Just Plain Savage, Doc

If you’ve been reading any DC comics lately, you’ve probably spotted the Batman/Doc Savage Special preview at the end—or maybe you picked up the actual issue, which released this past Wednesday. Chances are you noticed something about the Azzarello-penned comic: Batman and guns don’t usually mix.

My latest op-ed for Impulse Creations connects the Bat with Doc and traces the lineages of both back to why Batman and guns aren’t a stellar combination. Here’s a quick preview; click here for the full article.

Batman co-creator Bill Finger once said, “Batman was originally written in the style of the pulps.” Pulp magazines are perhaps best known for their sensational cover art and exploitation style of fiction, which interested readers with sex, violence, and drugs while escaping the label of pornographic or obscene. One of the larger-than-life pulp heroes goes by the name of Doc Savage, a sort of contemporary renaissance man: You name it, he does it. In fact, the nostalgic icon shares a lot in common with the Caped Crusader. Scientists honed Savage’s mind and body to near-superhuman potential, granting him formidable strength and endurance, a photographic memory, martial arts mastery, and considerable knowledge in the sciences. On top of that, Doc was considered a master of disguise and voice imitation. This isn’t a far cry from the ninja-trained Bruce Wayne, and in the beginning, the superhero was more pulp than the hero who we know today.

Originally, Batman carried a gun and showed no remorse about righting evil-doers with armed violence. But it didn’t take long for creators to realize the flaw in their line of thinking: For a hero whose parents were murdered in the heat of gunfire, it doesn’t make much sense for their crime-fighting son to pick up the smoking gun and start wielding it. Logic won over, and Batman’s gun-slinging days faded from continuity.