Batman could have prevented the Boy’s dark journey through Gotham if he adopted him. So why didn’t he?
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers from “House of Gotham: Chapter 4” in Detective Comics #1050, on sale now.
The Boy has steadily been making his way through Gotham’s villains, each one providing a key part of his dark education as he gets closer and closer to becoming the city’s newest threat. However, his journey might not have needed to occur at all if Batman had done one thing: Adopted him.
Batman clearly feels some obligation towards the Boy as seen in “House of Gotham: chapter 3” from Detective Comics #1049 (by Matthew Rosenberg, Fernando Blanco, Jordie Bellaire, Rob Leigh), so why didn’t he just take the Boy in right away? There actually are a number of reasons that might explain Batman’s actions, but they still put the Boy on a dark path.
Right from the start, Batman was tied to the Boy’s origin story. While Batman may not have had a direct hand in the deaths of the Boy’s parents, it was his inability to keep up with the Joker that gave the murderous clown the time he needed to butcher the Boy’s parents right in front of him. Since that moment, the Boy has despised Batman, associating him with the moment where everything went wrong with his life. So, from the outset, it could be that Batman didn’t think it wise to adopt the Boy.
Aside from the fact that the Boy’s legal guardian would be a man he despised, it would also create an increased risk for Batman’s vigilante activities. If the Boy came to live with Bruce Wayne, it would only be a matter of time before he discovered the truth about the man who had adopted him. His anger towards Batman might then motivate the Boy to expose the Dark Knight to the rest of the world, forcing Bruce to go on the run as the Boy claimed his misplaced vengeance.
Another possible explanation could be that Bruce simply didn’t think he had time to care for another child. The next story “House of Gotham: Chapter 4” in Detective Comics #1050 (by Matthew Rosenberg, Fernando Blanco, Jordie Bellaire, Rob Leigh) revealed that the Boy’s presence in Batman’s life coincided with Robin. Bruce had already taken Dick Grayson in and probably couldn’t spare any more time. Between raising Dick, being Bruce Wayne, and then protecting Gotham as Batman, adding another child to the mix would have been a recipe for disaster.
The true reason though, is tied back to their very first encounter. Batman and the Boy share similar origins. Both witnessed their parents being murdered in cold blood by a criminal. It gives them a primal understanding of one anther and the pain they go through every day. However, the Boy differs from Batman in how he responded. When help finally came, the Boy’s first reaction was to point a gun at Batman. In that moment, Batman could see the darkness in the Boy as he made no attempt to hide it. A killer instinct lurked in him and it had just been awakened. Tragedy had created a hero in Batman and a monster in the Boy.
Everything that he’s seen since has only leant credence to this belief. The Boy connects with deranged murderers in a disturbingly easy way. They see themselves reflected in him. Batman tried to get him away from Arkham as soon as possible, but the environment he left him in only exposed the Boy to a more subtle form of indoctrination in the form of the Scarecrow. Ultimately, the Boy is a being ruled by his darkness, whereas Batman directs it for the benefit of all. The Boy will never be capable of this, something that Batman and all of his villains seem to understand on an instinctive level.
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