Warning: Spoilers for Detective Comics #1083!

Summary

• Batman redefines his mission as simply the struggle, not the victory.
• Batman's endurance symbolizes the human spirit's resilience.
• Gotham's war on crime only needs individuals willing to fight for it.

In what is arguably the most fitting (and badass) line Batman has ever delivered, Bruce Wayne perfectly recontextualizes his mission for Gotham. Historically, Batman's mission has always been to save Gotham — in that he wants to permanently rid the city of crime. Such a lofty, ambitious goal sounds impossible, and it's easy to doubt that he'd ever succeed.

However, Batman's expectations for saving Gotham get simplified with the perfect line in Detective Comics #1083 by Ram V., Ricardo Federici, and Stefano Raffaele. As the Dark Knight literally faces his demons in the form of the Azmer Demon one last time, he fights back against the monster's transgressions by defiantly spouting a quote that puts his war on crime into a new context: "But the one thing I’ve never needed is to win."

"All I have ever needed ... was the struggle," Batman retaliates through clasped breath with a hand gripped around his throat. "All I have ever needed was to try." Batman doesn't need to save Gotham as much as he needs to try to.

The sweeping "Gotham Nocturne" story begins in Detective Comics #1062 by Ram V. and Rafael Albuquerque.

Batman's Struggle Fuels His Mission

Batman Declares His True Ideals

In many ways, one can argue that struggle is Batman's superpower, if he ever had one. He illustrates this idea the best in his own words, told in Batman #20 by Tom King and David Finch. In one of Batman's most hardcore quotes, he points out that nearly every villain he encounters on a nightly basis suggests that this is going to be the night he dies or the night that he's done for. "And yet ... I'm still here," he says in that issue. Now, that statement is reinforced once again in a completely different story.

All this war on crime needs is at least one person willing to fight for Gotham.

Everything that Batman has endured over the years amounts to the superhuman. This one man has been shot through time and back again, has had his back broken, and has suffered numerous injuries that would have forced a lesser man into retirement. Truthfully, just on of being merely human, Batman should be dead by now for all intents and purposes. Yet, he's still here. It's as if he's fueled by a struggle that forces him into a second wind every time. It motivates him to pursue his mission and fuels his mission more than the mission statement itself.

Batman's Struggle Personifies the Endurance of the Human Spirit

s from Batman #20 by King, Finch, Danny Miki, Trevor Scott, Jordie Bellaire, and Deron Bennett

The war on crime in Gotham doesn't need a decisive winner; perhaps a winner isn't possible in a never-ending war. All this war on crime needs is at least one person willing to fight for Gotham. That itself is a sentiment dating back to his origins in Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. In a city of crooked cops and lousy criminals, Gotham didn't have a champion trying to save it. Batman rising as that champion is enough to give hope to a hopeless city, and maybe even inspire others to fight through the same struggle — because someone has to, even they can't ever win.

Detective Comics #1083 is available now from DC Comics.