Abishai100
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- Sep 22, 2013
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I've always been fascinated by the Batman-Leatherface contouring, a pairing of an unusual masked vigilante and an equally-unusual super-psycho. I've written quite a few comic book stylized short-stories about Batman-oriented vigilantes tackling the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface, but with this one (perhaps my final post), I wanted to explore the psychological angst associated with these two fictional characters --- to get a the root of their motivations.
Batman and Leatherface have become such cult-favorite fiction/movie avatars/characters that you start to wonder if some impressionable youngster might find it 'cool' to don a copycat suit and engage in copycat behaviors. Who would copy Batman, and who (or what!) would copy Leatherface?
I remember those stories of people committing copycat crimes modeled after Oliver Stone's controversial violence-glorification film Natural Born Killers.
What is it about the American psyche that makes vigilantism feel so...innocent?
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"January 2010:
When I was young, my parents were killed in an alley, and I was left as a princely heir but also as an orphan. I was raised by my butler Alfred until we found out that my parents left me familial ties to a set of godparents, Terry and Sheila Korning. I moved in with them while studying at Princeton, but every time I came home for the holidays, my step-dad (Terry) had bizarre stories about the nature of human cruelty and savagery (I suppose he related to me these ideas about horror, since I was studying psychology at Princeton).
Terry would tell me of a killer in the Old West of America who carried a small knife in his pocket which he used to ward off any competitors to his land which he was speculating for the Gold Rush. This killer (named Sal Wheat) would stick his knife into the noses of his victims and twist it until blood gushed out; he would then tie them up and let them bleed to death.
Thinking of this deranged Sal led me to imagine other examples of human imagination gone completely eschew. I started thinking about strange moral compromises human beings make --- e.g., middle-aged men cheating on their obese housewives, babies left unattended at the mall by careless shopping parents and facilitating the criminal work of kidnappers, etc. These thoughts nearly drove me insane, so I decided to become a vigilante."
As Batman (Bruce Wayne) looked at this diary entry he wrote a few years ago, he wondered if he was mentally and physically prepared to handle Gotham City's newest oddball-psychopath, a chainsaw-wielding cannibal who called himself 'Leatherface' (since he fashioned a face-mask made out of skin) and claimed he was the estranged half-brother of Batman's other eerie masked nemesis Scarecrow (formerly Dr. Jonathan Crane). Batman knew that Leatherface would terrorize people somehow on Halloween Eve, pretending the ghoul was simply a Gothamite in an outlandish costume. Gothamites just might overlook the fact that the 'costumed freak' was actually carrying a real chainsaw, giving the super-psycho enough time to hunt.
Sure enough, when Halloween arrived, Batman received a distress call in his bat-cave from Commissioner Gordon of the GCPD: "Batman! Leatherface has struck. He has murdered two police officers who mistook him for a simple costumed Halloween reveler. Please come to the crime scene at once!" Batman hopped into his bat-mobile with his electric stun-gun and tranquilizer darts and headed to the crime scene in Gotham. It was an alley where two cops were slain --- ripped from the abdomen up to the neck with the devastating chainsaw. Batman started getting dizzy and remembered the alley where his parents were killed and his step-dad Terry's bizarre stories of the Old West killer Sal Wheat.
Batman assured the GCPD that he would prowl around the city until he found the chainsaw-wielding 'Leatherface.' After driving around for about one hour, Batman spotted Leatherface skulking into an alley with his chainsaw. Batman got out his bat-mobile and ran into the alley, but the psycho was waiting for him there and swung his buzzing chainsaw towards Batman's neck. Batman swiftly ducked and then pulled out his electric stun-gun and zapped Leatherface in the stomach. The psycho became disoriented and his own chainsaw landed on his leg when he fell to the ground. Batman then tranquilized the psycho and yanked the chainsaw away from him and let the GCPD take over.
When Batman returned to his bat-cave, he remarked to himself, "I wonder if Leatherface was given slime-baths as a child!" He dreaded the moment he would have to once again confront the chainsaw-wielding cannibal at Arkham Asylum, and he estimated that day would arrive in about three months. In the meantime, Batman decided to start making 'caricature doodles' of Leatherface to create a mind-space for a crime-fighter's necessary 'sanity maintenance exorcism.'
====
Batman and Leatherface have become such cult-favorite fiction/movie avatars/characters that you start to wonder if some impressionable youngster might find it 'cool' to don a copycat suit and engage in copycat behaviors. Who would copy Batman, and who (or what!) would copy Leatherface?
I remember those stories of people committing copycat crimes modeled after Oliver Stone's controversial violence-glorification film Natural Born Killers.
What is it about the American psyche that makes vigilantism feel so...innocent?
====
"January 2010:
When I was young, my parents were killed in an alley, and I was left as a princely heir but also as an orphan. I was raised by my butler Alfred until we found out that my parents left me familial ties to a set of godparents, Terry and Sheila Korning. I moved in with them while studying at Princeton, but every time I came home for the holidays, my step-dad (Terry) had bizarre stories about the nature of human cruelty and savagery (I suppose he related to me these ideas about horror, since I was studying psychology at Princeton).
Terry would tell me of a killer in the Old West of America who carried a small knife in his pocket which he used to ward off any competitors to his land which he was speculating for the Gold Rush. This killer (named Sal Wheat) would stick his knife into the noses of his victims and twist it until blood gushed out; he would then tie them up and let them bleed to death.
Thinking of this deranged Sal led me to imagine other examples of human imagination gone completely eschew. I started thinking about strange moral compromises human beings make --- e.g., middle-aged men cheating on their obese housewives, babies left unattended at the mall by careless shopping parents and facilitating the criminal work of kidnappers, etc. These thoughts nearly drove me insane, so I decided to become a vigilante."
As Batman (Bruce Wayne) looked at this diary entry he wrote a few years ago, he wondered if he was mentally and physically prepared to handle Gotham City's newest oddball-psychopath, a chainsaw-wielding cannibal who called himself 'Leatherface' (since he fashioned a face-mask made out of skin) and claimed he was the estranged half-brother of Batman's other eerie masked nemesis Scarecrow (formerly Dr. Jonathan Crane). Batman knew that Leatherface would terrorize people somehow on Halloween Eve, pretending the ghoul was simply a Gothamite in an outlandish costume. Gothamites just might overlook the fact that the 'costumed freak' was actually carrying a real chainsaw, giving the super-psycho enough time to hunt.
Sure enough, when Halloween arrived, Batman received a distress call in his bat-cave from Commissioner Gordon of the GCPD: "Batman! Leatherface has struck. He has murdered two police officers who mistook him for a simple costumed Halloween reveler. Please come to the crime scene at once!" Batman hopped into his bat-mobile with his electric stun-gun and tranquilizer darts and headed to the crime scene in Gotham. It was an alley where two cops were slain --- ripped from the abdomen up to the neck with the devastating chainsaw. Batman started getting dizzy and remembered the alley where his parents were killed and his step-dad Terry's bizarre stories of the Old West killer Sal Wheat.
Batman assured the GCPD that he would prowl around the city until he found the chainsaw-wielding 'Leatherface.' After driving around for about one hour, Batman spotted Leatherface skulking into an alley with his chainsaw. Batman got out his bat-mobile and ran into the alley, but the psycho was waiting for him there and swung his buzzing chainsaw towards Batman's neck. Batman swiftly ducked and then pulled out his electric stun-gun and zapped Leatherface in the stomach. The psycho became disoriented and his own chainsaw landed on his leg when he fell to the ground. Batman then tranquilized the psycho and yanked the chainsaw away from him and let the GCPD take over.
When Batman returned to his bat-cave, he remarked to himself, "I wonder if Leatherface was given slime-baths as a child!" He dreaded the moment he would have to once again confront the chainsaw-wielding cannibal at Arkham Asylum, and he estimated that day would arrive in about three months. In the meantime, Batman decided to start making 'caricature doodles' of Leatherface to create a mind-space for a crime-fighter's necessary 'sanity maintenance exorcism.'
====
