So as I was re-reading the New 52 Batman run and collecting screenshots, I realized that I'm basically just gonna be doing a summary of Alfred as he's portrayed in this series and I don't even care because Alfred deserves it. So... buckle up and let's go!
So Alfred! If you don't know who he is, I'm not sure why you're here but I'll tell you anyway. Alfred Pennyworth is Bruce Wayne (aka Batman)'s butler, helper back at the Bat Cave, and father-figure. He's a wonderfully sassy old man and if you don't like him I'm very concerned for you and I do not want to be friends with you. He's the best and probably one of the most beloved characters in the DCU. Not in a "he's a fantastic character" kinda way (I don't think he'd win popularity polls when we have people like Jason Todd), but in an "everyone has to love him as a person" kinda way.
So this isn't a hot take at all, but just kinda me thought-dumping on how much I adore his characterization. In particular, I'll be discussing the role he plays in Bruce Wayne's life. There are a thousand different moments from the run that I could discuss, but in the interest of both my time and yours, I'll be picking just a few (and even then there's a good number.) Let's go!
The panel comes from Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls. Batman has been missing for over a week, and Commissioner Jim Gordon is insisting on keeping the Bat Signal on. Gordon says that the signal isn't only for Batman, but for the other members of the Bat Family as well. I think it's notable that Alfred is the chosen member for "The one's who're hurting." Alfred, unlike the bat kids (Dick, Tim, Damian, and Babs in particular are shown), doesn't have a distraction from Bruce's absence. He can only sit in the cave and keep trying to reach his ward. Yes, he's probably helping the kids, but he's still at the cave, at the manor, surrounded by emptiness and constantly fearful if his charge has finally met his match. Alfred is the one who feels Bruce's absences the hardest.
These next few screenshots are from Batman Vol. 5: Zero Year - Dark City. In this scene, Bruce calls out the corruption within the GCPD. This is at the very start of Bruce's career (for lack of a better term) as Batman, when he's an angry young man figuring out how to be the person he believes Gotham needs. And what strikes me about this panel is the way Alfred looks at Bruce. He's not afraid or angry, not concerned about if Bruce is going to shoot Gordon because he knows Bruce won't. He's sad. We can see it in his eyes, in his eyebrows, in the way his hands are positioned as if he was about to reach out for Bruce but stopped. And this leads into the next screenshot (not chronologically, but thematically).
I know there's a lot of text, but I wanted to provide it all if anyone wants to read it. To summarize, Alfred is telling Bruce that he's punishing them all for failing him as a child. Bruce is angry with them all, with Alfred, with Jim, with all of Gotham, for not being there that night in Crime Alley when he was a young boy crying over the bodies of his dead parents. And he doesn't blame him. He knows that in that alley, the city failed
the child who cried for help and found none. And in the moment shown previously, where Bruce lashes out at Gordon, I think Alfred finally comes to this realization. Hence the position of his hands - it's the sign of an internal "wait. there's something more to this." (I don't study body language, this is just from my experience) I think most people can agree that the worst form of punishment is watching our loved ones suffer, and this is what Alfred believes that Bruce is carrying out with his nightly routines. To clarify, I think this thought process is mainly contained to the young Batman. I don't think current Batman, in his older years, is as angry at Gotham itself. But I'm getting distracted. Onto the sad scenes!
For everyone's sake I won't include every single panel of this scene because it covers a good couple of pages but here are some of the most heartbreaking. These are from the very end of Zero Year - Dark City, when a girlfriend from Bruce's pre-Batman days returned to Gotham. Alfred asks Bruce to meet with her and Bruce tells him that he'll "never quit." (That's the panel previous to this one.) And Alfred knows, but he still tries. Because Alfred, more than anything and more than anyone, wants Bruce to have a normal life.
The next few panels show a montage of Bruce meeting with the girl, settling down, getting married, etc. etc. Normal things! And we get to the last panel of this montage, where an older Bruce, having started a family (children!) with her, turns to Alfred and thanks him. It all seems well and good and sweet, and then...
We knew it was too good, too easy to be true. But still, it's devastating to see Alfred's face of realization that this is just that: too good to be true. A dream. Bruce won't quit, he won't settle down in a normal, happy life. And Alfred resigns himself to this but it's still so heartbreaking to see the future that he wants for Bruce: a simple, happy life with a wife and children, where he's not risking his life every night and coming home half-dead to be patched up by Alfred.
This next scene is the second-saddest in the entire New 52 Batman run for me, only surpassed by the one I'll be talking about next. This comes from the end of Batman Vol. 7: Endgame. Batman and Joker have finally had their final battle and Batman won but, as was perhaps always fated to be, perished along with his greatest rival. Alfred had been targeted by Joker earlier and had his hand chopped off by a meat cleaver. He wakes up in the hospital after everything and is confronted with the reality that his ward, his son in everything but blood, is truly gone. His daughter asks him if he wants his hand re-attached and he says...
Really went for the jugular with that one, Snyder. Alfred turns his back on the many Bat Signals lit up in honor of Gotham's fallen hero, unable to face the truth. And I think it's notable that he says "mend." It's not that there's no one to care for or tend to. It's "mend," because that was what Alfred did for so much of Bruce's life, in both a physical and emotional sense. Alfred patched up Bruce's wounds, Alfred stood by Bruce in those early, turbulent days as Batman, Alfred was always there to patch Bruce up. This also comes back in the next scenes, which I'll get into now.
These come from Batman Vol. 8: Superheavy and Vol. 9: Bloom, and were the primary inspiration for my endless thought spirals on Alfred. We find out that (surprise surprise) Bruce is not dead! Yay! Long story short, some magic liquid stuff healed Bruce but in the process wiped all of his memories. He had no recollection of being Batman, no recollection of his parents' death, no recollection of his training. There was no grief, no pain, none of the trauma that made Bruce Batman. So Bruce finally gets his happy life. He starts dating the woman that Alfred wanted him to meet with way back in Zero Year - Dark City, he works with her at a center for Gotham's underprivileged youth, and he's happy.
Alfred takes Superman to go see Bruce (using Superman's x-ray vision), to which Superman says it's not Bruce. Alfred responds with this. And this is what I think makes Alfred so important in the DCU, beyond being Bruce's father figure: Alfred is the only character in the entire DC universe who sees Bruce Wayne as Bruce before Batman. Superman, one of Batman's closest friends, knows Bruce as the man behind the cowl. Duke Thomas, a teenager from the Narrows (Gotham's underprivileged areas) who knows of Bruce's nighttime activities, berates Bruce for leaving his role as Batman and daring to be happy (we can talk about Duke in more depth another time; there's a good amount to unpack in this scene). Dick, Bruce's ward, first Robin, kinda adopted son, and one of his most trusted allies, asks Bruce to let him and the others help, but never asks him to stop. Never even seems to consider it.
But Alfred? He is the only character who sees Bruce, the traumatized young boy, before Batman. He is the character that cares for Bruce, not Batman. He's the one that wants Bruce to think of himself, not others, he's the one that tells Bruce to please, please run from your burden and dare to be happy. To the extent that he's willing to fight Superman on it. Let's look at what Alfred says here cause there's a lot. It calls back to what Alfred said back when Bruce first started as Batman - that the city failed him. And now it feels like the city is being kind, that the city is repaying the debt it owes Bruce by finally giving him happiness. And Alfred says that this is the real Bruce Wayne. A Bruce who wasn't traumatized, a Bruce who is given the chance to be normal. And Alfred is the only person who remembers that Bruce. The Bruce before he lost his parents, the Bruce who got to be a carefree child. No one else remembers who Bruce was before the events that made him Batman. And let's look at the wording at the end of Alfred's little speech. "You should see him." Superman did, just before this scene. I think Alfred is telling him to see Bruce. Not Batman, not Bruce as the man behind the cowl. Bruce Wayne. A man who deserves his own happiness for once. And he tells Superman, "Let someone else suffer for this cursed city." Isn't that what we all want to say to our beloved self-sacrificial heroes? "Let someone else suffer." Let someone else take on this burden, let someone else be the hero for once. Let yourself rest.
Now of course, this happiness isn't really meant to be because we can't lose our dude Batman. These next few panels comprise of the saddest scenes (in my opinion) in the entire run. These are from Batman Vol. 9: Bloom. A villain named Mr. Bloom is wreaking havoc and Bruce realizes that he has to be Batman again. He goes to the manor to ask Alfred to help him. To be more specific, he bangs on the door of the room Alfred is (I'm assuming a study of some sort). And Alfred already knows, because of course he does. And he doesn't want to.
We see Alfred's simultaneous realization and denial, the knowledge that Bruce needs to become Batman and will have to go through all the trauma and suffering again, the helplessness he feels. Alfred has so much influence on Bruce but in this one thing he is utterly helpless: to stop Bruce from taking on the burdens of the city. We see Alfred in the reflection of the doornob, and he looks so small, so defeated. We see him covering his ears, a futile attempt to stave of the inevitable. And in the next page, when Bruce enters the room, we see Alfred crying with his eyes clamped shut and still trying to cover his ears. Absolutely broke my heart.
And this next page took those pieces and crushed them into dust! There's a lot going on here so let's go panel by panel. In the first panel we can see Alfred's anger and frustration, not at Bruce but at Batman. Alfred loves Bruce as a son (he calls him "My son" the page before), and he wants Bruce, not Batman. And he's glad that Batman is dead because now Bruce is back, the city gave Alfred's son back and he doesn't want to give him back. Just look at Alfred's hand, or rather, lack thereof. Bruce came back to life, but Alfred still had no one to mend because he wasn't risking his life every night. And I think Alfred was glad to have no one to mend anymore because it meant that Bruce wasn't borderline killing himself every night. Also props to Alfred for managing to choke him with one hand. But anyway. Second panel is just Alfred, defeated, knowing the inevitable, and tired. Again, he's helpless in this sense. There is nothing he can do but he tries and tries. The next panel is Alfred again begging Bruce to let someone else be the hero. He smashed the one invention that had a chance of bringing the Batman-Bruce Wayne back. This continues into the fourth panel. Bruce needs to do something and Alfred is the one and only person who would try to stop him from becoming Batman. Any other person would gladly help Bruce. Jim Gordon, Superman, Duke Thomas, probably every person in Gotham wanted Bruce to become Batman again except Alfred. But Alfred is also the only person who can help Bruce become Batman. And the next page, Alfred just falls to his knees when Bruce once again proclaims, "I'm Batman."
This is what Alfred has to come to terms with: Bruce Wayne is Batman. Gotham will not allow Bruce to escape Batman, Bruce will not allow himself to stand by while lives are lost. It was inevitable that Bruce would become Batman again. And it breaks Alfred's heart, and it will break his heart every night when Bruce leaves to risk his life for the city. But he'll be there, every night and perhaps more importantly, every morning, when Bruce comes back battered and bloody, to patch Batman up and prepare him breakfast.
So that's all for this long ramble of a post! Alfred makes me sad, I have a lot of thoughts on him and Bruce's relationship, and I got a little sidetracked by talking about Bruce himself (which was inevitable anyway). I'm sure I read way into everything ahaha but I had fun! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed thinking/writing about it!
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