Bruce Wayne, and my "Villain"elle

Part 1

The use of Bruce Wayne for “The Other Universe of Bruce Wayne” immediately makes the story relatable to readers – kind of like an attention-getting mechanism. As Batman, his known alias, people conjure up an image as to what batman is: villains’ worst nightmare, a symbol of justice, a dark figure, and coolness. Using a popular culture figure gives people an idea as to what they are going to read about, but present this from a different angle. The opening line in the story states how Bruce Wayne, in this poem, will be poor and unlucky in love.

These different angles challenge the reader to think of other aspects of Bruce Wayne’s life, as opposed to the superhero glamour that floods media today. Perhaps Bruce Wayne is actually very messed up and psychologically impaired as he seems in this story. The imagery is immense when he is shown alcoholic, lonely. When readers read about a hero they have thought to be cool, dark, mysterious and tough, hearing the ‘other universe’ of Bruce Wayne makes them realize that Bruce Wayne is even more relatable to people. He also has problems of his own – such as being dumped by a girlfriend, or not having his “sh-- together.”

When I first heard the poem title, the title seemed interesting because I like Batman, and I wanted to hear this author’s interpretation on a possible other universe where Batman exists. Apparently, the other universe is his internal human body, but the idea still sounded cool because it was about Batman. But the idea of a world without Batman was interesting. Bucky Sinister mentioned how a world without Batman has “no crime-fighting, no hot vigilante action, no pensive brooding on the rooftops of Gotham.” So, I questioned whether or not Batman is the solution to injustice, or the problem of injustice?

Writing this poem in paragraphs (at first I thought this wasn’t a poem, just a short story) rather than stanzas and strophes allows me to be drawn into the story more. With strophe-poetry, sometimes analyzing the meaning takes longer to do because it is less direct. Also, poetry is highly interpretive and can be taken many different ways. Not to say a story can’t, but In this storylike-poem, automatically I am drawn to reading it because it’s not written in standard poetry form, and directly challenges the way I think about certain pop-culture figures -- the main character just happens to be a cinema-superhero. Or so I thought. The man is completely in the worst condition both physically and emotionally, and I can’t stop but question: why is he like this? Is he really always like this, just not when he goes out to fight crime? Is superhero-ism a way to escape from reality (as noted in the last couple of paragraphs)?

Lastly, who is “I” in the story? Who is Bruce Wayne talking to? A good friend? Or perhaps, maybe even a villain?

Part 2

So, I decided to take the idea of Bucky Sinister's "The Other Universe of Bruce Wayne" and write about a popular figure from the not-so-mainstream opinion:

But much of this world I’ve yet to see
From my currant eyes, thus I jumped to run,
Exploring the world -- you can’t catch me!

Though life I was given by daddy and mommy
And decorated nice, with cherries as buttons
But much of this world I’ve yet to see

From a distance afar, along comes piggy
And horsey, and cow, chasing the gingerbread son
Exploring the world – you can’t catch me!

No match for me, I celebrate, I’m free!
My rigorous competition has been outdone
But much of this world I’ve yet to see.

But, ho! The cunning fox in disagree
Why must he stop me, on my quest of fun?
Exploring the world – you can’t catch me.

To me, my life, no guarantee
From the day I popped out of that oven
But much of this world I’ve yet to see.
Exploring the world – you can’t catch me.

This is the real story of the gingerbread man. Not running away to escape here.