Capes

Got into a conversation with my friend Bill about capes on superheros, the opinion that heroes shouldn’t have capes because they get caught in doors and get you sucked into jet engines. I could not disagree more. Capes are fabulous, that is their primary function: to be fabulous. The supes that wear them, they all need them. Superman’s gotta have the cape. When he was reincarnated as Blue Electricity Superman sans cape, that was gay. Batman, of course he’s got to have a cape, you can’t imagine him without one. Dr. Strange – he a magician, definitely needs a cape. Dr. Doom – he’s a monarch, that absolutely requires a cape. I admit thirty square feet of material hanging off your shoulders might have some functional drawbacks – you’re going to trip on it, get it caught on shit, it’ll end up wrapped around your head, but those are generally minimized if you’re a flyer or you primarily use ranged weapons. Which bring us back to The Batman. A close-up pugilist is the worst-case scenario for a cape, and yet he must have one. He can’t exist without one, it’s written into the Tall, Dark, and Spooky. And that’s another thing about him, he is always the scariest motherfucker in the room. No superpowers whatsoever, but you get the sense that most powerful beings on the planet sitting around the JLA round table, and they all kinda defer to him. That’s crazy. Speaking of crazy, I made the mistake of echoing the generally accepted idea that “Batman is crazy” around Bill, and you don’t casually use the word “crazy” around someone who is a licensed psychiatrist. Ok, Batman is not delusional, he is not severely out of touch with reality, I retract my statement. What he is, is a) he refuses to use guns, and b) he refuses to kill people, and in his line of work that is crazy because that will get you killed really fast. No, not “crazy”, that’s just neurotic. Ok Bill, sorry.