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Analysis of Double Date
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This is an essay I wanted to write. Its birth came in the earlier episode "Double Date, which introduces the JLU version of the Huntress, establishes a dynamic between her and the Question that has significant impact on the remainder of the season, and builds a contrast between Question/Huntress and the more traditional Justice League Unlimited romance of Green Arrow/Black Canary. That episode in particular showcased Huntress, Question, Canary and Arrow, highlighting the essential similarities and differences between the four characters.
And left my lit crit brain with one inescapable conclusion: all four characters are ectypes to the archetype of Batman.
In mythological and psychological critical theory (which is a philosophy ) there is a concept of the archetype: the image that in all ways fulfills the role of the hero or the role of the monster. In Greek Myth, the perfect heroic archetype is Perseus – the son of Zeus who stands as a man instead of a demigod, acting with perfect honor and using the highest ideals of the Greeks, strength and cunning, to dispatch all enemies who come before him. Perseus redeems the insult to the Gods that causes Andromeda to get chained to a rock for a monster to eat her. Perseus never succumbs to the hubris that got Andromeda in trouble in the first place. Perseus cleverly finds a way to defeat Medusa, and then uses Medusa’s severed head as his weapon to fight a foe that force of arms could never defeat. Perseus was honored enough to be given the very tools of the Gods (Athena’s shield, Hades’s helm, Hermes’s winged sandals) but never succumbs to the temptation to think of himself as a God. And in reward for his actions, Perseus, Andromeda, and even Perseus’s mother in law Cassiopeia were placed in the heavens as constellations.
However, having the perfect archetypical hero does us no good unless we also have examples of other heroes who strove for that perfection but came up short. In effect, these are flawed copies of the perfect hero. These are called ectypes, and they echo the archetype. The traditional example is Theseus. He too is a child of the Gods who acts as a man instead of a demigod. He too fights monsters using his cunning and his strength. He too acts to redeem his nation from a curse.
However, he also comes up short. He abandons his newly found wife. He forgets to change the color of his sails and thus condemns his father to death. And later in life he challenges the Gods themselves by seeking to kidnap the wife of Hades himself so a friend of his could marry him. He therefore endures many hardships and curses through his life – never able to achieve the same heights. Or, take the example of Bellerophon, who fought and destroyed the Chimaera with the help of the winged steed Pegasus, given to him by Athena. But his hubris caused him to try and fly Pegasus to Olympus and the Gods had to have him put down. Sad.
Ectypes bear the aspects of the Archetype, but fail to fulfill the promise of the archetype. They lack the proper humility, or the proper cunning, or the proper honor, or whatever.
Which brings us back to Batman and our double-date crew.
Batman is, unquestionably, an archetype of the DC Universe. He is the fulfillment of the hero who has no (or few) powers, coming from privilege but dedicating his life to the downtrodden and the elimination of crime. While possessed of flaws, he overcomes them to stand for something higher than his own revenge. His aspects are many: he is an unsurpassed martial artist, able to use misdirection and skill to fight. He possesses many tools and gadgets (his ubiquitous utility belt and the like) which he uses, but none of them are as important as his own heart. He innately seeks to do things for the right reasons, no matter how tempted he is to cross the line. He is perhaps the greatest living detective. And he uses fear as his greatest weapon.
The most obvious ectype of Batman is the Huntress, which makes sense when one considers that the original comic book version of the character was Helena Wayne – the daughter of Earth 2’s Batman. After Crisis, Huntress needed to be remade, but the fingerprints of her origins remain all over the character. In fact, the post-Crisis version of Huntress (which the animated continuity is mostly faithful to) is even closer to Batman than the original. Like Batman, Huntress’s obsession with justice began when she saw criminals murder her parents. (Unlike Batman, Huntress’s father was himself a criminal, but as the Question points out in the episode himself, the Huntress could hardly know that as a child.) She is a driven martial artist and warrior. She uses a device – in her case, her hand-crossbow. She is as uncompromising of her beliefs as Batman himself is; she takes expulsion from the Justice League in stride, so long as she can continue her work. And like Batman, she uses misdirection and manipulation when necessary to further her goals. In fact, in one key scene, we actually see her shadow spread over an enemy, and it is exactly the same shadow we associate with Batman – a hallmark of her similar mask.
However, she is also deeply flawed in ways the Dark Knight is not. Unlike Batman, when put on the cusp between vengeance and justice, Huntress takes vengeance. In fact, the prologue of the piece shows the Huntress apparently committing an act of murder in cold blood. As it works out, the Justice League had anticipated her actions, but there’s really no other way to interpret a woman firing a good ten crossbow bolts into someone lying in a bed. For her, the dark path she walks has overwhelmed her heroic impulses, and she crosses the line. Further, while she employs lies and misdirection for her goals – implying to Question she knew information he wanted when she didn’t, trying to trick Green Arrow and Black Canary into believing she was acting on League business – she’s singularly bad at it, which Batman never would be. Finally, she has to recruit assistance to find her enemy – she possesses Batman’s combat skills and edge, but not the finely developed skills in investigation.
The Question, on the other hand, possesses Batman’s detective skills in spades. In fact, in an earlier episode, Batman actually tasked the Question with ferreting out the evidence of Cadmus’s illegal activities. He sees connections and works out the reasoning behind things. He actually does understand the criminal mindset. Further, he has Batman’s flair for the dramatic, and is extraordinarily good at using fear – Batman’s weapon of choice – to get the information he needs. (In the first episode he appeared in, “Fearful Symmetry,” we see the Question interrogate a reporter, terrifying him into compliance with shock value, theatrics, and Britney Spears music.) He is also a master manipulator. It can easily be said that the Question engineered every step that Huntress, Green Arrow and Black Canary took, knowing ahead of time exactly how things would work out and giving Huntress the chance to redeem herself or take that final step over the line. He is a chess player of distinction.
However, he clearly doesn’t possess Batman’s skill in hand to hand combat – losing a punching match with Green Arrow (who himself we know isn’t a hand to hand master). It could be argued he lost that fight intentionally, setting up the conditions for the later endgame. Further, while he doesn’t let his emotions cloud his methods, he clearly sets on this course with Huntress in the first place because he’s attracted to her. And finally, he’s batshit insane.
No, really. While the best part of the Question’s character is seeing all the ways he’s right – and seeing him outsmart and – more to the point – outthink everyone in the room, he takes it many steps too far. The girl scouts probably aren’t responsible for the crop circle phenomenon, and even if they are, it’s probably not a part of an overall conspiracy that also includes boy bands and the rise of Starbucks. Huntress accuses the Question of apophenia – seeing connections in meaningless or unconnected data – and while the Question clearly is right about many of the connections he finds, it’s pretty clear that Huntress is also right.
Further, Question is paranoid, in a way Batman would never be. Perhaps harkening back to the Question’s creation (the Question is a Steve Ditko creation, from Ditko’s Objectivist period, and traditionally sees the world in extremely black and white terms. All things that are not good are bad. In fact, in the episode “Question Authority,” when the Question insists to Lex Luthor that “A is A, and no matter what reality he calls home, Luthor is Luthor,” the Question is directly invoking Ayn Rand), the Question absolutely sees himself as the one good man in a world mired in corruption. By the same token, any action he takes that serves the greater good is justifiable. When the Question discovers that Superman seems to be trapped on a course where he will murder Luthor after Luthor takes office as President – with armageddon following – he takes the most direct and obvious action to prevent this; he goes to murder Luthor himself, denying Superman the chance. He lacks the crucial conscience that Batman possesses – the understanding that the greater good may be paramount, but there are lines you do not cross to get there.
That sense of conscience, of wrong and right, of a willingness to put everything on the line – to die if necessary but never compromising that which is right is a hallmark of our next Batman ectype, Green Arrow. Green Arrow is an obvious ectype, of course – he was clearly designed as a full on Batman ripoff. He was a millionaire philanthropist who takes up the cause of justice with a series of expertly designed gadgets and a teenaged ward and sidekick, operating out of a cave accessible from his Star City mansion. As Batman himself asked in the Kevin Smith run in the Green Arrow comic book, Green Arrow never had an original idea in his life. At least, in the old days.
However, following the sixties and seventies, Green Arrow became the most famous Liberal in comic books (which in a way makes Green Arrow the perfect counterpoint to the Question). This has been reflected in Justice League Unlimited, and also is reflected in Green Arrow’s own journey with the Justice League. Like Batman, Green Arrow wants no part of the Justice League at first – to him, the Justice League is focused entirely on the galaxy spanning threats, and ignoring “the little guy.” Green Arrow is all about the little guy. Further, Green Arrow has no powers but his own skills, the devices at his command, and his sense of right and wrong. However, when push comes to shove, not only does Green Arrow step up, he’s the one able to stop the giant monster when the powerhouses – Green Lantern, Supergirl and Captain Atom – all fail. By the end of season two, when the original seven are ready to pack it in because of everything that’s happened, it’s Green Arrow who speaks truth to power and tells them, in effect, to suck it up and do what’s right instead of what’s easy. All of these things are ineffably Batmanish traits.
However, Green Arrow’s own flaws come from his lacks. He has no detective skills to speak of, and while he possesses a typically Liberal set of paranoias (when meeting Captain Atom, his response is “you’re what I marched against in college”), he’s willing to accept surface explanations rather than dig deeper. He is often counterpointed with the Question, who seems completely insane to Green Arrow, but inevitably the Question’s more sinister explanations turn out to be right. Green Arrow is exceptionally good at fighting the symptoms of crime, but lacks Batman’s understanding of the roots of it. Even in “Double Date,” where he seems to be able to read the Question’s motivations one step ahead of the Question, Green Arrow is clearly being used as a pawn in the Question’s overall plan.
Black Canary, in certain ways, fits the Batman ectype least well. In part this is because she more properly fits a different archetypal path – Wonder Woman. She too possesses a combination of sexuality and nobility, combat style and raw power. So, she belongs with the Amazon, with Hawkgirl, with Zatanna and that whole clique. And, given that in Justice League Unlimited, Batman and Wonder Woman seem to be sliding into a relationship, there is a clear correspondence to Green Arrow and Black Canary’s own super-heroic courtship. (In fact, while Green Arrow is a clear Batman ectype and Black Canary can be seen as either a Wonder Woman or Batman ectype, it’s safe to say that the Green Arrow/Black Canary relationship is archetypal for modern super hero relationships, and Batman/Wonder Woman and Huntress/Question alike are ectypes of it. But that’s a different essay.)
But, she also fits elements of the Batman ectype. She was trained by Wildcat – himself a solid Batman ectype – as a virtuoso of hand to hand combat. (The implication is she’s one of the very best hand fighters.) While she has a sonic scream – the only honest “super power” of the four – she can’t use it on regular people. It would kill them. It’s like the missiles Batman packs in his batwing – they’re there, but he’s not about to fire them at the Joker. Her costuming clearly derives from a Noir tradition that Batman is a comic book exemplar of. And more to the point, she is both a detective and a master manipulator. When she discovers that Wildcat – her mentor and a father figure – has fallen into disreputable habits, she plays on Green Arrow’s obvious attraction to her to solicit his help without involving the rest of the Justice League. In fact, by the end of that episode, Green Arrow is convinced that Black Canary is purely using him as a weapon – her own nature has interfered with her ability to honestly express her own attraction to Oliver Queen. And that’s as Batman as it gets. She has a solid sense of honor, of right and wrong, and of the criminal mindset. She understands implicitly that the only way to get Wildcat out is to beat him at his own game. (Though it takes Green Arrow to realize that Black Canary’s plan would break Wildcat, but Arrow’s own sacrifice would give Wildcat the mental shock needed to save himself, instead.)
However, Black Canary lacks the core drive and sense of honor that Batman (and the Huntress, the Question and even Green Arrow) possess in spades. Her Wildcat solution is a case in point – she’s willing to break Wildcat to save him. It is the most direct path to preserving his life and legacy, but no matter if she wins or loses, Wildcat would never be able to leave the cage without losing his own essential nature. Her goals are admirable, but she can’t see her way out of what looks like a no-win situation.
Obviously, all four characters are rich and nuanced in their own right – one should never take the approach that ectypes are less than their archetype. Quite honestly, if the Founding Seven members of the Justice League left tomorrow, and we had a new core team with Green Arrow, Black Canary, the Huntress and the Question at its heart, I’d be perfectly happy. Their flaws and weaknesses make them interesting. However, given the clear mirroring of the two relationships in the episode (reflected in the “Double Date” title itself), it’s interesting to me, at least, that all four heroes can be harkened back to the same archetype. And, it’s a credit to that archetype that the four ectypes can be such diverse and rich characters as well.
Re
Earth 2 Helena Wayne in Pre Crisis story, transports to Earth 1 and meets
Batman
Robin
Batgirl
Original Batwoman
Catwoman
Poison Ivy
In Batman Family 17
The TV show
Birds of Prey
Is currently on Tubi
I have watched that show more than I want to admit but haven’t seen it in a while. It is always nice to hear Mark Hamill’s Joker in the pilot episode. It does have stray from the source material but that just means another version of characters that I love!
There are many pleasures to that TV show
A great Barbara Gordon and Alfred
A unique take on Harley Quinn, that emphasizes her psychiatric background
The young Rachel Skarsten, as the second Black Canary, who now plays Alice on CW Batwoman
And it was great to see
that Helena Kyle and hear Barbara Gordon on CW Crisis on Multiple Earths.
You know, I probably knew this at one point but I would never have put the two together. After my Law and Order binge, they brought out a new season of the original series, I think I am going to throw on BoP from my Vudu or DVD, maybe with a slight detour of the new Final Fantasy game first.
I am watching BoP and around the 30-minute mark of the pilot episode Huntress jumps over a wall and there is a hilarious and out-of-place cat sound. Something that I might have noticed before but I got a good laugh out of it. I rewound it a few times to make sure I wasn’t hearing things.