Psychology of Supervillains - Calendar Man - January 2021

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The Psychology Of Supervillains Club - Calendar Man - January 2021

Welcome to The Psychology Of Supervillians Club. This month we will delve and dissect Calendar Man . Step into his mind and determine what makes him tick

WARNING :
This club will be discussing darker aspects and elements within the DC Universe. These aspects and elements could be viewed as overtly violent, malevolent and possibly offensive to some.

  • We acknowledge that we are not mental health professionals, and are not able to provide any diagnosis or guidance in this regard.
  • This thread does not suggest or support any mental health diagnosis or any guidance of or for people in the real world. We are dealing with purely fictional characters within fictional worlds.
  • Supervillains are potentially driven by deep seated and often dark or disturbing concepts of what they feel is the right thing to do and why the villain is the hero of their own story.
  • We will explore if the supervillain is actually correct in their views and actions, are they justified in what they do and potentially would their fictional worlds be better off if they actually did win and defeat the hero.

The club gives this warning because some may find such discussions disturbing, distasteful, and/or possibly immoral and we want the community to be well aware of what the contents of these discussions can involve.

The Ground Rules: ( Yes…even villainy has to follow a few rules . Don’t take my word for it…Go ask The Legion Of Doom or The Crime Syndicate, they have rules too.)

  • Posts must follow DC Universe Community Guidelines
  • This is a “ safe space ” to explore a sometimes taboo topic…villainy. Why it’s necessary and possibly why villains are often more interesting than the heroes that oppose them.
  • Be respectful of the opinions of others. Did I mention that … Posts must follow DC Universe Community Guidelines
  • There is no such thing as a “right” or “wrong” opinion here.
  • The views expressed are the opinions of the poster and deserve to be acknowledged as a valid opinion, even if you might disagree and debate items. What does that mean? Posts must follow DC Universe Community Guidelines
  • We are dealing with the intricacies of the mind. The one thing we do know is that we can never be ultimately sure what is actually going on in the mind of a supervillian.
  • However, we can conjecture based on what we do know about them and form our own points of view on what makes them tick and have blast while doing it.
  • In case you missed it the 3 times earlier…Posts must follow DC Universe Community Guidelines

Don’t be afraid to be bold, to challenge the status quo, to think in unique ways and be outspoken. Their is no “right” or “wrong” point of view here. There is what we each find in delving beneath the surface and into the mind of our Supervillian Of The Month.

Most importantly, have fun. Enjoy your process. Revel in it. Don’t be afraid to let some of your “evil” out. We’ve all got a bit of it in us somewhere. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t find villains interesting, now would we. :smiling_imp:

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Reminder: Posts must follow DC Universe Community Guidelines

Our January 2021 Supervillian of the month - Calendar Man
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It’s time to flip the page to a new year, so it seems fitting that Calendar Man made the January selection.

His most notable appearance was in “The Long Halloween”. I know some other clubs covered that in October, so I thought we can focus on his other appearances.

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Below are some comic book resources for Calendar Man available on DCU.

This is by no means a definitive list.

Reading the entirety of the resources below is not expected.

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Comic Resources:

Batman - 312

Detective comics - 551

Batman - 385

Batman: Dark Victory

Legends of the Dark Knight - 30

Legends of the Dark Knight - 31

Legends of the Dark Knight - 32

Batman: Arkham Knights - 29

Batman: Arkham Knights - 30

Batman: Arkham Knights - 31

Batman: Arkham Knights - 32

Batman: Arkham Knights - 33

New Year’s Evil - 1 (pages 49-58)

optional resources

Batman: The Long Halloween - all 13 issues

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What resources you use or don’t use is up to you. The only limit is your imagination and deduction.

Use whatever materials you like in building up your case for the psychology. Although noting what you’re basing it on could be helpful as resources for the club and our members.

I know with the current pandemic circumstances, some folks may have more or less time on their hands than normal.

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A few questions too consider
What motivates him?

Is he, as he says, “an artist”?

Does he share similarities and/or difference to other OCD villains, such as the Riddler?

Is he too predictable or does he mask what he does well enough?

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Without further ado, we enter 2021 with Calendar Man.
Let the adventure begin!!!

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I believe I will be indulging in said Long Halloween

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Initial thoughts on silver age calendar man: all those gadgets and themed costumes and tools cost money. it’s like some rich guy is bored and has enough brains to match wits with Batman. I wanted to track down an editor’s note, but it was not on the service.

Finished The Long Halloween. Overall, I liked it. It has a weird rep? Like a love it or hate it kind of thing? More on it later. I might as well agonize in a text file than the flimsy text box.

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I look forward to revisiting The Long Halloween should we focus on Two Face. Calendar Man is more of a footnote as he is consulted on the killings. Definitely liked the art and how Batman was portrayed. Of all the rogues, Mr Freeze was surprisingly absent. maybe not so much. There were a few BatCat 'ship moments (assuming I even have the right 'ship name).

Legends of The Dark Knight 30-32 was a little more about Batman but I liked how the story was told, from eyewitnesses, to Calendar Man, to Batman. It seemed Calendar Man is more some crazy guy that thinks he’s doing something good by doing something bad. I like that he was in some sort of costume with respect to the holiday in question.

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After reading Batman 312, it seems that Calendar Man does have some OCD tendencies. Every crime he commits, he has to full commit to the calendar theme. In this case, he is dressing and and robbing things that deal with how the days of the week were named. Even the weapons he uses against batman are themed, like his eight wheel vehicle for his Odin personification or using a hammer like Thor.

Calendar man also appears to be experiencing mania as he has this sense that he in invincible, he literally dresses as various gods, and appears to have no fear of danger. He seems to be experiencing a lot of euphoria as he plays out these calendar themed crimes and enjoys how clever he is with the crime itself, his costume, and his gadgets. it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t sleep much that week during this possible manic episode.

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Certainly hypo-mania at least. The more I read, the more I’m convinced it’s a fetish for CM, even more so than Ridder (which we covered earlier).

I’ll post more as I make it through the rest of the comics on the list.

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The Dark Victory selection added more to the Long Halloween Calendar Man (and Two Face).

Weird observation: Said Calendar Man trips my gay-dar. Is he just drawn that way?

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Calendar Man

The more I read, the more convinced he is much like the Riddler, only more so. I’m not even convinced that he’s operating under Riddler’s delusion that he’s smarter than Batman.

He is highly predictable and has a compulsion that is more akin to a far more pronounced fetishism than even Riddler’s. It transcends the sexual or arguably it is the Id taking a fetish to its most logical extreme. That point where pure desire overreaches everything else, regardless of cost.

It’s beyond Riddler’s sense of compulsion, to being totally consuming. Knowing that he is making it so easy for Batman to stop him. I think the fetishism is on full display in his July 4th stunt, when Batman points out how flawed his “rationale” is, using actual historic dates and actions. CM’s actual “argument” to wake people up to the call to and sacrifice required of freedom is not his true reason. It is the holiday itself that truly matters. Linking back around to this massive fetish for holidays.

I must confess, I find the earlier stories more interesting and fun. The notion of turning him to being “all about killing the Batman” and somehow only he is “worthy” and capable of doing it is just recycling the Joker’s schtick. I find it a lazy approach to trying to make the character more “dark and edgy”. I’m frankly not convinced it really jives with his underlying psychology. If his primary motivation is to kill Batman, there are plenty of “holidays”. June 15th is National Lobster Day, January 28th is National Blueberry Pancake Day, and the list goes on. He could find just about any day as a “holiday” to kill Batman if he wanted. Yet, he never does that.

Anyway, some thoughts to consider about Calendar Man’s psychology.

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The Arkham Knight CM is definitely redressed joker shtick (sp?), but I do like how he is drawn to be this large imposing man that would be very creepy in any given dark alley. In this version, it’s kill Batman first and the calendar motif/obsession/fetish second. The plan wasn’t too shabby until Scarecrow got in the way. Not a bad looking Scarecrow. I was somewhat distracted with this version of jason todd. Not a bad Batman, but the Batman Gordon friendship was too friendly. The reporter who was anti-vigilante seemed to add a little depth to this version of Gotham and Gordon’s response only adding to the chummy-ness.

The Silver Age version was more loathe to kill, only to surrender to it because the obsession led to that conclusion.

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I’m not that convinced, it was a pretty-crisis CM, and that is the version of Jason Todd that I grew to loathe and vote to be killed off. He is really just a :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:.

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It’s on the cover of that pre crisis book. CMs thought bubble about having to kill.

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Yeah, but it’s about killing Jason Todd Robin.
I’m sure in my warped brain, I always saw that sentiment as a public service. And he’s very particular about only Robin and not as a general rule.

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My first exposure to Calendar Man was the Moench issues, and that’s always been the definitive version to me, not the bald guy with the weird tattoos around his head. The Riddler aspect…but with dates!..was always fun to me in a “man, that’s so crazy/dumb, I dig it!” sort of way.

I agree with the assessment that CM is even more compulsive and obsessive than the Riddler, and that’s not about proving his intelligence, he just can’t help but do Calendar things ALL the time. I could imagine Riddler taking a night off and grabbing a beer, but CM just can’t stop, ever.

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Source: Legends of the Dark Knight # 30-32

The Calendar man – Obvious signs of being a pathological liar, this was clearly observed in his compulsive lying to the officer without any clear advantage to his own situation as the officer stated he was a wanted felon and as such could never obtain a permit in the city of Gotham. Though this is a sign of his unstableness it does not showcase his true psychological problems.

permit
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So essentially Calendar man is different from others in his ability to “switch off” his sense of empathy for his underlining principles and objectives. It is his lack of empathies, that would give him a diagnosis as a psychopath. Where he craves a sense of identity or meaning and purpose which in his case can be intoxicating. To accomplish his goals requires having to disengage this natural empathy that average citizens of Gotham should have, this is how he can approach his indifference of human life – the members of the factions he feels he is fighting against – as mere objects he can exterminate them without remorse.

busting
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Calendar man does not view himself as one of them but fundamentally he sees everyone else as an “other” there by refusing to connect with any of them or anticipate the grief he will cause. A possible cure could be to eliminate his separateness by finding a group to identify with or a like-minded community but that could be a loaded grenade if the group he joins are extremist and only feed into his negative perspectives of Gotham society.

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