Can we talk about the guy at my local shop who tried to tell me Batman is a bad detective?

I was at Cosmic Comics on 3rd street last Tuesday, browsing the new DC issues. This older guy, must have been in his 60s, sees me holding a Batman book and just laughs. He says, "You know Batman is a terrible detective, right? He only solves things by punching people." I tried to explain that the whole "World's Greatest Detective" thing is literally in his origin, but he wouldn't budge. He kept pointing to a random issue from the 90s where Batman missed a clue. It stuck with me because I think he was confusing the movie versions with the comics. Has anyone else run into fans who judge a character based on a single bad story or adaptation?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant_hart1mo ago

Oh man, I've been there more times than I can count. What finally worked for me was pulling up a specific example from the comics on my phone, like the "Hush" storyline where he's piecing together clues about who's messing with his rogues gallery. I told the guy, "Look, I get where you're coming from, the movies definitely dumb him down for action scenes. But in the books, he's literally running forensics and profiling suspects in his head while he's fighting." I showed him a panel where Batman notices a tiny detail about a guy's shoe scuff that leads to the whole case breaking open. He still wasn't fully convinced, but he stopped laughing at least. Sometimes you just gotta meet them with receipts to get them to see the character's got more layers than they give him credit for.

rose_cooper1mo ago

Honestly? It's just a comic book. Not that deep.

the_james10d ago

Ngl, that shoe scuff detail is a perfect example, but I think people miss the bigger picture. It's not just about him being smart in a fight. The real depth is how he uses detective work as a coping mechanism. Every case he solves is him trying to make sense of a world that took his parents from him. That panel where he's analyzing the scuff isn't just showing he's clever, it's showing he can't stop because if he stops thinking, he has to feel the pain. That's the layer most people don't get.