2025-01-13 8:30:53 ¶ ●

We as Batman fans need to accept the hot take that, yes, Bruce is abusive both physically and especially mentally/emotionally. You have people who haven’t read comics go the extreme with each side where one says that he regularly beats all of his kids and the other side that says he is a perfect father and admits his mistakes easily. But personally the worst ones are people who do read comics who also take those same two stances and try to act as if they’re the only right ones simply because they read the comics

Bruce Wayne famously gets in physical fights with Dick and Jason the most. It happened even while Dick was Robin! He famously slapped him, and beat him bloody in order to force him to agree to pretend to stay dead in order to go undercover for a super dangerous spy mission. He manipulates his family, shouts at them, and will occasionally have physical outbursts towards them if they don’t agree with what he wants them to do.

Does this make him abusive? Hell yeah it does.

But does he regularly beat them? Does he instantly resort to violence the moment they step out of line or disrespect him? No. He is a man that has trained himself to be cold and be a soldier first. He struggles to vocalize his feelings, allows darkness to take over his life, and can never allow himself to forgive his own mistakes. This is why Robin is so important to Batman mythos. Batman needs a Robin because he is a deeply flawed person who has oftentimes forgotten that there is light in the world. Which is also why when it comes to his children, he will protect them no matter the costs. He will hunt down Dick’s would-be assassin and leave him with a broken neck in the middle of a blizzard. He would be so upset over Jason’s death, the US government had to send Superman in to prevent him from killing the Joker in revenge. He would lose himself and beat himself up and torture himself with coming up with a million different ways he could’ve kept his Robin safe if any of them had gotten hurt on his watch or because of him.

Bruce Wayne loves his kids more than he loves Gotham, but he is also abusive and negligent, and is far from being the perfect father. We need to see him for what he is and accept that he is complex and can’t be placed in just a shirt and simple box