A Geek History of Time - Episode 79 - Batman through the Ages Part I

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

Wow. You're gonna like this. Oh no I'm not. Cause there is no god damn middle. This is not unlike ancient Rome by the way. Not so much the family of circus. Yeah. I did, when I did Mirathe Shelley, I had the same issue with him for Nancy.

I wanted to create self-sustaining farms and got into crystals. I know. Okay. I understand that. But yeah, I'm reading Livy, who is a shitty historian. Because Irrigan is. Others say that because Laurentia's body was common to all the shepherds around, she was called a she-wolf, which is a Latin term for horror.

You were audible, lassies. It was just most of it, where you slamming the table. As the Romanists at the table, well, duh. Yeah. Obviously, Ipso facto. Right. You know, it's your original form. Ipso, duh. You have a sword rat.

This is the 18th semester of time. We connect and earn a 200 million won. Let him his head by the lock. Old history and renewable reading teacher here in Northern California. And I am currently trying to figure out how I can make distance learning not only work, but try to make use of the medium in what I'm teaching. And every idea I come up with unfortunately runs into the problems that I have no budget and no set design staff. So all of my elaborate plans for, you know, man on the street interviews with, you know,

Roman slaves is just not getting off the ground right now because video is the thing, killed the radio star, as it were. So how about you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher up here in Northern California doing all the distance learning that I can, which means roughly 30% of what I would have done in person. And I have come to a very interesting Zen place about it all. I have been practicing the art of letting go. A couple weeks ago

the world caught on fire, so if we want to date this, you can do that. All the California was ablaze. You can do that. All of California was ablaze. Fires even got close enough to us that we and some of our friends made a go bag. And then that made it so that the kids couldn't get their textbooks because you have to go outside to get those. So that put my curriculum behind by about a week and a half. No big deal. I can handle that.

That's not a problem. So we got the distance learning, got it. We got the textbook issue. Okay, we can make this work. We can make this go. Yeah. Improvise Adapt Overcome. Absolutely. And then I come to find out that some kids didn't get their textbooks, period. Like when we finally did the whole thing of letting them out, I was like, okay, well, you know, people need to be able to go home. I'm not going to tell people to stay at work when I'm not there. And I'm a big believer that you don't do the wage theft, you know, for the sake of the kids.

Yeah. So, okay, you'll get your books eventually. Why do you hate the children? Well, because they're impermanent. Adults are much more permanent, I figure. It's a better investment. Right. Fair point.

Because in the future, when the children grow up, what are they gonna be? That's a good point. Adults, exactly. So, okay, I can handle that. All right, cool. Then, you know, I've come to find out that our school literally ran out of books for my students, which we had nine months or six months to plan this and do body counts and head

counts and all kinds of other counts. Okay, that's troublesome. counts and head counts and all kinds of other counts. Okay, that's that's troublesome. Let's let me let me breathe a little. And then I got you realizing, wait, wait, textbooks. You mean that account that the district perpetually puts 35 million into because they quote, just park it there until they figure out what to do with the money? I have an idea.

Maybe buy some fucking books. Maybe you could buy some textbooks and I was told that you know well we used to have more but a lot of them have you know been torn ripped and stuff like that. It's like well they are 15 years old. How about the more? Yeah. Yeah and that's just the the Latin books. The history books I taught world history last year out of the same textbook that I taught as a student teacher. Yeah. So it's all kinds of, wow, that's garbage. And then it was like, okay, I'm going to pitch a fit, but okay, we can do this.

I will take pictures and send them to the kids and whatnot. And then on top of all that, a construction crew cut through the main fiber optic cable that provides internet to my side of the river. Yeah. So I'm practicing letting go, because otherwise I'm going to strangle somebody. So there are so many, there are so many candidates. Yeah. And it's one of those like, could we have just

compressed these like make them all happen in the same week? Like, you know, the best, the best day of the year to clean your attic is already the hottest day of the year because you're already gonna be sweaty, might as well. Why are we stacking these things so that my kids are stutter stepping through not learning language. Mine blowing logical statement.

Yeah, so like, wait. Yeah, hold on. Yeah, all right, I feel a lot less bad about running cable through my godmother's attic in the middle of August several years ago now. It was already miserable. Okay, there you go. It's already gonna be a miserable kind of thing.

So there you go. That makes sense. So if it makes you feel any better. I mean, it might not, but you know, in the interest of, you know, sharing sympathies, pain shared is lessened. So in my district, specifically in my quote-unquote classroom, I'm teaching one of the classes I'm teaching this year is a very specific remedial reading program.

And it has a very critical, very, very high tech, very, very, very fancy, very tailored online component. And it would have had this, whether we were in distance learning or not This this is a core part of how this program works because The kids the kids cycle over the course of a block period the kids cycle from whole whole class work To small group work to independent work on their Chromebook, to independent reading.

All right. Okay. And then everybody, and the kids in three of those stations, they're rotating. So one group, and for 20 minutes, one group is on their Chromebooks. One group is with me, and a small group, and the third group is reading independently. And after 20 minutes, they switch out. So all of them get some time with me, all of them get time working independently on the computer,

and all of them get time every class period, reading independently. And it's to exercise those neurons and build the skills and spend the time doing that. And period sounds great. Yes. Here's the thing. So I got trained on this, the week before instruction was supposed to start.

And okay, here's how we're going to modify this for distance learning. Okay, that's going to be wonky, but I can make that work. Okay. And then first day school arrives, I don't have access to the electronic part of the curriculum. None of the kids have access to the electronic part of the curriculum. None of the kids have access to the electronic part of the curriculum, because it's a proprietary website run by the publisher. And every time they try to port my roster into the system, it fails. And this is not just me.

This is every teacher doing this program at every grade level from grade six up through high school in our district. And it took them three weeks to figure out how to fix it. And see, that's what people outside of education don't understand is that that 100% chips away at the credibility of this program.

And you've already got kids who are not necessarily invested. And so then you make goddamn certain that every step along the way is a perfectly stable step. And to not do that, you kind of mine as well, just throughout the year and start over next year. Yeah, for all the good is going to do. Yeah, and then in the first full week of instruction that we had,

or the second full week of instruction we had, we had to do map testing, which for those of you not in our immediate local listener area. Well, actually this is shit for you, because this is a district thing. Our map testing, our on top of state testing, our district gives the kids a standardized test, electronic computer-based test in English, you know, English language arts reading comprehension and math at the beginning of the year and the end of the year to judge, you know, growth and to see, you know, how much of they lost since last year at the beginning of the year and, you know, how much progress are they making in January? at the beginning of the year and how much progress that they're making in January.

So on top of not having the electronic curriculum, then every teacher in my district had to figure out how to do a standardized test over distance learning when the state government has said we're not requiring you to do the standardized testing this year. We're not we're not having to do any of the cast testing. We're not having to do any any of that other stuff. But the district said no no no we're testing them never mind the

fact that there was a significant cohort of parents who were like a fuck what? Sorry? Yeah. Never mind the fact that they got told by like literally every teacher in the district, you understand our scores are going to be shit, right? Right. So guess what? So your scores are shit?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our scores are shit. And now my principle is all over us. I'm like, yeah, like, yeah. No, this could turn into a two hour bench session just about everything.

We're having a deal with work. Yeah. Yeah. This is a difficult situation for everybody. And I have a lot of empathy and I have a lot of, I feel very, very much for all of the parents who are on the other end of this equation and my heart breaks for the kids, you know, I have to talk to a city situation. I have not talked to a single parent who is not the type to kid kids out of a park

For playing soccer during her kids birthday party. Um, I have not talked to a single parent. That's that not that type Who has said yes, I want my child to have robust distance learning this year every single parent I've talked to has been Something's got to give because my kid shouldn't be sobbing at noon. Get no shit. Like, and every parent is saying, this is two goddamn much. This is ridiculous. And it's, well, you're, you're district, the, the amount of hours your district demanded was just like stupid. Like I'm, I'm teaching on, on a daily basis for distance learning. I'm teaching from 9 a.m. to 1. That's too much. I'm not going to disagree with you. You know, I mean, we've

got there's, there's, you know, breaks in the middle of that. But yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't disagree with you. I don't, I don't think you're wrong. Especially when you get to diminishing returns. Like, just that you can do, here's a thing. And for everyone else, just fast forward to 20 minutes. I swear we're going to start talking about Batman then. At some point. Yeah. But here's the thing that I realized.

I am not working after 320 any single day. Now, some of it is because I did so much work over the summer recording content, and I added it up. I did about 100 hours of free work, and if you stretch 100 hours of free work over 183 days, that's roughly 45 minutes after school every day. You know what? I'm okay working for free for 45 minutes after school every day. That know what? I'm okay working for free for 45 minutes after school every day That's kind of a teachers thing but no more than that and I

Ain't taking work home anymore That's when we get back to brick and mortar. So as it stands right now I am only working when I'm getting paid because I don't have a home to go home to from work Yeah, so I I don't have a home to go home to from work. Yeah. So I very much doing that and what I realized was that our district, and I think this is true of every district, is built on the back of stolen wages. Of stolen labor. Like how many hours did I give them per week that weren't theirs? where I subsidize them with my time and my health and

That's the one you know one of the few silver linings to this this The COVID is that I've realized. Oh nobody's stealing my time anymore and I'm encouraging other teachers to To do the same and here's why They're not going to pay extra life insurance to my kids if I stroke out early. No. They're not. They're going to pocket that money.

So I need to start taking my time back, which means I need to actually reconfigure how I teach my classes because if I'm not going to grade that work, I damn sure have no business assigning that work. So now I'm having to kind of really recalibrate like what is the core of what I'm trying to do here? And how can I get it in the time that I've got? So it's been really eye opening and really nice, actually. Yeah, I can play that in those lines, but ultimately it's wage theft like straight up way you know, okay

So what's what's anytime we have a disagreement with with management? What's one of the first things we wind up doing? We say all right everybody work to rule Leave campus like seriously leave campus 345 for my district anyway my site leave Leave campus 345, don't show up on campus before 830. Right. You know, which is normal for every other profession. Like when my ex-wife would call me and say, hey, I'm charting, she was getting paid for that time. Yeah, you know, with me, it's like, we don't get over time. No. We never get over time. Yeah, you know, with me it's like we don't get over time. No, we never get over time.

And on top of that, my contract, and I'm pretty sure yours too, has this built-in expectation of, and now the term has slipped my mind, but there's a certain number of hours per year that I'm expected, and it's not like a hard to fast requirement, but it's like you should put in 14 hours of time, you know, helping out with, you know, monitoring dances or, you know, helping out with, you know, being present as a shaperone for these events or doing this to any other thing. And, you know, like when a staff meeting runs long, well, you know, if it goes over more than 15 minutes, you get, you know, an additional half hour of

this time, you know, counted for that. So you've done that time. And so our staff meeting ran long, this month, beginning of this month. And my principal said, yeah, it's all right. I'll give all you guys whatever time. And I wanted to reach this monitor. I literally, like I was so glad my mic and my camera were both off. Because I wanted to, it gave me the opportunity to literally growl, because I wanted to reach through, that I wanted to reach through my phone and strangle him. Like, what good is that going to do me right now? Like, you are literally stealing time from my wife and my son who just got home. Yep. And instead of me being able to now turn around and have my time with them in my home.

Right. I have to, you are literally holding me hostage. And them? Because now I have to modify their behavior to deal with the fact that you are not letting me. And though, I did get a little bit of kind of petty revenge because at one point as union rep, he called on me to say something. And when I did, my son came tautling into the kitchen to, to, you know, ask me for something. And I said to him, no, no, not right now, not right now, baby.

No, I'm sorry, daddy's, daddy's in a meeting right now. Daddy, daddy can't talk to you right now. What I wanted to say was, and Daddy's being held against his will in a meeting that ran long. But I didn't. Next time I will. Yeah. I've also determined the next time I'm in a staff meeting that he allows to run long. I'm going to turn my camera on and I'm going to go to my liquor cabinet and I'm going to pour myself a drink on camera. Good. And if he says anything, I'm going to go, oh, oh, I'm sorry.

We're after contract time. I didn't realize that my camera was on. Bye-bye. Yeah. And then I'm going to leave. Good. That I'm done. You know what cheers before you do Slodge a

Slodge of ah So we are getting close to the 20-minute mark. I want to get on to back. Yeah, we get it. Yeah We we decided we're gonna tackle Batman because we're both such DC heads wait D.C. heads. Wait. No. Hold on. Yeah.

But Batman is significant. He is a centerpiece to our culture in so many ways. And it stretches back. Batman is only 50 years older than the Eiffel Tower. Wait. Older than the Eiffel Tower? No. Younger.

Sorry. Younger. 1930. Yeah. Wait, older than the I. No, younger, sorry, younger, 90, 30, yeah, whatever is, yeah, it's a bigger number than the 1889. So it's 50 years younger than the I. Yeah, yeah. So the distance from the beginning of Batman to the I. Full Tower is greater than the distance of the beginning of Batman to now. Or is lesser than is less than. Yeah, I'm really blown it with the number.

Sure. Holy, but well, you know, neither one of us is a mass teacher. Let's for good reason. I think we're proving. Yeah. Well, you know, one of us anyway is in particular qualified. Okay, who am I kidding? I'm totally not qualified. Yeah, but, um, Batman is 50 years younger than the Eiffel Tower.

That's effective. There you go. Yes, that is. Yeah, no, he's a centerpiece of our, as you say, is a central figure in our culture. He's become, he truly has become a modern myth. And we fiddled around with that in the episode we did talking about, you know, DC DC heroes as mythic characters versus Marvel characters as mythic characters. And you know, my thesis actually came came about thinking about Batman and Superman as a as a dip dick as a as a dip dick, as a pair, you know, with, you know, soups being so clearly Apollo and Batman,

so very clearly being Hades. Right. And, you know, light and dark, you know, do duology. And he really has become both of them, But right now we're talking about Batman. You know, really has become our modern version of that. Because when you think about it, there are multiple different versions of his career as a crime fighter has been revisited multiple times, with really meaningful differences in the way it's been portrayed in the events, like the very details of how it was that his parents died. Originally, let's see, here, the original, I've got it here in my notes, his original backstory got revealed

in Detective Comics number 33 in November of 39. Okay. That's the first time that we learned that his parents were shot in crime alley by a mugger. And we don't get the mugger's name for several years, until 48, as a matter of fact, it's not for almost a decade. Although we actually find out who that mugger was, the original story is just, you know, he's this random, you know, street thief. But in the original version of the story, young Bruce Wayne has the killer's face etched in his memory. Oh, okay. And then in 1948, he finds, he runs into the killer,

and I'm going to get into some of the important details about that, but that's the first time we learn the name Jo Chill. And so that's 48. Well, now since then, Jo Chill has stuck around as a character, but there have been versions of the story which he didn't see Jo Chill's face. And we don know who Joe Chills turned out to be or anything like that. At one point, he's hiding in a kid's house pretending to be his beagle, sleeping on top of the the dog house, befriending a bird.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Batman had the Rogue's Gallery. Joe Chille had an alias Joe Cool. Okay. All right. All right. You really you're kind of off your game a little bit. I think tonight. How so? I don't know that's that that one that that didn't have your usual like No, okay. I feel like you're having a you're having to work a little harder. No, okay tonight But we'll see I'm sure you'll get into your groove. Yeah, we'll see. Damn it So so yeah, no, he he is he is this this this mythic figure. We don't

have the same kind of folklore in the modern world for a variety. I mean, we could get all point ahead about why not that, that, you know, people did, you know, back in the pre-industrial era. And so what we do have are comic book heroes and Batman is one of the classic archetypes. Yes. You know, I mean, you can look across a series, you can look across publishers, and you can find that everybody has done a Batman.

You know, like even within DC, there are people argue that green arrow is, you know, kind of a poor man's Batman X-P. Yeah, no, that makes that makes sense. And then, you know, the immediate other example that comes to mind is the Midnighter who it's there's and I'm trying to remember the the series the Midnighter comes from I'm gonna have to look it up but I want to say it's image comics has he's the one he's the one that has like the really long soliloquies and he basically he like kind of Columbus people into submission by rambling. He's the Midnighter Rambler. Okay, all right, you're getting there.

Yeah, you're getting there. Don't call me Stella yet. I haven't gotten my groove back yet. But okay, okay, Wildstorm comics. As Midnighter, later became a DC character after DC absorbed a Wildstorm and created by Warren Ellis. And so Midnighter is kind of what you get if Batman is a little bit less wealthy and grammar in the comics and written by Warren Ellis. I think it's important to know it, written by Warren Ellis, the guy who gave us the boys is...

Oh, okay. So there's a certain level of deconstruction involved in the millionaire tech gadget hero, it could be argued that black panther is in some ways kind of in a similar archetype, though with different tropes attached. Iron man, iron man. Oh, he's alcoholist. He's a fat man.

Pretty much, yeah. If Bruce Wayne actually developed a drinking problem like, you're like, yeah, if Ben learned how to have any goddamn fun, he'd be. Oh, okay, so, Batman is Batman. And Bruce Wayne is kind of his alter ego. And so he plays being a playboy.

Tony Stark is a playboy who plays being a hero. Yes. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, no, they're an inversion of one another. Yeah. And so, you know, the thing is, Batman is the one that all of those characters are in some way bouncing off of or building off of.

Yes. And so, you know, Batman truly is the archetype, just like Superman really is the archetype. You know, think of all the characters who are kind of Superman X-Bs, you know, Seagland Schuster or the first ones to put that idea out there, you know, the bull-proof man who can, you know, run faster than speeding bullet. You know, soups is the first, and if you're talking about super normal superheroes, Batman is the first. Wellaccepted he's not. And part of the genesis of Batman, you have to think a little bit about the pulp novels that came before comic books. Batman is the big or is the archetype that we recognize, but it's important to know that

his, his many of his traits also are predated by Doc Savage, the man of bronze. No, that is the name I've heard. Yes. And so Doc Savage is kind of in some ways the Err superhero. And he is the ultimate competent man archetype, okay? By which I mean he knows a lot about everything and is good at everything. And in the case of Doc Savage, he is super and is good at everything. And in the case of Doc Savage, he is superlatively good at everything.

He's a genius, he's an Olympic level athlete, he's a martial artist, he's a world explorer, he's all these things. And he also, when occasion arises, he's also a deducer on par with Sherlock Holmes. also a deducer on par with Sherlock Holmes. And so to take from the Wikipedia article on Doc Savage, his real name Clark Savage Jr. He's a doctor, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who writes wrongs and punishes evil doers. And so he appeared originally in 1933.

Okay. And so yeah, he is kind of bad man before bad man. To me, a favor. Contextualize this with Conan. when was Conan's writer doing his thing or when did he stop right hold on hold on uh robbery I got to remember because I don't have notes in front of me anymore um Howard died he Howard um Howard died in 36. So in 33, Howard was still publishing, he was still printing Conan and all that stuff at that time. So as well as like, as well as pain and that one guy who's a sailor. Yeah. A sailor not cost again. Cost again. Yeah. It just feels like those inhabit a similar place in people's minds.

They very much do. They very much do. But the important thing about Doc Savage as a character in the Zitgeist The important thing about Doc Savage as a character in the Zitgeist is that Conan and all of Howard's pulp figures were good at a couple of things. Where's Doc Savage just good at all the things? Doc Savage is good at everything. He's a genius little scientist and master violinist, whatever skill he needed to have, reading it as a modern reader, reading it now, it feels campy, even though it wasn't intended

to be when it was written, because whatever skill he needs to have, well, I know it just happens, he knows how to do that. And the language in the stories is this wonderfully superlative kind of stuff. At one point, the author refers to Doxhand floating with lightning speed. Okay. Okay.

Floating is not something I normally associate with lightning speed, but when you say floating with lightning speed, there is a very clear understanding of what exactly it is you're going through. There is this incredible speed, but also this fluidity. That's the way I encapsulate my description of Doc Savage as a character. It's so Doc Savage was an influence. Those stories were clearly an influence on Bob Kane and Bill Finger and I'm going to get into that in a minute. But those stories were an influence and the design of the character very clearly influenced by Zoro, the Count of Monte Cristo, the

idea of a secret identity or the Scarlet Pimpernell, the secret identity, dual identity kind of thing. Well, and early on in the mythos of Batman, that was Zoro was the movie that he insisted on his parents going to, right? Yes, correct. Which for the authors was not an in-joke, it was kind of a meta statement by the authors that, hey, here we are mentioning one of our references, kind of think.

Right. And so yeah, so Seagland Schuster came up with Superman in 38 and Superman gave DC Comics who somewhere I have the name of the company before it was DC Comics written down, but they became DC, made them a ton of money. Right.

Like, just Superman took off and the head of the company went to all their editors and all their writers and all their artists and went, give us more of this. Right. We need, like, clearly there is some kind of hunger out there in the public, give us this. And so so Batman shows up in the pages of detective comics in issue 27 May 1939. Now, because this is the podcast that it is, let me tell you a little bit about what was going on in New York that year. that year. Liguardia Airport started operations. Uh-huh. The World's Fair opened in April.

The World's Fair. The World's Fair. The World's Fair. The World's Fair in 1939. Opened in April. I'm going to come back to this in a minute. Okay. By the way, the comic book company, it was national allied publications.

Thank you very much. Sure. I knew it was national something but I couldn't remember how it was to go to the West. Lou Garig retired from professional baseball in June, due to ALS. Television broadcasts began in the United States for the first time, thirty-nine. And this is important too, for the same reason as the world's fair, the world's science fiction convention was held that year in New York. This is World Con. Now, I don't know, you're not, you're not a literary sci-fi nerd, but have you heard

of the Hugo Award? Yes. Okay, there's been, of course, a lot of controversy attached to the Hugo Award in the last few years because of right wing versus left wing politics and right wingers thinking they're victimized and all kinds of bullshit associated with that. But the Hugo Awards are one of the most prestigious,

if not the most prestigious literary science fiction award in the genre, okay? They're one of the most prestigious awards and they are given out every year at WorldCon. And so 1939 is the first meeting of this convention. Oh wow. Okay. Now on a national context, in 1939, the US was climbing its way out of the

great depression. Yep. There was movement going on with the neutrality act because of stuff that was going on in the rest of the world in Europe. Prohibition had ended only six years before. only six years before. Now New York, where all of these comics are being published at this point, was the epicenter of the depression. I'm sorry, let me back it up. You said LaGuardia Airport started up. Was it called LaGuardia at the time? Because I'm pretty sure he was the mayor right around that time. Give me a second. Okay. Let me check. Okay, go to your thing. I can look at what I'm not looking at.

Look at that. Yeah. I'd love it if they did name it after him. I'd love it if they named it after him and they're like, hey, we named it an airport after you. Really which one? LaGuardia. LaGuardia.

Yeah. Yeah, Idle Wild,. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. was where the stock market crash actually happened. So in a big way, it was kind of the epicenter of the depression because of that and because it was the largest city in the United States at the time. And prohibition had led to the very rapid and very violent growth of organized crime, especially the mafia in New York and Chicago. Bootlegging and the operation and protection of

Speakeasy's made fortunes for organized crime syndicates. The Italian mafia fought against Irish and Jewish gangs. In parallel wars, it was different, different mafia families, but in New York, in Chicago, and in other major cities all over the country, but New York and Chicago are the most well-known ones. And in New York specifically, this wound up leading to the foundation of the five families, and eventually to Lucky Luciano establishing the commission in 1931 to solve disputes between families. And essentially, the set of each family in a given city as basically independent

of the New York was shared territory of the five families. Another reason I bring all this up is because there is this confluence of world's fair and television broadcasts and world-con science fiction is beginning to I can't say become mainstream, but it's but it's becoming a bigger part of the media landscape on the radio you have buck Rogers. And the shadow, yeah, the shadow.

And so the world's fair is, you know, as always, you know, every world's fair is this, you know, very optimistic, very upbeat. Hey, look what's coming in the future. Look at how wonderful the future is going to be. High-tech whiz bang, you know, advancements. And so that's going on at the same time as New Yorkers are watching as they see their police department, their

city government, their state government being suborned and corrupted by these criminal enterprises. Well, I'm going to push back a little bit there. The police department of New York was historically corrupt. This was the newer boss. Like, I mean, if it hadn't been historically corrupt, then Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't have made his bones decoreptifying it as much as he did.

Yeah. He was just. And prior to him, Chester Arthur. Like, you know, that was a thing. And police departments all over had historically been really goddamn corrupt. I can think of Boston especially, but Chicago, New York, pretty much every major, if I can say Francisco, LA, oh my lord. Like they were historically corrupt. So the gangsters doing gangster shit, it changed the scale of money involved

and maybe the scale of brutality on some levels. But for the most part, they were always that way. All right. Well, the point, okay, I see your argument. The point I'm trying to make is that it's not, in this case, it's not just a police department. And at this point, it's not just, you know, politicians and business interests, it is politicians and criminals. And it is criminals committing murders in the street in broad daylight. And getting away with it because they have the money to bribe people and anybody that can't bribe, they can intimidate or get away with killing.

Do you think that some of this is also that it's spilling over into white neighborhoods have the money to bribe people and anybody that can't bribe, they can intimidate or get away with killing. Do you think that some of this is also that it's spilling over into white neighborhoods now? Like previously, it had been kept the brutality, the killing people without any recrimination whatsoever. I think during prohibition, during the actual gang wars, I think so. By the time I'm talking about this,

the worst of that violence has been curb by 39, the worst of that overt violence has been curbed, but it's still in the popular imagination. Okay. And there is still this feeling like, there is this class of people who are above the law, either because they have all the money, or because they have lots of money and they are violent and willing to push other people around, you know, one way or another, you know, there's this. I think that matters.

I think the fact that they're not wasps absolutely matters at that point too, identifying them because they are considered the, fuck, the criminal classes. Like there was an effort in New York specifically to call out a, I forget the words that they use, but it was, it was something along the lines of like the criminal races. And it was essentially Irish, Italian, Jewish, all three of whom you just mentioned were, you know, they were kind of marginalized. And therefore, this is how the entrepreneurial spirit asserts itself. When it's stymied in every legitimate business interest, you know, but where you go,

or you become a cop. Yes, actually, you know, you can't do anything else exactly. Why is it called a patty wagon? Is it because the people in it or the people driving it? Why not both? But it does. But I would say that this group of people is easily identified because they are other than wasp.

I think that matters, that identity matters. Yeah, to an extent, I think you're right. I think so for the purposes of Batman's birth. Sure. I think that's kind of background noise. Okay. More. Well, I mean, all of this is background noise, but that's that is that is covert rather than overt.

Okay. I think it's coding. I would agree with you that it's coding because I'm just I'm looking at like Batman's origin, old money. Yeah, so yeah, wasps being lost. First name first name, first name being Bruce, which Bill Finger, Bill Finger specifically states that he got Bruce from Robert the Bruce. Oh no, shit. Yeah, I, I lad, I lad he got it. Yes, I I it's a good Scottish name, which is actually really funny If you know anything about you know who the criminal classes were in revolutionary America. Yeah Roberts right there. He has there was there was there was actually a clause removed from the declaration of

Independence uh in which in which it was a complaint about he has sent amongst us a great number of scots Are you serious? Oh, I love it. Because they were the Irish of their time. They were red neck, I mean, because they were Highlanders. We were talking about, we were talking about, we're not talking about tame lowland Scott's, like I, people, no, we're talking about highlanders

who had lost at Colodon, who were all being, you know, either executed or shipped out to the colonies. Right. And then you had servants to start. Yeah, yeah, yeah, many of them. And, you know, the very first thing most of them did was, you know, take the broadsword that they used at Colodon, head out to the frontier, where a great many of them, out to the frontier where a great many of them

instead of were great many of them fought the Native Americans and a great many of them kind of simultaneously you know like when native in some ways yeah and so they were they were to to the you know anguish and Welsh and Dutch who were, you know, nice, prosperous city dwellers in the Northeast. These guys were literally howling barbanarians. Sure. So, anyway, Bruce Wayne. So, so God has named from Robert the Bruce. And I'm trying to remember the name of the guy,

but a revolutionary war general mad somebody lane. Oh wow So that's so very very wasp very D.R. Yeah, very D. AR. Oh, yeah and So yeah, I hadn't I hadn't made that connection, but you're right so Yeah, so, so they needed to create, you know, DC, national, whoever it was, publications, said, give us more superheroes.

And in this environment, Bob Kane came up with an idea. Let me talk a little bit more about the background first. I'm getting ahead of myself. So remember that Capone didn't go away for multiple murder. Capone didn't go away for multiple murder. Componed didn't go away. Componed didn't go away for boot lagging. Componed didn't actually go away for any of the like horrible shit that he did. Loop loop horrible shit that he did what he got convicted on was tax fraud.

Okay. And he was emblematic of this, this, this element of society that was getting away with this stuff and were, and were above the law. Okay, and so that's floating around in the popular imagination is, came sat down. I'm sorry, and I, I mean, if you're going to like this story, when I was first working as a teacher, I worked for a charter school, which means they are not beholden to unions or most decency. So I worked for them under Kevin Johnson, who basketball player, who made himself the head of essentially a high school district where he had access to barely a age or not quite a age girls. And there's that that happened.

But also he then became mayor of Sacramento because the public is in the ass. Yeah. So pretty much. One of my bosses who is now a superintendent in a different district, um, he, he said one day, because I said, well, wait a minute, like this doesn't make sense. Why are we spending all our time on data? And he said, well, Damien, your history, your history teacher, what did they lock up Al Capone for? I said, tax evasion. He said, right.

I said, so your business model here is that we have to make sure. I think you're taking the wrong lessons here. Um, but it was like, it was a legitimate argument. I'm like, you realize what side of things you're on, right? Right? And he never really responded to that. And clearly he didn't know what side you went. Is this the same one who was really adamant about department meeting starting on time?

No. No, this is the one. No, who? Because you mentioned that you worked for one one time who as a social studies teacher, you're like, like you know you're making a really big deal about things running on time. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that was somebody while I was union protected. No, this is the guy who did threaten to fire somebody who had the flu because he was out for too many days. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And that guy's running a district now.

Yes. Fuck me. Oh, he used to like disenroll kids right before testing and then reenroll them after. Well, because, you know, the charter, you can get away with that shit. Yep. Wow.

So yeah. So when he brought up, like, hey, they caught Al Capone because of tax evasion, I'm like, yeah. Okay. Yeah, you're showing your ass. Like, that's an odd analogy to choose right here. Yeah, I am. And it's scary on the on brand. I'm a little concerned.

Not gonna lie. Bathers, on a very deep moral level. Yeah, so So there you go. Wow, okay So now we we we got to talk about actual Batman. So so we have we have this we have this world Where in the popular imagination? we have this world where in the popular imagination we are in any world that both the futurists and the futurians are exalting forward progress and what we're going to do with scientific technology and what we're going to do with the future and all this wonderful stuff that's

going to happen. Sure. We're on the cusp of this technological leap out of the early industrial age into the very, very beginning of the jet age and the atomic age, right? And at the same time, in any urban area in the United States, we have the situation where the authorities are corrupt. The criminals who in the popular imagination are at the center of that corruption are largely untouchable, or unreachable. And in that kind of mixture of ideas, Bob Kane sits down to his drawing desk. In 1939, because his boss's national comics publications said, we want more stuff like

the Superman guy. And Bob Kane came up with an idea he called Batman, who was a rope swinging crime fighter in a red and black outfit, with a set of stiffly and ardent, devinche inspired wings on his back, and a domino mask on his face. Also, in the earliest color tests, he was a blonde. But anyway, domino mask on his face. And he looked at this and said, okay, so I got this character design, but I don't have much of anything else because I'm an artist not a writer. Right.

And he asked Bill Finger to come by, take a look at the idea and help him flesh it out. Finger listened to the pitch and made a series of suggestions. All right, so red is too bright. Switch it to gray to make it more menacing. Make it a cowl, Audit Domino. Leave his eyes as slits to make to increase the mystery level. And those wings, I get what you're trying to do

with those wings, but those are gonna get in the way, they're gonna really get in the way in a fist fight and they're gonna be really awkward. So tell you what, Superman is what our boss is once. So let's just go with a cape and maybe scale up the edge so that when he's leaping it looks like bat wings. Okay. So they then turned around and pitched that idea to the editors and in Detective Comics number 27 in May of 1939, the case of the

chemical syndicate got published. The very first Batman story. Okay. It's not much of a story. It's very simple because of course detective comics like most comics at the time were anthologies with multiple stories in there. You get 12 pages or so. I mean, that was the

first Superman too. It's like 13 pages in anthology. Yeah. Action comics in that case. So so true to its publication title, the Batman is more sleuth than then fist fighter. mean he he does he does wind up fighting a bunch of guys but but what what gets played up more is his his deductive ability he is the world greatest detective sure and uh... it also establishes the idea of bruce wane and batman the whole alter ego thing as a twist at the end of the story you know that commissioner Gordon's feckless socialite friend was the Batman all along. You know, because at the beginning of

the story, Commissioner Gordon shows up to the scene of a murder industrialist has been stabbed and he's for some reason for whatever reason he was you know going a lunch with you know, socialite Bruce Wayne, whose buddy, and Bruce Wayne is there seeing the crime kind of stay in the background and making a big deal out of, you know, we're gonna miss our tea time, you know, where a reservation, and then they head out

and then the next thing we see is, you know, this cowled figure, the Batman showing up and you know, going over the scene later. And so at the very end of the story, we see that Bruce Wayne has been the Batman. And so that's, that's, that's, that's, yeah. Yeah. Now, the other thing I want to point out about the story is this, this, again, this is the origin of the character, the very first story that he's in, an origin in a folklore sense, not, you know, canon sense. But the bad guys in this story are a corrupt businessman and a group of hitmen. Okay. Well, I I would again interestingly

Bruce Wayne is a you know known rich guy and he's hanging out with a police commissioner known rich guy. Yeah, it is hanging out with the police commissioner So you have the police that you know have the the backing of the state But everybody also knows that they're kind of corrupt have the backing of the state, but everybody also knows that they're kind of corrupt, hanging out with known rich people, but it's the right kind of rich people. So, you know, but yes, so the first bad guy he runs into is, as you said.

Yeah, it's not a clown, not a street mugger, not a compulsive real talent, not Nico Tauris. Not a clown. Not a clown, not a street mugger, not a compulsive real-tell, not an eco-terrorist, not a clown. Nobody with some mental compulsion, not an eco-terrorist, but a run-of-the-mill sociopathic corporate executives with access to professional killers. right like you know um actually yeah yeah basically a mastermind who sold extraordinary ability is wealth enough to hire professional killers to get away with murder being brought to justice by a dog and terrifying adventure because the police couldn't

catch him so you have us a through line of police and competence here which yes i and it's not necessarily even overt, but I am going to be very interested what happens after the CCA comes in. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. So, so, um, and in the statement, and I want to pause right there, and essentially state my thesis here. All right, go for it. The origin of the character, because I know, I know. Partly because I'm the token moderate of the two of us. And you're the comparatively flaming commie. Right.

Well, what a world we live in. We're considered like far left. Oh my God. Well, yeah, what a world to live in. We're considered like far left. Oh my God. Well, yeah, you're farther left than I. For the purposes of this podcast. Sure, I get it. You're not, you know, yeah. But I know, because we've had kind of versions of this conversation before, and I know

what commentary looks like on the interwebs, you know, it is, it is a meaningful, I'm not going to take anything away from the interpretation. It is, but it is, it is a, a common nowadays interpretation of the character and critique of the character of Batman, that he is a rich guy who goes out and beats up poor people. I've got got who are 20 minutes on this. Yeah, well, yeah, who are committing crimes because the system is corrupt in a way that prevents them from being able to make a living any other way.

Yeah. And the thing is what I want to point out is that that is not wrong. And certainly as we get into when when you start talking about the movies we can go forever Oh, yeah about like wow how fast she is this like yeah, and I'm and I'm I may push back a little but like not a lot. I actually don't dive into it very much until you get to the Nolan Batman Oh, well, okay. Yeah. Yeah. There are bigger game on foot I actually don't dive into it very much until you get to the Nolan Batman. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, there are bigger game input. Okay, prior to that, yeah.

Well, and we're in the era of post Nolan Batman, so that's where I'm coming from. But at the very outset of the character, he was, he's being written by a couple of comic book writers in New York in the 30s. And we've already talked about, you know, who were these guys doing this writing? They were anti-Nazi, you know, in 42, you know,

Batman, you know, Fights Hitler, along with every other costume superhero in the United States seems. Did anybody not realize that like this kind of makes Hitler stronger than all the superheroes combined because one-on-one, he walks out of every fight and keeps not seeing. Even though he gets pun- he's chumbo-wamba Hitler. Yeah, even though he gets pun, he's chumbo-wamba-hitler. I'll get knocked down, but I'll get up again. You're never gonna pooch me down, I'll get knocked down.

Here is a locker drink. Here is a whiskey drink. A whiskey drink. Yeah. Yeah, Das ist unsight of drink. I get pushed down. So, yeah, that's that's actually true and interestingly, there's a point that actually brings up about the Joker later on.

Oh, yeah. But when I get to the introduction of the Joker, well, oh, no, I'm not even now I realize what you think I'm talking about. No, I haven't even, Okay. Like, before we started recording, folks, I told Damien that like, I've gotten notes like, out the wazoo up until like 1943. But there's so much comic book history and so much lore going on that like,

this week I've been grading, and I just, I have been had enough time to like, dedicate to really doing this justice So but no what you're talking about doesn't happen until the 70s of the 80s. Oh, I think it was a 90s crossover actually Yeah, oh, yeah, no, yeah, but but um You know what I oh yeah, no, yeah, yeah, it was 90s. Yeah, that was the no wasn't the Malium universe But anyway, no what I'm talking about is what, what finger did not want the Joker to survive.

And I'll get into why. But it's for the San Bernard Sain, like, well, you know, this kind of means that Hitler is stronger than all of them. Right. So, but the, the, the impetus that drove the creation of the character was wish fulfillment of what I wish rich guys looked like, that that Bruce Wayne and Batman are a wish fulfillment daydream of what we wish rich people were more like. Because yes, Batman is motivated by a trauma in his past, but in the beginning of the comic,

But in the beginning of the comic, he's not the obsessive that he has since become. He kind of got flanderized over the course of decades. And so at the outset, he was, you know, passionate, his driving passion was the fight against criminals. So passionate, his driving passion was the fight against criminals, not necessarily crime, but against people who were victimizing other people. Sure, sure. And um, small time, you know, and well, most of them are gang leaders. Oh, I see. Not, not, he's not, because he's not, he's not, you know, we don't, we don't start seeing him beating up,

you know, street muggers as on the regular until the 70s. Okay. So when you said criminals not crime, you meant like not the systemic problem that creates it, it's, he's fighting the organizations that are it. Yes. He's got it. He's fighting, he's fighting the masterminds, the ring leaders, and the people

who have put themselves above the law through a combination of amorality or immorality and wealth, basically. And it was essentially, it's kind of a, what if there was a rich guy who is trying to fight all the bad rich guys? And that turns into something problematic pretty rapidly if you're not careful with it. But I think it's very easy for us to look at it, and to engage in presentism with what the character is now. Sure. When we're talking about, when we're talking about a character that now has,

you know, 80 years of history behind him, if that makes sense. No, it does, it does. I think judging things based in the time that they're in is probably the safest bet in some ways. And honestly, the most intellectually honest approach, doesn't mean we can't hold out our judgment of it now and go, okay, but that doesn't fit anymore.

Oh, yeah, but totally. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to obviate like I said. I mean, the critique and deconstruction, everything that does point up the kind of, well, you know, he is a rich guy who beats up the mentally ill like, you know, let's, can we talk about this for a minute? Like, you know, I get that. And we're the discussion to have. You know, yeah. Yeah. Once, once we actually realize what mental illness is, yes.

Like, you know, prior to that, we didn't have the vocab for it. You know, it's, it's one of those things of just like, you have to accept that we were flawed in a way that we didn't even know. We were flawed yet. Yeah. There's't even know. We were flawed yet. There's a lot of people who are swimming in. Yeah, well, and I'm gonna say that's for the dominant culture, not necessarily for everybody on the margins, push to the margins, because again,

I'm gonna keep pushing back. He is the right kind of white rich guy fighting against the wrong kinds of white rich guys fighting against the wrong kinds of white rich guys. There is a layer to that because he's in many way blurring that, you know, that violence thing. Yeah, he doesn't kill people except that doesn't come around till later too. And I'm sure you'll see that. Yeah, I'm gonna. Yeah, so like he is, he is doing what they do. It's just we cheer him because he's a wasp. Yeah. So.

So, yeah, oh, by the way, I found out it was Anthony Wayne is the guy that he was named after. Ah, yes, mad Anthony. Mad Anthony Wayne. So I've got a fun guy to look up later. Oh, yeah. No, I briefly, yeah, yeah. He's a fun figure, not quite as much fun as Mad Jack Churchill, but pretty close. What a bunch of names.

Who was the German dude that showed up on a sleigh with his lover to help train the American troops? Oh, shit. Von Stoieben. Von Stoieben, God, what a great statement. Like, the Stoiebener, von Stoieben. And it turns out he, he, he, like a massive amount of his, of his backstory was just complete bullshit. He was, he, it's not Stoieben, it's Stoieben.

He was, he was a sergeant. He was a non-commissioned officer in, in whichever, whichever part of, whichever part of Germany it was he was from. And he just lied. He showed up and said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a nobleman in German, of course, was being translated to Washington and all of them, but as a sergeant major, whatever his actual rank had been, he knew enough about the manual of arms and about drill and about training guys that it didn't matter. Right.

He was just in order to get a bunch of Virginian landowners to fucking listen to him. He had to claim to be an aristocrat. Oh, yeah. No, it's amazing. So the continental army was trained in large part by a con man. The continental army. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. So, I think we're at a point where we can kind of cut this off and pick it up. Yeah, we've definitely set this case I have, I have, I have a shit ton of other stuff to talk about here. And of course, we can unpack all of this like forever. Yes. But what, what is

with the little bit of Batman that we got into after we've finished bitching about work? What, what, what, what is your take away so far? Well, I do like that there was it wasn't just he was always a Fascist fanboy dream Dreamboat I like that he was You know, he he was somebody who I'm gonna say liberal. I think he was, you know, a liberal's dream,

because most artists at that time were, but I also think it's interesting that he was, maybe not deliberately, but most certainly pulling on the strings of prejudice, even from the very beginning. I didn't realize that until we got to discussing this today, because I keep coming back to, he's going after the Irish and the Italians. He's not going after the Jews probably for for the same reason that like only bad guys go after Jews in the 1930s and 40s. Yeah. So he's not going after Jewish gangsters because they're actually on the side

of right beating up on Nazis. Yeah. But and again, a lot of here, I mean, was it Seagal? He was a Jewish extraction. And I meant the writer. Seagal, yeah, Seagal and Schuster. Yeah. And so you've got a lot of, it's interesting because a lot of your comic book writers are immigrants or their first generation born here of immigrant families. And yet they're still, I mean, you got to eat so they're playing two certain stereotypes and Italians are a real easy one to do because their names are so readily identifiable in a bubble of text. Oh yeah.

You know, so I, when I was doing my research, cause what I'm gonna do is when you're done with all the comics, I'm gonna go through all the movies. And I was doing my research, I'm like, Jesus Christ, he's beating up a lot of Italians. Um, but, really is. Well, okay, okay, so, okay, as far as I, well, we can get into it when we're

talking about the movies. Sure, sure. Okay. I'll drop it for now. So, but yes, so even though he was doing good things, he was doing it in a Petri dish where the, the very auger that you were seeing him grow from was really fucking racist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that works. That works. So that's what I got from it. Okay. What are you recommending we read? What am I recommending you read? Oh, I'm reading a history of the flying tigers right now. And I believe that's actually the title. I got the book here in front of me.

Hold on. Yeah, it is The Flying Tigers by Sam Cliner. It is a really great read. It's very kinetic. It moves along a pretty good pace. It's a fascinating story. And it starts out with the life up until he headed to China of Clare Chinalt, who was the founder of the Flying Tigers. And I have been a fanboy for them, the legend of the flying tiger since I was a kid. And I'm learning an awful lot about Clare-Shanalt that I had not known.

And yeah, he's an even more amazing figure now that I know all of this. So it's a great read. It's a great read. I I highly recommended. What about you? Well, since we're doing Batman, I'm going to recommend that you go out, you find the the equivalent of DC unlimited, whatever it is. And you find Batman a death in the family. Fuck me. Yeah. All right. So that's, you know, that's, that's a one I'm gonna,

it's only for, for issues long. And it's some dark, dark shit. So not cool, dude. Yeah. Not cool. Yeah, that's, that's, that's 90s. Yeah. That was 88.

That was 88. Yeah, prenight, yeah, yeah, just on the cusp. That was kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you're evil. You are unkind, sir. Well, yeah. All right, so where can people find you on the social medias? If you're looking for me on social media, you can find me on both Twitter and TikTok as eHBlaylock. And you can find me on Instagram as MrBlaylock. And Blaylock is spelled BLAY, L-O-C-K. And you can find the two of us

And you can find the two of us if you want to argue with either one of us about our either moderate liberal or leaning leftist interpretations of this character. First of all, you're wrong. And second of all, you can argue with us about it at Geek History Time on the Twitter machine and help out where can they find you sir? Well, you can find me at Harmony that's two inches in the middle on both the Insta and the Twitter and You can find me every Tuesday night on Twitch.tv forward slash capital puns

making all kinds of puns for more than four years now and we've played pretty much people from all over the world and continues to just be a wonderful show but yeah if you want to fight with me and argue with me over my interpretation of Batman and how incredibly racist it is in the beginning even feel free to find me on the Twitter and the Insta. So all right well for Geek History Time I'm Damien Harmony and I'm Ed Blaylock and look for us again same Geek Time Seam same Geek Channel.