Warning! Spoilers for Batman: Black and White #6!
In DC Comics, Batman is hands down one of the most popular, iconic and legendary fictional characters ever created, and now the secret to his effectiveness as a successful hero and mysterious vigilante has finally been revealed. And all it took was one of his most sadistic and manipulative villains to figure it out!
Revealed in the sixth issue of the anthology series dubbed Batman: Black and White, the second story, “The Abyss” by Pierrick Colinet & Elsa Charretier (along with Elsa Charretier pulling double duty on art as well), long-time Batman villain and crazed psychiatrist, Hugo Strange, is listening to the accounts of three different people in regards to their recent interaction with The Dark Knight and the particular brand of chaos he brings along with him. Each having experienced the same brutal fight between Batman and the winged terror known as Man-Bat, their experience of the event leads to three similar yet vastly different takes on what occurred.
Hearing from a regular civilian, a cop and a young child, the trio recounts their stories to Hugo Strange in their own personal ways. Calling Batman a “mad-man”, a “savior” and a “monster” respectively, Strange immediately calls out what's going on here by saying, “What we are dealing with here is some sort of cognitive distortion. An irrational thought pattern,” succinctly analyzing his patient’s stories in a way that directly brings attention as to why their tales are so divergent even though they witnessed the same event to begin with.
Going on to say that their memories and realities are “tainted”, Hugo Strange reveals Batman’s secret for becoming the ultimate legend and myth not only in Gotham City – but the entire DC universe as a whole – is because, “Inspiring fear prevents rational thinking,” immediately outing Batman’s greatest weapon of utilizing fear as a reason for these dueling stories. Revealing why Batman’s fear tactics are so effective in fighting criminals – and in this case, the innocent people that see him carry on his work – is due to the fact that people literally can’t think straight when he's around, Strange understands their outlook on this situation mainly stems from Batman's physical presence, the terrifying villains he fights nightly, and the general situations these people find themselves in.
Knowing this, it’s clear as to why the myth of Batman is so strong among the citizens of Gotham, and why his legendary status as a DC hero is still going strong today. Considering the fear he instills in criminals is part of his bat-related theatrics, that same fear is something he brings to every situation he’s directly involved in whether through his own actions or the interactions with his villains, giving regular people a heaping dose of terror that changes their perspective and perceptions of what they saw and what they believed to have happened, regardless of Batman’s intentions in doing so.
So while the superstitious and cowardly lot that Batman usually deals with are more prone to lose their focus and thought while he beats them into oblivion, the same tactics used against them can trickle down to others as well. Yet in either instance, the idea that Batman became a legend based off his heroics alone would be an understatement and insult to the fear he instills in all that surround him – for better or worse.