*Guest Post* Is there a need to discuss “Mental Health in Comics?”

Guest Post: Mental Health in Comics written by Claire Lowman

Mental Health in Comics

Generally speaking, comics have a very good record when it comes to promoting equality and supporting minority groups. For one thing, there are plenty of strong female characters, though their costumes can sometimes be a bit questionable. Marvel hit headlines a few years ago by introducing a Hispanic Spider-man, which mostly reached the news because it was somehow controversial. Over with DC, the current Batwoman is a lesbian, the original Green Lantern has been revealed as gay, and Barbara Gordon’s roommate is transgender. But when it comes to mental health, the sad truth is that often comics haven’t done quite such a good job of promoting equality. Mental health problems are often portrayed as the makings of a villain, and words such as “psychotic” are freely used even when they aren’t, medically speaking, an accurate description of the character’s behaviour. Most famously, the mental hospital in DC’s Arkham City, Arkham Asylum, often seems entirely populated by villains and has been portrayed as almost a specialist form of jail.

Mental Health in Comics

There are very few mental health issues in comics that are named and specifically recognizable. The Joker is often described as psychotic, but psychotic disorders include many symptoms such as hallucinations that just don’t fit. There are even fewer heroes who exhibit any symptoms of mental health issues. One study at Psychology Online has suggested a very notable exception. This paper contends that Batman exhibits symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and they are far from the only ones to make such a suggestion. It does seem a fairly natural fit, as he continues to be driven by the terrible experience of witnessing his parents’ murder when he was a child. It could be argued that PTSD is the Joker’s true diagnosis too. The seminal 1980s storyline “The Killing Joke” suggested he was once a very different person who only took a few tentative steps into the criminal world out of desperation. But like Batman, his life was completely changed by “one bad day” which turned him into the character we know. However, this is almost certainly unintentional, and Batman has never been recognized as having PTSD in the comic. Language relating to mental health issues seems to be used exclusively in relation to villains. Sadly, this seems to suggest, whether intentionally or otherwise, that villains are insane and heroes have perfect mental health. Sadly, it might also help perpetuate a false but well-established notion that mental illnesses tend to make people dangerous.

Calls for Change

When DC came out with its New 52 line, the New York Times called upon them to seize this chance to make changes. As well as the above-mentioned Arkham Asylum where “inmates” wear prison clothes, they quoted a particularly lamentable example from a then-recent promotional piece. Unfortunately Batman seems to be a repeat offender, as the piece was advertising a storyline for the Dark Knight set in Paris. The promotional material read “Someone has freed the lunatics, and unless they can be stopped, they’ll turn Paris into a surreal Hell on Earth!” Apart from the dated and questionable term “lunatics,” the implication is that all psychiatric patients are dangerous and prepared to turn a city into “hell.”

Did this call for change get a response? Not as such, but it’s not all bad either. On the one hand, there are no signs of mental health being directly addressed or overtly applied to anybody but villains. On the other hand, there has yet to be a faux pas on the scale of the Paris Storyline. Spin-off media have also done fairly well. Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Batman Begins featured Arkham Asylum, but in this version the only villain found there was on the staff, in the form of The Scarecrow. In a way, it is a shame that when racial minorities and LGBT groups are being so well represented in comics, mental health is making such limited progress. It seems especially unfortunate when comics have such a questionable history in this area even in recent times. But at the same time, it’s undeniably good that things are getting better, and this doesn’t stop us recognizing that comics are still, on the whole, doing a very good job of supporting minorities. Let’s just hope that the upward trend continues and mental health gets some representation before too long.

Guest Post: Mental Health in Comics written by Claire Lowman

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