September 18, 2023 • 31 mins
Since Bob Kane and Bill Finger created the first Batman comic in 1939, the character of Batman has appeared in a vast variety of films, graphic novels, and television shows, each with a unique author, speaking to different audiences at different historical moments. Standing as a "dark" contrast to DC comics Superman, the initial version of Batman portrayed the role of violent vigilante, at times blurring the line between hero and villain, in search of vengeance. WB Wes Latchford dives into our examination of Batman's morality and values as they relate to Masonic principles and teachings.
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(00:01):
The Commons. Opinions and views sharedduring this program are of those individual Freemasons
and do not reflect the official positionof a Grand Lodge, concordant Body,
a Pendant Body, Masonic authority,or Craftsman Online dot Com. Welcome to
(00:21):
the Craftsman Online Podcast, the onlyfive starbted Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand
Lodge of New York. Hello,agates, Brother Michael Rsay, co founder
of Craftsman Online dot com. You'vejoined us for an episode and another in
our series on comics and the craftas we talk about the Batman and bring
back one of my favorite guests,Worshipful Brother Wes Latchford, who's more than
(00:43):
just a nerd. He's also theDistrict Education Officer for the fifty six Masonic
District or the Grand Lodge of Virginia. Welcome back, Brother West. It
is once again an honor and privilegeto be here with you. Is it
nerd or comic book collector? Inever really know, like what the proper
terminology is that used here? Ohno, it's flat out okay. And
(01:04):
this is an episode that I'm like, Hey, have you seen the new
Flash movie yet? Have you seenthe New Flash Movie? Yet because I
wanted to geek out so bad aboutthis. If you've been following our comics
in the Craft series, we've beencovering a lot of popular comic book characters
and some of the freemasonry lessons orconnections that might be made, And on
this one we're dedicating the whole showto Batman. So there's many versions of
(01:29):
Batman. Who was your first andhow was he portrayed that really made him
your Batman? So I'm probably showingmy age here just because that question leads
to Yes, Adam West and BurtWard on Batman on TV and watching it
as a kid, not syndicated rerunsor anything else. That was definitely sixties
(01:53):
camping. Everyone was watching it,so that was one thing, is I
mean, all your friends were watchingit, so it was a part of
conversation when you were at school.The other elements of it, which are
interesting now. At the time,you know, just being a dumb kid,
I wouldn't have noticed it, butthere were all of these good citizen
lessons kind of peppered through it,right, I mean it was almost like,
(02:15):
you know, Batman was mister Rogersand a colland cake, right because
he was going to give you thesethese moral life lessons, and it's still
kind of undetermined if that was,you know, intended in the series,
or or if Batman was you know, lecturing his ward Nick Grayson, you
know, on the evils of notdoing homework. It was purely tongue in
(02:36):
cheek, right, But yeah,so but that that that was my introduction
to a live Batman. However,I will say the real reason I watched
the show is for the car.Of all of them, the nineteen sixties
Batmobile is the shizzle, I'd agree, and it's weird. I didn't realize
how Batman throughout the generations. Youdefinitely had entfight with one, but it
(03:00):
also helps you turn to see theother. So like for me, the
Batman movie with Michael Keaton came outwhen I was in junior high school,
and I'll never forget the summer thatwas building up to that, Like,
this was one of the things mydad was really excited to take me and
my brother to go see this movie. Of course, we were excited because
(03:20):
this Batman character was relatively new tous in our sphere, and I think
Fox at the time started running theold Batman syndicated series from the sixties with
the Adam West Batman too, becauseit was there was this huge hype.
I mean, Prince did the soundtrackfor the first, you know, Michael
Keaton Batman movie, and I rememberseeing the quote unquote and I can't use
(03:45):
this term because there is a differentone now, but he was a dark
Batman, the dark Knight Batman,the Michael Keatman Batman, but wasn't really
the dark Knight. We'll get intothat versus the campy, you know,
Zim Boom Powell Batman. And seeingthat first Batman movie and then going to
see the eighty eight or the eightynine Keaton Batman movie and going, wow,
there's a big difference here, notjust the car, but everything about
(04:08):
this character. Even the story haskind of changed. There's some consistencies,
but there was no Robin in thefirst Batman movie that I saw growing up.
Yeah, and it's interesting mentioned itbecause, yeah, nineteen eighty nine
midnight opening night screening, probably thelast movie I ever stood in line for
was, you know, was therelease of Batman. And I also remember,
(04:30):
along with the actual media campaign thatthey were running to really hype the
movie, there was a big kafaover the fact that Michael Keaton, I
mean, mister mom and Beetlejuice,you know, was playing Batman, you
know, and particularly you know thisTim Burton Batman who you know, everybody
kind of knew it was going tobe a little carnivalesque and it would have
(04:54):
dark periods to it, and soyeah, so people were really having a
hard time wrapping head around my Keatonplaying the role. But now, you
know, I think everybody will go, well, no, that actually worked
out really well. You know.The other thing that is interesting about just
that film, and we're calling towardsthe climax again, when the bat wing
zooms up into the sky and goesup in front of the full moon,
(05:16):
and it looked like the bat signaland I could just hear the whole theater,
you know, I mean, thatwas well done special effects. Guys.
You're saying all this, and I'mstarting to get the chills, all
the good feels coming back, becausethat was one of the few movies in
my life that I've gone to thetheater and everybody was wearing Batman clothes.
(05:36):
There was that hole, as youmentioned, like it was the experience of
the theater. I think the onlytime with other series would be like The
Lord of the Rings or the HarryPotter series where people would get dressed up
in character, or Star Wars.But the Batman thing, like, yeah
that I watched that movie so manytimes in the nineties with my brother and
(05:59):
I and we recall so many ofthose lines. And it was such a
joy to see the teaser commercial comeout during the Super Bowl of this year
and there's gonna be this new Batmanmove. Well nope, not a Batman
movie, it's going to be theFlash, but there's gonna be this Batman
twist in it. And it waslike, Oh my gosh, I can't
wait to go. Let me markthe date on the calendar. It's been
a long time since that happened.I want to talk about the evolution of
(06:24):
the Batman, because, as youhad mentioned, he kind of started out
as this uh well, really theoriginal Batman. You you'd probably know the
best about him, the nineteen thirtynine Batman. He was kind of a
darker version of Superman at that point, right, Yeah. And and the
interesting thing about it, and itwas Detective Comics number twenty seven, so
it's not like you know that youknow, and there's all kinds of things.
(06:46):
Is a Batman or the Batman,right, it doesn't matter, it's
still Bruce Wayne. Yeah, thatfirst year that he was appearing in a
Detective comics DC, it was hewas not a nice guy and very much,
you know, the textbook definition ofa vigilante. At one point,
the publishers actually came back to thewriters and said, yeah, you know,
(07:11):
we might want to tone this downa little bit and so us so
that's when they developed Batman's no killphilosophy, where you know, he was
he was an instrument of justice,he was not the executor of justice,
and so they started with that ideathat you know, he he would have
and it was really kind of startedthe build of Batman's moral compass or moral
(07:33):
code, you know that that hekind of hangs with. And we'll we'll
probably get into that here at somepoint, but yeah, I mean that
that was really the start of Batmanas we kind of know him today,
but has have run through you know, the campingess well the comics and the
(07:53):
campingess of the sixties series than theTim Burton say connival. I can even
hear Jack Nicholson's saying it. Youknow, I'm sitting here in my mind
trying to go, Okay, whereare some Masonic connections, because I know
people are tuning into a Freemason's podcast. Well, maybe you could say like
the cowl that Batman wears in someways as he's going through his training to
(08:16):
become Batman. Because the origin storyfor Batman has relatively remained consistent. As
you mentioned, he's Bruce Wayne.He's pretty much an orphan, and every
version of his storyline his parents aremurdered or killed by some criminal that it's
it's the Joker, it's somebody whobecomes the Joker. It's a crime lord
(08:37):
of Gotham City. He's this millionairewho's eccentric and he decides at some point
that he's going to dedicate his lifeto justice and fighting crime for those that
don't have a voice. He's themuscle of Gotham City. Pretty much a
fair statement. That's pretty much theBatman model that we all know. Yeah,
(08:58):
and the other herring theme in thatas well is, you know how
he comes up with the whole youknow, Batman mystique an idea because you
know, second only to you know, Batman himself is the bat Cave,
right and that was the other things. As a kid, you always wanted
your own bat cave, you know, that super secret place where you could
(09:20):
have all of your really cool stuffand you know, tinker with things and
and uh and you know, makeyour own utility belt and you know,
have all of the things to youknow, fight crime and evil in the
world. But you know that evolvingor in some cases revolving moral compass that
(09:41):
Batman has wrestled with again since sincehis introduction, or these or these three
different things of one he fights withthis just lust for revenge, right,
this idea again, you know hewas orphaned, you know by his parents
who were who were good people,right, Yeah, they were some of
the wealthiest in goth but they alsoyou know, we're very very philanthropic.
(10:05):
And you know Wayne's name was everywhere, right, the Wayne family, you
know, had the hospital and allthe other different things to have lost that
you know, just puts in himthis you know, he gets started on
the whole thing and revenge and theDark Knight series with Christian Bale really you
know, hits on just you knowhow low a person can get when they
(10:26):
when and particularly when they let thatrevenge get a hold of them. But
the other part that he gets,and that this is number two, is
but he also gets this this mindsetof you know, not only does he
have this revenge and particularly for whoeverit was. And again you hidden that
the stories it's some criminal, butwho that criminal was, you know,
(10:50):
changes from time to time. Butthe other thing was to prevent your future
harm, right to keep what happenedto him from happening to anybody else,
And we see that drive a lotof what he does. And then again
then you know, after his initialforay into violence and darkness, we get
(11:11):
this vow not to kill again wherehe was going to be an instrument of
law injustice. But like a lotof people will say, you know,
what you see depends upon where yousit, and he ends up in many
different, you know, situations witheither just good old fashioned street crooks or
supervillains where you know, which moralprinciple am I going to have to violate
(11:35):
here in order to actually achieve andends And that really tends to be a
very postmodernous view of morality where itcan be you know, your morality is
kind of ambiguous. What you believeis where you sit, and that's one
way of looking at it. There'sother philosophies that you know will say,
well another there are basic moral truthsthat are you know, indisputable, in
(11:56):
immutable and timeless. And but it'sit's been very interesting see particularly in the
last series of productions that have involvedBatman, whether again, whether it was
you know, Nolan's trilogy or someof the newer iterations where Batman has shown
up, you know, in JusticeLeague and Batman Versus Superman, and and
(12:18):
even some of the other takes ofsome offshoots from it. It's been again,
it's been fun to watch them play, you know, with with this
morality play that has evolved around thecharacter of Batman. And that's what I
love, like the theme of ourcomics and the craft. Like we've talked
about certain characters, and I thinkof one episode, The Moon Night,
we got into really talking about thator the Infinity Stones and how they can
(12:43):
relate to the working tools and someof the deeper meanings of freemasonry. But
when you get into the makeup ofa freemason himself, with the Justice League
and the several different iterations of that, you have you know, Superman and
well Wonder Woman couldn't be a freemason, but you could and like other jurisdictions
Aquaman, like those are basically aliensor godlike mythos, creatures flash and I
(13:09):
can't remember the cyborg character that's inthe New Justice League movie, the robot
guy. I was trying to googlethat. But you know, they're basically
creations or as I like to callthem, accidental heroes, where an explosion
in the lab and now they havethis superpower. And then you have Batman,
who's just a dude off the street. Like when people joke like,
(13:31):
what's batman superpower? Oh, he'srich, Like no, it's it's that
Batman has as you're describing, likethis very difficult to comprehend moral code or
compass, and as a freemason,there's a lot of the lessons that we
get where we're like, yeah,this is good and this is bad.
But you live in this world wherethere's a very vibrant shade of gray.
(13:56):
So you have to decide what's rightfor you in this moment at this time
time. We and I don't wantto say it, but we become like
Batman. We have to decide whereto invest or divest at certain points of
our life, right I mean,it's not like he just you know,
said, hey, you know,I'm going to go fight crime and put
on a goofy costume and go out. And actually there's you know, a
(14:20):
couple great scenes, you know,and one of the things where you know,
there's somebody pretending to be Batman andhe kind of looks like me,
you know, as and a littlemore portly than he should be, you
know. And but we could allbe Batman, right, we could all
make the choice to you know,to train ourselves to do what he does.
(14:41):
So I think that's one of thethings that endears the Batman too us
is it's possible, and not onlypossible, but he wrestles with the same
things that we do, right.I don't think, you know, Superman
has the same kind of moral dilemmasand questions when it comes to doing something
than than than Batman does and someof the rest of them. What it
(15:03):
gets me too is one of thesethings as well, where you know,
we have this idea commission and omission. Our morality can sometimes be based on
the things we do, but thenagain the things we choose not to do,
right, you know, So there'scommission we can commit sins or you
(15:24):
know, crimes or something against somebody. But then we kind of also sometimes
impact other people by the things wechoose not to do, and Batman wrestles
with those things too as well.And actually one of the things that kind
of you know, when you goto the the well, is it a
luss for revenge to prevent for futureharm or the vow not to kill well
(15:45):
in the train, you know withrajail Gould, you know he again and
he's like, well, you know, I vowed not to kill However,
Comma, you know, the lustfor revenge kind of wins out there because
you know, Rajil Gould was kindof like the mentor. He's the guy
who may him the Batman with theLeague of Shadows and so. But that
you know, Batman basically is thetrains getting ready to crash. He basically,
(16:07):
I won't kill you, but Idon't have to save you either.
He physically didn't kill him. Ishe now morally absolved of his moral compass
or is that moral a moral violationby omission where just because you choose not
to do something doesn't mean you're notculpable. Hey, it's brother, Michael
(16:30):
R. Say, I'm going totake a break here and instead of playing
a commercial that's going to try tosell you something, I'm just going to
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please, please please. If you'relistening to this podcast, you're enjoying
our conversation with Worshipful Brother Wes Latchfordabout the Batman comics and the craft you've
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(16:52):
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(17:15):
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mean a lot to us at CraftsmanOnline, and I thank you in advance.
Now let's get back to the show. Batman is basically the dark Knight,
(17:44):
the protector, the Cape, Crusader, the caretaker of his city,
Gotham City, and he struggles withhis interesting lifestyle but then also his unique
moral compass. But every good herocan only be measured by the villain and
the contrast to this. Batman character, again has seen many different variations over
(18:07):
the time from the comic books andin the movies and the TV show.
He's either this goofy clown or asyou know, Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix
most recently, portrayed him as thisdeeply mentally disturbed guy who is literally pushing
his finger as hard as he canon the issue of what causes people to
(18:29):
snap the Joker. Yeah, andit's it's amazing how it always comes back
to Joker, right, of allof the supervillains that have graced the pages
of any comic series, you know, whether it's you know, out of
Marvel or out of DC, orout of some of the you know,
the newer graphic novels that have comealong, you know, it just always
(18:52):
seems to go back to Joker.And I think part of that is because,
first of all, Joker and Batmanare have become the perfect young and
yankity each other. We tend toput them on complete opposite ends of a
moral spectrum. Right on the oneside you have Joker, which is where
there is no there is no morality, right, life is life. And
(19:15):
then on the other side we haveBatman, but even then he's still not
the specific one we might want tohold up. And what you find then,
and what makes it such an intriguingpairing, is that, you know,
when you're talking morality and moral choices, it's that gray right, It's
somewhere on that line in between inbetween those Again, I'm going to go
(19:38):
back to zo goul where he couldhave been on the other side too,
because his whole philosophers do what isnecessary, right, they were executing justice,
and Gotham had outlived its right toany kind of consideration. You've got
to do what's necessary and Bruce,you know it was basically I can't do
that. So again he falls kindof in that that gray zone. But
(20:00):
Heath Ledger's Joker, I think,really sums it up nicely when we really
think about this idea of somebody whois just so off the wall and out
of touch you know where I mean, he says in dark night. He's
like, you know, their morals, their code, it's a badge joke
(20:21):
dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world
allows them to be. I'll showyou when the chips are down these uh
And I love how he did thesethese civilized people. Yeah, they'll eat
each other. See, I'm nota monster. I'm just ahead of the
curve. And yes, and sowe just naturally have have this idea that
(20:45):
one how could somebody do that?How could somebody be that way? Anytime
anything tragic happens that involves mankind,you know, one of the first things
you know, how could that happen? How could how could we let that
happen? How could somebody do that? And with the joker, just when
you think you can rationalize the behaviorin action, he turns and does something
(21:11):
else to where you're like it justhe ups the antie and we see that,
you know in a movie where youknow, just just when you thought
it couldn't be more fun, youknow, you've got Harvey Dent and one
warehouse and Rachel Dowds in another warehouse, Hey, Batman, who are you
going to save? And then givesthe same dilemma to the city with two
(21:33):
ferries, you know, loaded withpassengers and prisoners, and they get the
side which ship survives, and andand again. So just when you thought
he couldn't just become more deviants,he takes us to a new level.
And again, I think that's what'sfascinating about their reactions and struggles over the
over the decades, has has justbeen this playout of you know, morality
(22:00):
versus immorality. Oh yeah, andthey both kind of use fear, the
emotion fear really as their way ofis their weapon to fight others. Where
Batman is this dark figure. Literallyhe is an all black, one of
probably the only all black comic bookcharacters outside of Black Panther. And I
don't want to cross DC and marFocus. No, no pearls clutching here,
(22:25):
please guys, please, But forthe DC, like, that's what
you experience. And then I'm thinkingof the Dark Night movies and even with
the Michael Keaton Batman like he's justjust this basic ninja that uses martial arts
and some of the effects of distractionto exploit his enemies, where you have
(22:45):
the Joker that's just psychologically weird.And I think We've all come across people
like that and are regular and everydaylife where they just are so far removed
from what is normal that you're like, there's something wrong with this person,
and yet they can influence other peopleto follow them. That's kind of scary
(23:07):
that they just really don't give ayou know what about anything in life.
They just have this belief. Ifyou said, they believe they're ahead of
the curve, and you're like,who whoo, whoo, who whoa you
are past the guardrails of what societywill allow your Why we have you know,
prisons and help you know, Andit's just so interesting in that world
as you were talking, like,they both kind of use the same emotion
(23:32):
to get the outcome that they desirein time and again, you know,
the science of psychology, you know, just demonstrates for us how quickly we
can move, you know, toone side or the other, particularly based
on situations. Right, So,you know, so the you know,
the there's famous you know studies andexperiments that were done you know, with
(23:56):
with people volunteers. Oh, bythe way, you know where you know
one that gets referred to a lotactors were portraying particular portions of the experiment,
but it was like, how highwill you turn the electoral charge to
shocks somebody if they don't give theright answer, right any think everybody's heard
of that one. And then there'sanother one that literally is called the trolley
(24:18):
dilemma, where you know, itwasn't as technically involved as the as the
Stanford experiment, but basically, youknow, the question was asked. I
said, if you could push oneperson in front of a trolley to stop
it to save everybody else on thetrolley, would you do it? Most
people would be like, yeah,I'd push them, I'd push them,
(24:41):
from which the phrase throw them underthe bus originally came from. Yeah,
we actually go along with the crowd, you know, so which you know,
and it becomes a question of whichcrowd are you gonna follow? Are
you gonna are you gonna follow?How are you gonna follow? The Masonic
crowd, who's supposed to be asurpousing you know, beautiful system of morality
(25:02):
veiled an allegory and illustrated by symbols. And I feel bad because Batman has
been rebooted so many times, andyou saw it in the Flash movie.
They had this fantastic finish at theend of the movie of many of the
famous actors, and some of themhave had cameo appearances who have donned the
cowl of Batman. And as youlook at kind of that traditional hero myth
that Joseph Campbell lays out and thehero with a thousand faces, Bruce Wayne
(25:26):
and the Batman character do kind offollow that template of okay, trials,
temptations, a mentor who helps out, and you have Superman who's got these
wonderful superhuman powers. You're like,wow, he can fly around the world.
He can do The Batman doesn't havethat. So his endearing quality to
fans, aside from the cool technology, is that he's always forced, as
(25:48):
you're saying, to make this difficultmorality choice. And I was thinking of
the latest version, which the guyfrom Twilight was the new Batman, and
it was more of a grittier eightiesstyle Batman, and I kind of got
into it as a kind of anoff reboot I guess of what they were
trying to do, but it wasthat I was cheering for the character that
(26:11):
I knew because there were parts ofhim that I remember from the other movies.
In that experience, I was likeBatman always does the right thing,
but he always does it as asacrifice to himself. Like, what's going
to happen in this outcome? Isthat what you feel like when you go
in or you're into the movies orwatching a show. That's what you're kind
(26:32):
of cheering for. Is that momentof when he has to make that decision
and what would Batman do? Whatwould Batman do? We might have a
marketing scheme there, right, mightnot but much like a lot of Batman's
choices, it might not work outthe way we really wanted to. But
sometimes it's the way it has tobe. You the announcer voice, Bruce
Wayne is going to swing in andsave Gotham City. But will he do
(26:55):
next? Stay tuned and next batTime, next bat channel of going back
to to the sexties. Yeah,but again it what tool do I have
in in you know, my mentalutility belt? You know that will allow
me to address or work with asituation. And and so you know,
(27:15):
to to use an allegory, Imean we have a Masonic Batman utility belt,
right, I mean we have allof these different things that we have
been given and provided to help us. They don't have to be you know,
life and death. Well, you'vegot the you know, the poor
little security guard locked in the vaults, you know, with boiling acid,
(27:36):
you know, being put in itlike two face again, little little Campier
to Tommy Lee Jones was a greattwo face by the way. So it
doesn't have to be anything that much. It can just be the simple choices
of how we interact with people,demonstrating the proper level of civility. And
you find that where you know,Batman, regardless of who he's dealing with,
(27:59):
whether it's Joker or again the commonStreet from it's kind of interacting them
with them the same way. Hedoesn't allow himself to, you necessarily become
embroiled in the situation. It's justa part of it. And most of
the time he's thinking about how theheck do we get out of this one
Jack Nicholson, I mean not tomake light of it, but when they
actually injure Batman, they say,oh, he bleeds, which I remember
(28:23):
as a kid it was like solike profound. I was like, wow,
Batman isn't like Superman. He doesn'thave these special powers that he can
go heal overnight like Batman gets beatup, he hurts like the rest of
us. Like, that's a waydifferent stack of cards you're playing with or
handle cards, I should say,when you know you're about to go do
something and put physical or yourself now, I guess it'll still be mental that
(28:45):
you have to consider. And that'swhat you know. Batman's a guy that
charges into a burning building to saveas many people as he can. And
I think we all inside want alittle bit of that, and I think
as Freemasons to try to get backand make that connection is like, that's
what that calling is, that thingthat's in our heart that somehow connects with
a thought that's in our head,that that drives us to go to a
(29:07):
Masonic lodge to try to seek theanswers as to what all of this means.
In a way, we are goingthrough those same steps that a young
Bruce Wayne did trying to figure outhow he's going to make a difference or
what his place is in this world. Yeah, And one of the important
things with that, particularly for Freemasonryas well, is the role of a
(29:29):
mentor. Right. I mean,Bruce was not left to figure this out
for himself. He had Okay,Alfred right, and but you have even
even like you have different Batman's anddifferent Jokers, you've got different Alfred's too.
You know, Alan Napier's basically straightman to Adam West, you know,
you know, he's just very goodmister Wayne, you know, and
(29:52):
would go off and do Batman's bidding. Michael goes you know, super tech
butler. You know basically, wellyou he's a butler, but he also
was incredibly talented with inventing and creatingall those wonderful toys that you know,
Joker refers to. But I thinkI think the best one when it comes
to this mentoring, you know,almost surrogate parent Alfred that was played by
(30:15):
Michael Caine. You know, BruceWayne really was his son, and he
did not have any compulsion of crossingthat line between butler and mentor and giving
him a good verbal lashing, youknow when he needed it to have,
you know, a mentor to helpyou through those things. It was incredibly
(30:37):
important and as so as we're onthis Masonic journey, you know, from
youth to manhood to old age,it's important in every step of that journey
that we have those good, solidmentors as well, not just straight man,
you know, the the offered who'sjust gonna be good for bouncing jokes
off of and everything else. Butsomebody you know who really is is that
(31:00):
friend and brother who's going to whispergood counsel when necessary and help keep us
thinking of the boy Scouts morally straightand mentally awake. But this has been
the Craftsman Online podcast again. Oneof my favorite guests are coming on as
we get into comics and the craftworship for Brother west Latchford. Again,
(31:21):
my pleasure to be here. Ifyou've enjoyed our podcasts and you want to
hear more, you can tell Sirior Alexa to play the Craftsman Online podcasts.
We're available on all streaming platforms,with new episodes every Monday morning until
next time. Let peace and harmonyprevail.
The Commons. Opinions and views sharedduring this program are of those individual Freemasons
and do not reflect the official positionof a Grand Lodge, concordant Body,
a Pendant Body, Masonic authority,or Craftsman Online dot Com. Welcome to
(00:21):
the Craftsman Online Podcast, the onlyfive starbted Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand
Lodge of New York. Hello,agates, Brother Michael Rsay, co founder
of Craftsman Online dot com. You'vejoined us for an episode and another in
our series on comics and the craftas we talk about the Batman and bring
back one of my favorite guests,Worshipful Brother Wes Latchford, who's more than
(00:43):
just a nerd. He's also theDistrict Education Officer for the fifty six Masonic
District or the Grand Lodge of Virginia. Welcome back, Brother West. It
is once again an honor and privilegeto be here with you. Is it
nerd or comic book collector? Inever really know, like what the proper
terminology is that used here? Ohno, it's flat out okay. And
(01:04):
this is an episode that I'm like, Hey, have you seen the new
Flash movie yet? Have you seenthe New Flash Movie? Yet because I
wanted to geek out so bad aboutthis. If you've been following our comics
in the Craft series, we've beencovering a lot of popular comic book characters
and some of the freemasonry lessons orconnections that might be made, And on
this one we're dedicating the whole showto Batman. So there's many versions of
(01:29):
Batman. Who was your first andhow was he portrayed that really made him
your Batman? So I'm probably showingmy age here just because that question leads
to Yes, Adam West and BurtWard on Batman on TV and watching it
as a kid, not syndicated rerunsor anything else. That was definitely sixties
(01:53):
camping. Everyone was watching it,so that was one thing, is I
mean, all your friends were watchingit, so it was a part of
conversation when you were at school.The other elements of it, which are
interesting now. At the time,you know, just being a dumb kid,
I wouldn't have noticed it, butthere were all of these good citizen
lessons kind of peppered through it,right, I mean it was almost like,
(02:15):
you know, Batman was mister Rogersand a colland cake, right because
he was going to give you thesethese moral life lessons, and it's still
kind of undetermined if that was,you know, intended in the series,
or or if Batman was you know, lecturing his ward Nick Grayson, you
know, on the evils of notdoing homework. It was purely tongue in
(02:36):
cheek, right, But yeah,so but that that that was my introduction
to a live Batman. However,I will say the real reason I watched
the show is for the car.Of all of them, the nineteen sixties
Batmobile is the shizzle, I'd agree, and it's weird. I didn't realize
how Batman throughout the generations. Youdefinitely had entfight with one, but it
(03:00):
also helps you turn to see theother. So like for me, the
Batman movie with Michael Keaton came outwhen I was in junior high school,
and I'll never forget the summer thatwas building up to that, Like,
this was one of the things mydad was really excited to take me and
my brother to go see this movie. Of course, we were excited because
(03:20):
this Batman character was relatively new tous in our sphere, and I think
Fox at the time started running theold Batman syndicated series from the sixties with
the Adam West Batman too, becauseit was there was this huge hype.
I mean, Prince did the soundtrackfor the first, you know, Michael
Keaton Batman movie, and I rememberseeing the quote unquote and I can't use
(03:45):
this term because there is a differentone now, but he was a dark
Batman, the dark Knight Batman,the Michael Keatman Batman, but wasn't really
the dark Knight. We'll get intothat versus the campy, you know,
Zim Boom Powell Batman. And seeingthat first Batman movie and then going to
see the eighty eight or the eightynine Keaton Batman movie and going, wow,
there's a big difference here, notjust the car, but everything about
(04:08):
this character. Even the story haskind of changed. There's some consistencies,
but there was no Robin in thefirst Batman movie that I saw growing up.
Yeah, and it's interesting mentioned itbecause, yeah, nineteen eighty nine
midnight opening night screening, probably thelast movie I ever stood in line for
was, you know, was therelease of Batman. And I also remember,
(04:30):
along with the actual media campaign thatthey were running to really hype the
movie, there was a big kafaover the fact that Michael Keaton, I
mean, mister mom and Beetlejuice,you know, was playing Batman, you
know, and particularly you know thisTim Burton Batman who you know, everybody
kind of knew it was going tobe a little carnivalesque and it would have
(04:54):
dark periods to it, and soyeah, so people were really having a
hard time wrapping head around my Keatonplaying the role. But now, you
know, I think everybody will go, well, no, that actually worked
out really well. You know.The other thing that is interesting about just
that film, and we're calling towardsthe climax again, when the bat wing
zooms up into the sky and goesup in front of the full moon,
(05:16):
and it looked like the bat signaland I could just hear the whole theater,
you know, I mean, thatwas well done special effects. Guys.
You're saying all this, and I'mstarting to get the chills, all
the good feels coming back, becausethat was one of the few movies in
my life that I've gone to thetheater and everybody was wearing Batman clothes.
(05:36):
There was that hole, as youmentioned, like it was the experience of
the theater. I think the onlytime with other series would be like The
Lord of the Rings or the HarryPotter series where people would get dressed up
in character, or Star Wars.But the Batman thing, like, yeah
that I watched that movie so manytimes in the nineties with my brother and
(05:59):
I and we recall so many ofthose lines. And it was such a
joy to see the teaser commercial comeout during the Super Bowl of this year
and there's gonna be this new Batmanmove. Well nope, not a Batman
movie, it's going to be theFlash, but there's gonna be this Batman
twist in it. And it waslike, Oh my gosh, I can't
wait to go. Let me markthe date on the calendar. It's been
a long time since that happened.I want to talk about the evolution of
(06:24):
the Batman, because, as youhad mentioned, he kind of started out
as this uh well, really theoriginal Batman. You you'd probably know the
best about him, the nineteen thirtynine Batman. He was kind of a
darker version of Superman at that point, right, Yeah. And and the
interesting thing about it, and itwas Detective Comics number twenty seven, so
it's not like you know that youknow, and there's all kinds of things.
(06:46):
Is a Batman or the Batman,right, it doesn't matter, it's
still Bruce Wayne. Yeah, thatfirst year that he was appearing in a
Detective comics DC, it was hewas not a nice guy and very much,
you know, the textbook definition ofa vigilante. At one point,
the publishers actually came back to thewriters and said, yeah, you know,
(07:11):
we might want to tone this downa little bit and so us so
that's when they developed Batman's no killphilosophy, where you know, he was
he was an instrument of justice,he was not the executor of justice,
and so they started with that ideathat you know, he he would have
and it was really kind of startedthe build of Batman's moral compass or moral
(07:33):
code, you know that that hekind of hangs with. And we'll we'll
probably get into that here at somepoint, but yeah, I mean that
that was really the start of Batmanas we kind of know him today,
but has have run through you know, the campingess well the comics and the
(07:53):
campingess of the sixties series than theTim Burton say connival. I can even
hear Jack Nicholson's saying it. Youknow, I'm sitting here in my mind
trying to go, Okay, whereare some Masonic connections, because I know
people are tuning into a Freemason's podcast. Well, maybe you could say like
the cowl that Batman wears in someways as he's going through his training to
(08:16):
become Batman. Because the origin storyfor Batman has relatively remained consistent. As
you mentioned, he's Bruce Wayne.He's pretty much an orphan, and every
version of his storyline his parents aremurdered or killed by some criminal that it's
it's the Joker, it's somebody whobecomes the Joker. It's a crime lord
(08:37):
of Gotham City. He's this millionairewho's eccentric and he decides at some point
that he's going to dedicate his lifeto justice and fighting crime for those that
don't have a voice. He's themuscle of Gotham City. Pretty much a
fair statement. That's pretty much theBatman model that we all know. Yeah,
(08:58):
and the other herring theme in thatas well is, you know how
he comes up with the whole youknow, Batman mystique an idea because you
know, second only to you know, Batman himself is the bat Cave,
right and that was the other things. As a kid, you always wanted
your own bat cave, you know, that super secret place where you could
(09:20):
have all of your really cool stuffand you know, tinker with things and
and uh and you know, makeyour own utility belt and you know,
have all of the things to youknow, fight crime and evil in the
world. But you know that evolvingor in some cases revolving moral compass that
(09:41):
Batman has wrestled with again since sincehis introduction, or these or these three
different things of one he fights withthis just lust for revenge, right,
this idea again, you know hewas orphaned, you know by his parents
who were who were good people,right, Yeah, they were some of
the wealthiest in goth but they alsoyou know, we're very very philanthropic.
(10:05):
And you know Wayne's name was everywhere, right, the Wayne family, you
know, had the hospital and allthe other different things to have lost that
you know, just puts in himthis you know, he gets started on
the whole thing and revenge and theDark Knight series with Christian Bale really you
know, hits on just you knowhow low a person can get when they
(10:26):
when and particularly when they let thatrevenge get a hold of them. But
the other part that he gets,and that this is number two, is
but he also gets this this mindsetof you know, not only does he
have this revenge and particularly for whoeverit was. And again you hidden that
the stories it's some criminal, butwho that criminal was, you know,
(10:50):
changes from time to time. Butthe other thing was to prevent your future
harm, right to keep what happenedto him from happening to anybody else,
And we see that drive a lotof what he does. And then again
then you know, after his initialforay into violence and darkness, we get
(11:11):
this vow not to kill again wherehe was going to be an instrument of
law injustice. But like a lotof people will say, you know,
what you see depends upon where yousit, and he ends up in many
different, you know, situations witheither just good old fashioned street crooks or
supervillains where you know, which moralprinciple am I going to have to violate
(11:35):
here in order to actually achieve andends And that really tends to be a
very postmodernous view of morality where itcan be you know, your morality is
kind of ambiguous. What you believeis where you sit, and that's one
way of looking at it. There'sother philosophies that you know will say,
well another there are basic moral truthsthat are you know, indisputable, in
(11:56):
immutable and timeless. And but it'sit's been very interesting see particularly in the
last series of productions that have involvedBatman, whether again, whether it was
you know, Nolan's trilogy or someof the newer iterations where Batman has shown
up, you know, in JusticeLeague and Batman Versus Superman, and and
(12:18):
even some of the other takes ofsome offshoots from it. It's been again,
it's been fun to watch them play, you know, with with this
morality play that has evolved around thecharacter of Batman. And that's what I
love, like the theme of ourcomics and the craft. Like we've talked
about certain characters, and I thinkof one episode, The Moon Night,
we got into really talking about thator the Infinity Stones and how they can
(12:43):
relate to the working tools and someof the deeper meanings of freemasonry. But
when you get into the makeup ofa freemason himself, with the Justice League
and the several different iterations of that, you have you know, Superman and
well Wonder Woman couldn't be a freemason, but you could and like other jurisdictions
Aquaman, like those are basically aliensor godlike mythos, creatures flash and I
(13:09):
can't remember the cyborg character that's inthe New Justice League movie, the robot
guy. I was trying to googlethat. But you know, they're basically
creations or as I like to callthem, accidental heroes, where an explosion
in the lab and now they havethis superpower. And then you have Batman,
who's just a dude off the street. Like when people joke like,
(13:31):
what's batman superpower? Oh, he'srich, Like no, it's it's that
Batman has as you're describing, likethis very difficult to comprehend moral code or
compass, and as a freemason,there's a lot of the lessons that we
get where we're like, yeah,this is good and this is bad.
But you live in this world wherethere's a very vibrant shade of gray.
(13:56):
So you have to decide what's rightfor you in this moment at this time
time. We and I don't wantto say it, but we become like
Batman. We have to decide whereto invest or divest at certain points of
our life, right I mean,it's not like he just you know,
said, hey, you know,I'm going to go fight crime and put
on a goofy costume and go out. And actually there's you know, a
(14:20):
couple great scenes, you know,and one of the things where you know,
there's somebody pretending to be Batman andhe kind of looks like me,
you know, as and a littlemore portly than he should be, you
know. And but we could allbe Batman, right, we could all
make the choice to you know,to train ourselves to do what he does.
(14:41):
So I think that's one of thethings that endears the Batman too us
is it's possible, and not onlypossible, but he wrestles with the same
things that we do, right.I don't think, you know, Superman
has the same kind of moral dilemmasand questions when it comes to doing something
than than than Batman does and someof the rest of them. What it
(15:03):
gets me too is one of thesethings as well, where you know,
we have this idea commission and omission. Our morality can sometimes be based on
the things we do, but thenagain the things we choose not to do,
right, you know, So there'scommission we can commit sins or you
(15:24):
know, crimes or something against somebody. But then we kind of also sometimes
impact other people by the things wechoose not to do, and Batman wrestles
with those things too as well.And actually one of the things that kind
of you know, when you goto the the well, is it a
luss for revenge to prevent for futureharm or the vow not to kill well
(15:45):
in the train, you know withrajail Gould, you know he again and
he's like, well, you know, I vowed not to kill However,
Comma, you know, the lustfor revenge kind of wins out there because
you know, Rajil Gould was kindof like the mentor. He's the guy
who may him the Batman with theLeague of Shadows and so. But that
you know, Batman basically is thetrains getting ready to crash. He basically,
(16:07):
I won't kill you, but Idon't have to save you either.
He physically didn't kill him. Ishe now morally absolved of his moral compass
or is that moral a moral violationby omission where just because you choose not
to do something doesn't mean you're notculpable. Hey, it's brother, Michael
(16:30):
R. Say, I'm going totake a break here and instead of playing
a commercial that's going to try tosell you something, I'm just going to
ask you a huge favorite. Don'thit skip on this yet. Please please,
please, please please. If you'relistening to this podcast, you're enjoying
our conversation with Worshipful Brother Wes Latchfordabout the Batman comics and the craft you've
listened to Craftsman Online. There's asmall thing you could do right now.
(16:52):
You can actually do it quicker andthe time. It's going to ask me
for you to do this, whichis open up your player and give us
a review, a five star rating, some feedback, your comments. It's
super important because we work every weekto produce a high quality Masonic podcasts and
there are interested gentlemen or brother Mason'slike yourself who are out there looking for
(17:15):
content on freemasonry, and you takinga little time to just give us a
review, maybe a five star rating, it helps us show up in their
search results. Again, it's asmall thing you can do that's going to
mean a lot to us at CraftsmanOnline, and I thank you in advance.
Now let's get back to the show. Batman is basically the dark Knight,
(17:44):
the protector, the Cape, Crusader, the caretaker of his city,
Gotham City, and he struggles withhis interesting lifestyle but then also his unique
moral compass. But every good herocan only be measured by the villain and
the contrast to this. Batman character, again has seen many different variations over
(18:07):
the time from the comic books andin the movies and the TV show.
He's either this goofy clown or asyou know, Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix
most recently, portrayed him as thisdeeply mentally disturbed guy who is literally pushing
his finger as hard as he canon the issue of what causes people to
(18:29):
snap the Joker. Yeah, andit's it's amazing how it always comes back
to Joker, right, of allof the supervillains that have graced the pages
of any comic series, you know, whether it's you know, out of
Marvel or out of DC, orout of some of the you know,
the newer graphic novels that have comealong, you know, it just always
(18:52):
seems to go back to Joker.And I think part of that is because,
first of all, Joker and Batmanare have become the perfect young and
yankity each other. We tend toput them on complete opposite ends of a
moral spectrum. Right on the oneside you have Joker, which is where
there is no there is no morality, right, life is life. And
(19:15):
then on the other side we haveBatman, but even then he's still not
the specific one we might want tohold up. And what you find then,
and what makes it such an intriguingpairing, is that, you know,
when you're talking morality and moral choices, it's that gray right, It's
somewhere on that line in between inbetween those Again, I'm going to go
(19:38):
back to zo goul where he couldhave been on the other side too,
because his whole philosophers do what isnecessary, right, they were executing justice,
and Gotham had outlived its right toany kind of consideration. You've got
to do what's necessary and Bruce,you know it was basically I can't do
that. So again he falls kindof in that that gray zone. But
(20:00):
Heath Ledger's Joker, I think,really sums it up nicely when we really
think about this idea of somebody whois just so off the wall and out
of touch you know where I mean, he says in dark night. He's
like, you know, their morals, their code, it's a badge joke
(20:21):
dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world
allows them to be. I'll showyou when the chips are down these uh
And I love how he did thesethese civilized people. Yeah, they'll eat
each other. See, I'm nota monster. I'm just ahead of the
curve. And yes, and sowe just naturally have have this idea that
(20:45):
one how could somebody do that?How could somebody be that way? Anytime
anything tragic happens that involves mankind,you know, one of the first things
you know, how could that happen? How could how could we let that
happen? How could somebody do that? And with the joker, just when
you think you can rationalize the behaviorin action, he turns and does something
(21:11):
else to where you're like it justhe ups the antie and we see that,
you know in a movie where youknow, just just when you thought
it couldn't be more fun, youknow, you've got Harvey Dent and one
warehouse and Rachel Dowds in another warehouse, Hey, Batman, who are you
going to save? And then givesthe same dilemma to the city with two
(21:33):
ferries, you know, loaded withpassengers and prisoners, and they get the
side which ship survives, and andand again. So just when you thought
he couldn't just become more deviants,he takes us to a new level.
And again, I think that's what'sfascinating about their reactions and struggles over the
over the decades, has has justbeen this playout of you know, morality
(22:00):
versus immorality. Oh yeah, andthey both kind of use fear, the
emotion fear really as their way ofis their weapon to fight others. Where
Batman is this dark figure. Literallyhe is an all black, one of
probably the only all black comic bookcharacters outside of Black Panther. And I
don't want to cross DC and marFocus. No, no pearls clutching here,
(22:25):
please guys, please, But forthe DC, like, that's what
you experience. And then I'm thinkingof the Dark Night movies and even with
the Michael Keaton Batman like he's justjust this basic ninja that uses martial arts
and some of the effects of distractionto exploit his enemies, where you have
(22:45):
the Joker that's just psychologically weird.And I think We've all come across people
like that and are regular and everydaylife where they just are so far removed
from what is normal that you're like, there's something wrong with this person,
and yet they can influence other peopleto follow them. That's kind of scary
(23:07):
that they just really don't give ayou know what about anything in life.
They just have this belief. Ifyou said, they believe they're ahead of
the curve, and you're like,who whoo, whoo, who whoa you
are past the guardrails of what societywill allow your Why we have you know,
prisons and help you know, Andit's just so interesting in that world
as you were talking, like,they both kind of use the same emotion
(23:32):
to get the outcome that they desirein time and again, you know,
the science of psychology, you know, just demonstrates for us how quickly we
can move, you know, toone side or the other, particularly based
on situations. Right, So,you know, so the you know,
the there's famous you know studies andexperiments that were done you know, with
(23:56):
with people volunteers. Oh, bythe way, you know where you know
one that gets referred to a lotactors were portraying particular portions of the experiment,
but it was like, how highwill you turn the electoral charge to
shocks somebody if they don't give theright answer, right any think everybody's heard
of that one. And then there'sanother one that literally is called the trolley
(24:18):
dilemma, where you know, itwasn't as technically involved as the as the
Stanford experiment, but basically, youknow, the question was asked. I
said, if you could push oneperson in front of a trolley to stop
it to save everybody else on thetrolley, would you do it? Most
people would be like, yeah,I'd push them, I'd push them,
(24:41):
from which the phrase throw them underthe bus originally came from. Yeah,
we actually go along with the crowd, you know, so which you know,
and it becomes a question of whichcrowd are you gonna follow? Are
you gonna are you gonna follow?How are you gonna follow? The Masonic
crowd, who's supposed to be asurpousing you know, beautiful system of morality
(25:02):
veiled an allegory and illustrated by symbols. And I feel bad because Batman has
been rebooted so many times, andyou saw it in the Flash movie.
They had this fantastic finish at theend of the movie of many of the
famous actors, and some of themhave had cameo appearances who have donned the
cowl of Batman. And as youlook at kind of that traditional hero myth
that Joseph Campbell lays out and thehero with a thousand faces, Bruce Wayne
(25:26):
and the Batman character do kind offollow that template of okay, trials,
temptations, a mentor who helps out, and you have Superman who's got these
wonderful superhuman powers. You're like,wow, he can fly around the world.
He can do The Batman doesn't havethat. So his endearing quality to
fans, aside from the cool technology, is that he's always forced, as
(25:48):
you're saying, to make this difficultmorality choice. And I was thinking of
the latest version, which the guyfrom Twilight was the new Batman, and
it was more of a grittier eightiesstyle Batman, and I kind of got
into it as a kind of anoff reboot I guess of what they were
trying to do, but it wasthat I was cheering for the character that
(26:11):
I knew because there were parts ofhim that I remember from the other movies.
In that experience, I was likeBatman always does the right thing,
but he always does it as asacrifice to himself. Like, what's going
to happen in this outcome? Isthat what you feel like when you go
in or you're into the movies orwatching a show. That's what you're kind
(26:32):
of cheering for. Is that momentof when he has to make that decision
and what would Batman do? Whatwould Batman do? We might have a
marketing scheme there, right, mightnot but much like a lot of Batman's
choices, it might not work outthe way we really wanted to. But
sometimes it's the way it has tobe. You the announcer voice, Bruce
Wayne is going to swing in andsave Gotham City. But will he do
(26:55):
next? Stay tuned and next batTime, next bat channel of going back
to to the sexties. Yeah,but again it what tool do I have
in in you know, my mentalutility belt? You know that will allow
me to address or work with asituation. And and so you know,
(27:15):
to to use an allegory, Imean we have a Masonic Batman utility belt,
right, I mean we have allof these different things that we have
been given and provided to help us. They don't have to be you know,
life and death. Well, you'vegot the you know, the poor
little security guard locked in the vaults, you know, with boiling acid,
(27:36):
you know, being put in itlike two face again, little little Campier
to Tommy Lee Jones was a greattwo face by the way. So it
doesn't have to be anything that much. It can just be the simple choices
of how we interact with people,demonstrating the proper level of civility. And
you find that where you know,Batman, regardless of who he's dealing with,
(27:59):
whether it's Joker or again the commonStreet from it's kind of interacting them
with them the same way. Hedoesn't allow himself to, you necessarily become
embroiled in the situation. It's justa part of it. And most of
the time he's thinking about how theheck do we get out of this one
Jack Nicholson, I mean not tomake light of it, but when they
actually injure Batman, they say,oh, he bleeds, which I remember
(28:23):
as a kid it was like solike profound. I was like, wow,
Batman isn't like Superman. He doesn'thave these special powers that he can
go heal overnight like Batman gets beatup, he hurts like the rest of
us. Like, that's a waydifferent stack of cards you're playing with or
handle cards, I should say,when you know you're about to go do
something and put physical or yourself now, I guess it'll still be mental that
(28:45):
you have to consider. And that'swhat you know. Batman's a guy that
charges into a burning building to saveas many people as he can. And
I think we all inside want alittle bit of that, and I think
as Freemasons to try to get backand make that connection is like, that's
what that calling is, that thingthat's in our heart that somehow connects with
a thought that's in our head,that that drives us to go to a
(29:07):
Masonic lodge to try to seek theanswers as to what all of this means.
In a way, we are goingthrough those same steps that a young
Bruce Wayne did trying to figure outhow he's going to make a difference or
what his place is in this world. Yeah, And one of the important
things with that, particularly for Freemasonryas well, is the role of a
(29:29):
mentor. Right. I mean,Bruce was not left to figure this out
for himself. He had Okay,Alfred right, and but you have even
even like you have different Batman's anddifferent Jokers, you've got different Alfred's too.
You know, Alan Napier's basically straightman to Adam West, you know,
you know, he's just very goodmister Wayne, you know, and
(29:52):
would go off and do Batman's bidding. Michael goes you know, super tech
butler. You know basically, wellyou he's a butler, but he also
was incredibly talented with inventing and creatingall those wonderful toys that you know,
Joker refers to. But I thinkI think the best one when it comes
to this mentoring, you know,almost surrogate parent Alfred that was played by
(30:15):
Michael Caine. You know, BruceWayne really was his son, and he
did not have any compulsion of crossingthat line between butler and mentor and giving
him a good verbal lashing, youknow when he needed it to have,
you know, a mentor to helpyou through those things. It was incredibly
(30:37):
important and as so as we're onthis Masonic journey, you know, from
youth to manhood to old age,it's important in every step of that journey
that we have those good, solidmentors as well, not just straight man,
you know, the the offered who'sjust gonna be good for bouncing jokes
off of and everything else. Butsomebody you know who really is is that
(31:00):
friend and brother who's going to whispergood counsel when necessary and help keep us
thinking of the boy Scouts morally straightand mentally awake. But this has been
the Craftsman Online podcast again. Oneof my favorite guests are coming on as
we get into comics and the craftworship for Brother west Latchford. Again,
(31:21):
my pleasure to be here. Ifyou've enjoyed our podcasts and you want to
hear more, you can tell Sirior Alexa to play the Craftsman Online podcasts.
We're available on all streaming platforms,with new episodes every Monday morning until
next time. Let peace and harmonyprevail.
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