Batman’s Most Flamboyant Enemy Has A Tragic Connection To His Origins
Batman’s most flamboyant villain takes inspiration from his tragic origins, but what exactly connects the Dark Knight and Flamingo the Face Eater?
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As any Batman fan knows, Bruce Wayne’s evolution into the Dark Knight began when Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered in Crime Alley, spurring their young son into a perpetual war on crime. It’s a tragic origin that many villains have used against the Caped Crusader in one way or another, but perhaps Batman’s most flamboyant villain – Eduardo Flamingo – has a unique connection to the night Batman began.
First appearing in the future timeline of Batman #666, Flamingo is an assassin for the Penitente crime cartel, sent to Gotham City in the wake of Jason Todd’s rampage against crime as Red Hood. Deadly and emotionless, Flamingo’s design was partly influenced by the album cover for Prince’s Purple Rain, and the villain has a fleet of stylized pink vehicles, including multiple motorbikes and even a private jet. But it’s in Flamingo’s other inspiration that his connection to Batman’s origin can be found.
As fans will know, the Wayne family were actually leaving the theater when they cut down Crime Alley, and the film they’d been to see was The Mark of Zorro. Created by Johnston McCulley, Zorro is a black-masked, sword-wielding vigilante who has appeared in movies, comics, and pulp novels. It’s a film with which Bruce has a complex relationship – one which he has screened for his allies, and wanted his son to see, but which is still capable of triggering traumatic memories when it catches him unawares.
It’s this character who acted as the second influence for Eduardo Flamingo, as Grant Morrison recounts in the author notes of 2009’s Batman & Robin.
One of the big influences on Batman – both in the real world where he was created as a character and in the fictional world of young Bruce Wayne – is Zorro, and the idea of going back to that primal root to create an “evil Zorro” as a new enemy for Batman seemed appropriate and overdue.
While Flamingo evokes much of Zorro’s visual design, the pulp hero is also the inspiration for his backstory. Eduardo Flamingo actually began as a heroic vigilante fighting against the Penitente cartel, but once he was captured they tortured and lobotomized him, turning him into the perfect, emotionless assassin. Also known as “the face eater” – a gruesomely literal nickname – Flamingo is a deadly fighter and is only taken down thanks to the combined efforts of Batman, Robin, the Red Hood, and Scarlet, nearly killing Jason Todd in the fight.
While Flamingo has been seen since, he’s been the focus of very few stories, and the character’s connection to Batman’s past is yet to be fully explored – especially because at the time of Flamingo’s initial appearance in Gotham, Dick Grayson was actually the one under Batman’s cowl. In his notes on the cover of Batman & Robin #6, on which Flamingo appears, Morrison says, “This may well be the first pink Batman cover ever, and it is likely to be the last you will ever see.” Future issues proved him wrong, but many fans are still hoping that Flamingo will find another story worthy of the cover – even if Batman would prefer he didn’t.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/batman-zorro-flamingo-origin-explained/