habits do not distress most of these characters, who live without interest in resisting, few of them will ever qualify as having obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The DSM specifies that adults with OCD, by definition, “have at some point recognized that the obsessions or compulsions are excessive or unreasonable,”30 though insight into the unreasonableness of the obsessions and compulsions ranges widely. OCD is an anxiety disorder; the obsessions and compulsions, one way or another, bother the sufferer. Some obsessive-compulsives are uncertain; others know fully what’s wrong. Insight can vary across times and situations, such as when a person sees a problem for what it is while discussing it with a therapist but sets all that insight aside outside the therapist’s office. Through most of the Riddler’s history, he relishes the challenge of creating puzzling crimes, freely sending riddles that give Batman and the police clues to those crimes even though giving such clues might help the crime-fighters foil and capture him, but sometimes he tries not to send those clues. Sometimes he resists. He’s saner than many of Gotham’s ghouls.

  Celebrities of Crime

  Like common criminals, Gotham’s costumed crooks indulge themselves, satisfying their whims, desires, obsessions, and compulsions at the expense of others. Unlike everyday repeat offenders, however, they transform themselves into surreal entities, dangerous celebrities who transform the world itself into their playground and its people into toys over and over again. To a great extent, they’re living the dreams that starry-eyed individuals like the disturbed young man who shot President Reagan in hopes of turning himself into a celebrity31 spin through their heads. In masks, makeup, tally marks, and more, they enrobe themselves in nightmares in order to transcend mundane reality and enter a world of living legends at any cost. Most of them, who know exactly what they’re doing, are no less sane in their world than professional singers Madonna, Lady Gaga, or KISS, who re-create themselves into spectacular stage personas to become different generations’ stars. Elvis Presley gyrated in sequins and cape before Las Vegas crowds, Carmen Miranda wore a bowl of fruit on her head, and the Riddler wears question marks wherever he stages his show.

  CASE FILE 7–1 The Riddler

  Real name: Edward “Eddie” Nigma, Nygma (Batman Forever), or Nashton. Comics go back and forth on which is his birth name, which is an alias, and which is a misspelling.

  First appearance: Detective Comics #140 (October, 1948).

  Origin: Unlike the Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face, the Riddler has no abnormal physical qualities and can walk freely through a crowd. He has no particularly dramatic origin story. Obsessive-compulsive disorders usually don’t. Gifted with great deductive ability, he grows up as a child who loves solving puzzles. Finding ways to cheat others is a kind of puzzle he likes. Instead of punishing young Eddie when he discovers the boy has been stealing from Dad’s pockets, his father begins hiding money in increasingly creative locations. “He wanted to see exactly how far I would go. Said if I was going to be such a stubborn little thief, I was going to have to earn it.”1 As a child, his “love for brain-teasers was exceeded only by his overwhelming desire to win at any cost,”2 which over time creates a problem that feeds itself: He enjoys solving and creating puzzles, too few people are bright enough to keep the task of creating puzzles challenging for him, and yet his need to win won’t let him enjoy seeing his creations get solved.

  The Riddler studies psychiatric literature in hopes of curing his compulsions in Batman #179 (1966). © DC Comics.

  “Life’s full of questions, isn’t it, Batman? Though, naturally, I prefer to think of them as riddles.”

  —Riddler in Batman #452 (August, 1990)

  At one point, Nigma recovers memories of how his father’s abuse drove him to his convoluted truthfulness, but extensive empirical investigations by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus and others suggest that we need to be wary of trusting memory,3 much less “recovered” memories,4 emotion-laden memories,5 or Freud’s view of repression itself.6 Yes, the abuse may have occurred. Then again, Eddie’s unhealthy mind and the circumstances under which the memories come to him could easily conjure a pseudomemory, a bogus remembrance that makes a dream, daydream, suggestion, fantasy, or dread seem vividly real.

  The Riddler first appears as a sideshow carny who cheats customers with rigged puzzles and games. Aching for greater thrills, he heads to Gotham and dons a costume specifically so he can challenge Batman, whom he sees as a potentially worthy adversary. Gotham’s Caped Crusader and costumed crooks directly inspire this man to become an archcriminal.

  Riddler: First, I must call Commissioner Gordon … and then confound him with a little riddle.

  Girlfriend: Oh, why take time for that?

  Riddler: Crime is no fun without riddles. I’ll have you know that’s the main reason I took up this crime game.7

  He loves the limelight. Attention feeds him. His riddles and death traps, while ostentatious in nature, aren’t just about seeking attention, or he wouldn’t create traps that always have a way out. There’s a kind of honesty in everything the Riddler does. He’d rather tell the truth creatively than lie outright—hence, the riddles. The attention he could get by killing Batman or by outing his enemy as Bruce Wayne pales in comparison to his love of the riddle itself. Having deduced Batman’s secret identity, the Riddler taunts him with possible exposure until Batman calls his bluff: “Riddles are your compulsion. Your addiction. And a riddle that everyone knows the answer to is worthless.”8

  However much he sometimes wants to commit a crime without sending a riddle when the caper itself already challenges him, he cannot. When he tries to commit a series of robberies without telegraphing his plans to Batman via his trademark riddles, he subconsciously leaves clues anyway.9 His attempts at fighting the compulsion show that he recognizes it’s not healthy. “You don’t understand,” he says after one failure. “I really didn’t want to leave you any clues. I really planned never to go back to Arkham. But I left you a clue anyway. So I…I have to go back there. Because I might need help. I…I might actually be crazy.”10 Irresistible impulse, although part of some legal standards for insanity, by itself is generally insufficient as a legal defense. Otherwise, kleptomaniacs and addicts of many kinds would be unconvictable. Addictive behaviors continue long after they stop being fun because failing to act on them stresses the addict, pushing that person to seek release from the internal pressure.

  Physician Rakul K. Parikh11 diagnoses the Riddler with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which is not a psychotic disorder. The Riddler knows his obsessions and compulsions originate from within himself, not from anybody else beaming them into his head. DSM criteria for OCD specify that at some point “during the course of the disorder, the person has recognized that the obsessions or compulsions are excessive or unreasonable,”12 so the Riddler’s doubt and fear that these symptoms mean he’s psychotic actually suggest that he is not.

  Riddler: You dimwits think I create my riddles because I want to be caught. What nave, pedestrian thinking. To me, crime is performance art! And that’s what you psychobabblers share with the rest of the world. Lack of vision.13

  The Riddler has gone through spells without the over
whelming need to commit riddling robberies. Retaining his interest in puzzles and crimes during the lengthiest of his OCD remissions, after emerging from a coma missing many memories including his knowledge of Batman’s identity, he becomes a private detective solving crimes out of self-interest14—for stipends, rewards, publicity, and sometimes to clear his name when crimes looks like his.15 Even without his compulsion to create conundrums, he’s a self-centered jerk. His lack of empathy and regret still indicate psychopathy. Without a hint of remorse, he ignores a plea to help a friend in danger because a good mystery occupies his thoughts.16 His relationships are shallow. Despite showing features of both psychopathy and narcissistic personality disorder with his massive ego, he is no sadist, he’s not the most malicious of Batman’s enemies, and so he does not easily fit the severe antisocial/narcissistic blend that Erich Fromm first called malignant narcissism. He is not “the quintessence of evil.”17

  People interest the Riddler. He doesn’t seriously care about specific individuals, but he wants attention and enjoys adoration. He’s attracted to women and often has one at his side during a crime spree. Except for a pair of biker women who become henchwomen called Query and Echo, we rarely see any of these girls more than once, and he’ll abandon those two when leaving them behind helps him cover his escape from Batman.18 Romantically he shows interest in women, though only while they’re new and unknown. When they lose their mystery, they lose their appeal. “He wasn’t in love with her. He was in love with the riddle!”19

  Unsettled when a bomb goes off in his face, Eddie grows disillusioned with clean living. Old impulses start nagging once again. When Edward Nigma’s OCD rears its head, he plans crimes. Lacking any strong connection to non-criminals, he has no one to ground him, no reason beyond self-interest to stay out of crime. His return to crime is confirmed when he shows up with a spunky teenaged partner he calls his daughter, Enigma. If she is his daughter and they maintain a relationship, that one thing could help him become less full of himself. While some narcissistic individuals put themselves even before their own children, some other narcissists can adore their children as extensions of themselves, which then teaches some of them to care and think outside themselves. Father and daughter bond by ambushing Batman.20

  Periodically, writers who miss either the point or the value of this character send him down the mirth, mayhem, and murder route. These attempts to make him edgier never stick, and then later writers who want to write real Riddler stories chalk the previous aberrations up to insanity, mind control, or demonic possession.21 This kind of cognitively driven robber, motivated by intellectual and artistic challenge, simply does not have a multiple murderer’s background, motivation, personality, or sadistic passion.

  “I am nothing like the Joker! Why does everybody keep saying that?! That clown is only interested in mirth, mayhem, and murder! I, on the other hand, live for mental challenges! Games of wit! The chance to outsmart worthy opponents!”

  —Riddler in Harley Quinn #6 (October, 2001)

  CASE FILE 7–2 The Penguin

  Real name: Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot

  First appearance: Detective Comics #58 (December, 1941)

  Origin: Teased and bullied by other children who nicknamed him “Penguin” for his squat body and beaklike nose, lonely little Oswald Cobblepot turns to his mother’s pet birds, calling them “my only friends”1 because they wouldn’t judge or reject him. He wants human friends. He wants a girlfriend. Strange-looking and socially awkward, he never fits in, a misfit mocked at school and in his family’s wealthy circle. His overbearing and overprotective mother, convinced he might catch pneumonia and die like his father, makes him carry an umbrella everywhere he goes.2 When she, too, dies (or, in a later version, becomes invalid),3 leaving behind debts that send their holdings into foreclosure, he loses everything he has ever clung to for security: the person, the prosperity, the pets. Even the birds get repossessed. Having always ached to fit in among the social elite, he decides to buy his way into high society. Outcast Oswald turns to crime—with flair.

  Despite his integration of bird motifs and trick umbrellas, the Penguin is not pathologically obsessed with either. Unlike the Riddler, who must send riddles, or Two-Face, who becomes crippled with indecision when he can’t toss his special coin, Oswald can function without his signature accoutrements. A museum curator putting a jeweled bird on display can count on Cobblepot to come steal it, of course, but passionate collecting does not necessarily equal utter obsession. In the Penguin’s first appearance, the umbrella is his instrument of theft (hiding a rolled-up painting in its handle) and attack (firing bullets, acid, and strangling gas), thus making it part of his modus operandi. Unlike most other prominent Bat-foes, the Penguin when incarcerated goes to prison, not Arkham Asylum. Even by Gotham’s ambiguous standards for criminal insanity, the Penguin is sane. For all his ruthlessness, the Penguin shows greater rationality than the Joker, more moments of sympathy than the Riddler, and a stronger need for superficial social acceptance than most of Batman’s other foes.

  “The way you were being treated was beyond savage, and I simply couldn’t stand for it. Not even caged animals should be treated that way.”

  —Penguin to woman he saves from black-market slavery, Joker’s Asylum: The Penguin #1 (2008)

  “Careful, careful—wauck wauck. Every one of them has a mother.”

  —Penguin to Catwoman, sweeping up dehydrated pirates in Batman: The Movie (1966)

  This little man who needs to be larger than life fits what’s informally and stereotypically known as a Napoleon complex, driven by his perceived social and physical handicaps to inflate himself in other areas of his life.4 With the stature of Napoleon and the nose of Cyrano de Bergerac (each of which range from slightly odd to freakishly unnatural, depending on who’s drawing him at the time), Oswald overcompensates for feelings of inferiority by becoming self-centered, disdainful, and domineering toward others, a pattern that Alfred Adler called a superiority complex—as opposed to the inferiority complex, in which the person with poor self-esteem feels helpless, incapable of coping with life’s demands, and unable to compensate for those inferior feelings. Physically different, maternally overprotected, and socially ostracized, Oswald Cobblepot hits the trifecta of what Adler considered the childhood sources for pathologically extreme feelings of inferiority: organic inferiority, spoiling, and neglect. Adler saw the motivation to become better, striving for superiority as he called it, as the fundamental fact of human life.5 We grow and move forward in life. The eight-year-old becomes more capable than he was at seven. One with healthy self-esteem feels good about that growth, whereas one forming an inferiority complex fails to value his own achievements and another who’s constructing a superiority complex overvalues his strengths so he can try blinding himself to his shortcomings. Reality does not always let us ignore the things we dislike. Still sensitive to being mocked, the Penguin might destroy someone’s life or career over an insult, whether genuine or misinterpreted, and no matter how old the insult, because doing so makes him feel bigger.

  His hat adds height. So does his umbrella when it’s up. Attired in monocle, tuxedo, and top hat, wearing no costume per se, the Penguin dresses the same to rob a bank as he does to host a lavish party or run for mayor. Does he truly fancy himself to be a refined gentleman, or is he a high-society wannabe? In older stories when he consistently looks fully human, albeit caricaturish, it’s harder to tell. In some post–Batman Returns comic book stories—not all, but those in which he looks the most deformed—he thinks of the Penguin, his darkest, most animal nature, as his true self and Oswald Cobblepot as a pretense, a ruse, and in those instances, yes, the suit, the hat, everything about him that says, “Here’s a gentleman,” is all part of his Halloween costume.

  Many stories over the years have shown the Penguin’s attempts to go straight (or pretend to) after legal releases from prison. When he breaks out of prison, he’s a gimmick criminal, but whenever he walks free, we
get to watch his attempts to move upward in business, in the underworld, and in the social scene. From as early as the first story in which he ever appears, he has always wanted to be a crime boss. Mob bosses operate less effectively when they have to hide from the law. So do con artists. “Aren’t you people forgetting the facts?” Batman cautions a parole board against releasing Cobblepot. “The Penguin is not only a master thief, he’s a con man—don’t let him fool you!”6 Sometimes the Penguin lies about walking the straight and narrow; sometimes he tries to keep his dealings legal. Tiring of incarceration, he seemingly goes legit and opens a trendy nightclub, the posh Iceberg Lounge, where he makes a bundle off overpriced merchandise, all the while hosting Gotham’s criminals in the club’s back rooms. For years he walks a fine line, playing informant to costumed heroes often enough that they leave him right there even while he works on building his underworld clout—until, as with all such attempts, his insecurities make him go too far and hurt too many people, including one woman ready to love him, and he returns to prison in the end.7