Batty or Super?

Neon Memes • The DVD of The Dark Knight (with its much-ballyhooed performance by the late Heath Ledger as the Joker) "streets" today, and that release reminds me of a dualism my friend Jason Green and I sporadically revisit. Because Jason edits the comics-related section of the local website PLAYBACK:stl, it should come as no surprise that the dualism involves that area of pop culture―to wit, whether a given comics fan ranks as a "Superman guy" or a "Batman guy." (We're not contemplating the Manichaean schism, admittedly, but leave it. Also, the offhand terminology notwithstanding, gals too can play here.) Between the two DC Comics icons, Jason, a good-natured chap who generally embraces optimism, self-identifies with Superman: the Campbellian sun hero soaring through the clean, cloud-free skies of Metropolis in search of malcontents (who, "back in the day," invariably displayed the fashion sense of an eggplant―lots of purple and green to contrast with the protagonist's blue, red and yellow costume). And me? To which character do I relate more, Superman―or the Batman, a human shadow whose bleak Gotham City teems with the downtrodden, the victimized and, of course, psychotic freaks? Hmmm... ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor