Batman

While the rest of the world stands behind him in agony, he's still deciding whether or not he should release Batman. If Bruce were wholly interested in fighting crime as a duty, he wouldn't have sought refuge in the first place. Plus, if he were fighting crime as a duty, the conflict shown on his face on page 12 should not exist for it is an easy answer: become Batman to save Gotham city. But instead it becomes an inner question of whether or not he should release the past or suppress it. It is perceived that he runs on desire, not knowing how to fill the emotional void embedded in him when his parents died, for he is running towards the impossibility of bringing his parents back to life by adamantly fighting crime. This touches on the ideas of Jacques Lacan in that desire is created unconsciously, it is "found." For Lacan, Bruce Wayne's desire to fight criminals springs from his desire to prevent the night that his parents died in the hands of a criminal. .
             Bruce's intentions for fighting crime are also shown in his inner dichotomy of currently living life as the normal Bruce Wayne versus becoming the dark knight Batman. Bruce is against becoming Batman again, not because the risk he takes for saving lives, but because it will release within him a person he has suppressed. His agony is displayed thoroughly on page 14, where he falls to his knees, arms crossed, trying to prevent the thing that nourishes, and also destroys him. As he falls to his knees in this comic strip, his words signify that his actions for being Batman spring from a resentment from his parent's death. His parent's death was in the name of a futile act, so when he says, "All he wanted was money . . .and this world is theirs," signifying the futility of the criminal's actions, it parallels the way that his parent's died. As he falls to his knees with his arms crossed, it seems as though he's in shame. The bright light that centers on him to become Batman, but he lies in shame, unable to see the light because of the futility of crime, and the uselessness of his parent's death.