This is a tough one; I guess—Batman on drugs. Ninety percent of the time anyone sees this topic, their minds would sure have a hard time getting this to stick. While trying to wrap my head around this weird topic, I did the first thing anyone would do upon coming across such a topic. Check the internet. And the first video you would probably find is a ‘Batman on drugs’ meme. Digging deeper, you’ll also find out about his addiction to Banes drug in a comic adaptation, Legend of the Dark Knight. Let’s start our jolly ride from there, shall we?
Legends of the Dark Knight: Venom
This arc begins with Batman perusing through the night in hopes of saving a young girl’s life. Some unknown criminals had kidnaped the girl. She ends up drowning in the flooded cave as Batman was unable to remove a large chunk of rock that didn’t let him go through. This causes the Dark Knight to plunge into a wave of self-awareness that his human strength was not enough. He gets haunted by this fact only to end up at the door of Dr. Randolph Porter, the girl’s father.
Batman shares his grief with Randolph, who also seemed distraught by his daughter’s death. Randolph conveniently shares that he a scientist. He mentions that he had developed some strength-enhancing drugs.
This drug could help Batman in his crime-fighting endeavors. Batman had resolved in his heart that he would do whatever it took for no life to be lost under his watch again. Randolph Porter did not have to do much convincing for Batman to buy this idea. He gets some of the pills and at first felt no effect. However, the drug’s effect only kicks in after 24 hours of use.Â
Bruce Wayne began to see a change in his physical capabilities. He began to lift weights that he could not dream of lifting even in his prime. As strong as he was, the drugs helped him hit new highs in strength and agility as a human. However, as expected of an arc such as this, there are side effects.
Before taking the drug, he discussed with Alfred, his Butler, to rationalize using the drugs. He claimed that have such a strength-enhancing drug would help give him more time to study and create innovations. He wouldn’t need excessive training to keep his body in optimal shape. The drug would do that for him. How wrong he was.
The Rest of The Story
In the subsequent chapters, we began to see the side effects kick in. His thinking began to slow down. His speech and mannerism had begun to change. He found too much joy in beating down villains and criminals. He focused more on physical training and buffed up. Then he even abandoned his cape and dressed up in a trench coat and a hat on his crime-fighting sprees.Â
Another side effect of the drug was that it was addictive. It was so addictive that Batman kept going back to Porter for more. This addiction caused a rift between him and Alfred. Alfred ends up leaving him to his devices as Bruce claimed Alfred was a problem to him and the society he hoped to build.
Randolph Porter always knew about the side effect of the drugs. He kept baiting the masked hero to get more for his own gains. It turns out the drug research was financed by an old army general, Timothy Slaycroft. They ran experiments on people, and Batman was just a lab rat to them.Â
Batman’s addiction and muffle-headedness began to get obvious to him. O’Neil did so well to depict the Dark Knight’s obvious addiction by showing glimpses of characters inconsistent with his normal character. His grim tete-a-tete with Gordon was almost turning soft. Batman asked about his wife and kid. In an affectionate way. Weird, right? His grin had become almost predatory. He no longer felt the joy of swinging in the bat-suit in the dead of night. It even got to the point where he was talking toÂ
Batman’s awareness of his problem brings him to face another problem. How does he counter the addiction? He tries a couple of ways to battle his addiction but ends up failing. His desperation leads him back to his trusted partner and butler, Alfred. He begs Alfred to lock him up in a section of the bat-cave for 30 days.
He ended up facing his addiction and beating it. This part of the comic was probably the most heart-rending of the Legend of the Dark Knight Series. He came out standing tall after thirty days. Rejuvenated and clear-headed, he donned his bat-suit once more and went out in search of Porter and Slaycroft.Â
This arc showed us a part of Batman that we could have never imagined seeing. We saw him transition from the despair of watching a life being snuffed out before his eyes to addiction to the Venom drug. It gave us a glimpse of an extremely vulnerable Batman who was at the mercy of something. A situation he had worked his whole life to avoid. Yeah, Batman on drugs could be a scary sight. Not just for the criminals and the bad guys, but for those who are around him.
Batman On Drugs Video
When a lot of think of Batman on drugs, they are thinking of the classic YouTube video from back in the day. The video went viral before most people even know what viral was. It features a song of a guy slurring his words and an image of Batman tripping out. Let’s just say that the internet has come a long way since then.
