Page - 72 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/01

72 | Toufic El-Khoury www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/1, 59–74 ing which Batman, whose faith in humanity is also ambivalent, blocks the plans of his nihilistic alter ego before giving this strange reply, inspired by Nietzsche, a philosopher much referred to in popular culture: “We both looked into the abyss. But when the abyss looked back, you blinked35.” this curious reference to the famous aphorism 146 of Beyond Good and Evil raises a question: Did the Batman character, this creature of the night, perfectly understand the essence of evil, which allowed him not to surrender to it blindly? the mistake committed by the Owlman character, the act of blinking, calls to mind the prophets – saint Paul, for example,– who were blinded and covered their eyes when confronted with a divine vision. the suggestion for Batman is of a total surrender to the forces of the abyss – identified as a divine power – and the obliteration of any trace of free will, a disease that, according to the Owl- man’s initial observation, gives only an illusion of freedom.36 the Leibnizian solution was never convincing. During the eighteenth century, and even before Voltaire’s caricature of Leibniz in Pangloss in Candide, David hume suggested that the world had been created by a novice god, in a half- accomplished first attempt. On the same note, and in the context of the twenti- eth century’s pessimism and metaphysical scepticism, the existence of parallel worlds in the DC Universe can only lead to an inversion of Leibniz’s plea. yet does recognizing Leibniz’s argument nullify those heroic figures’ raison d’être and necessity? if this world is the best of all possible worlds, why bother with superheroes? These protagonists are stuck in an infinite vicious circle, where their heroic actions (fighting against the forces of evil) are incompatible with their identity (forces of evil define them as heroic protagonists). But, in a para- doxical manner, it is less a question of compatibility than of complementarity, with the hero’s actions stimulated by antagonistic forces, indefinitely generat- ing new actions. CONCLUsiON The question of evil, and its endless ramifications, enables the semantic ele- ments and syntax of the superhero genre to mature and be renewed. some of the more obvious signs of syntactic renewal are the efforts of the superhero genre to raise awareness, through its own means, of contemporary socio-polit- ical issues. it also addresses an audience that is no longer limited to teenagers, 35 Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (sam Liu/Lauren Montgomery, Us 2010). 36 the choice of an owl as the symbol of Batman’s diabolical alter ego is interesting. Both owl and bat are creatures of the night, but in many cultures the owl symbolizes loneliness, melancholy, and forces of darkness, unlike the bat, whose representations suggest a more dualist symbolism: though seen as a failed bird, or a monstrous being whose spiritual evolution was interrupted, in Greek mythology the bat refers to an intermediary state of progress, of maturation. see Chevalier/Gheerbrant 1982, 252–254.